Organizing Training and Resources Bank

10 steps for setting up a blockade: an intro

This guide includes principles of anti-racist movement security, defending, building and supporting movements. This is a living document written primarily for white activists and majority-white organizations to speak to the ways that white supremacy in movements interacts with white supremacy of the state.

Each guide is just four pages of clear, focused and accessible help to anyone wanting to make our shared world a better place. They are based on my 30 years of working in advocacy and campaigning, using tried and tested models and tools. They can be download for free under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence (that means that you can use, share and reproduce them for non-profit use, providing that Ian Chandler is acknowledged as the author).

Black Cross Health Collective is an affinity group of health care workers who live in Portland, Oregon. We formed after the WTO protests because we saw a need for medical care that is specific to the radical community. We think our needs as radicals are different, and that groups like the Red Cross don’t give us the skills we need to keep ourselves and each other safe in the streets. So we called upon our own medical experience (as nurse practitioners, nurses, EMT’s, clinical herbalists, and more), as well as our experience in demos and direct actions, and formed Black Cross.

This guide aims to be a concise overview on information security for anyone in emancipatory struggles against structures of power. It represents assembled knowledge and best practices from personal experience, conversations with hackers and fellow activists, hacker conferences, and university courses on computer security and cryptography. Nonetheless, the best security is sharing skills with trusted people.

This zine is a compilation of four “how to” guides by ACTIVATE (Grand Rapids SDS). They cover banner drops, stencils, wheatpasting, and distributing information. The original layouts have been lost; the text was obtained from ACTIVATEGR.ORG 

A collection of tactical knowledge for students and others. 

This zine compiles two texts by CrimethInc. that provide an excellent introduction on how to participate in and organize black blocs. The first is “Blocs, Black and Otherwise”

This zine looks at the Seattle Solidarity Network—an organization that uses direct action to fight for the specific demands of tenants and workers. It’s an interesting approach to anarchist “community organizing” and this zine offers a good overview of how to start such an organization while also delving into some of the strategic rationale that underlies their work. The zine covers everything including how to get started, what tactics seem to work well, how to run meetings, etc.

The aim of this guide is to give you actionable steps to activate your network. Here, we take you through key learnings from campaigners around the world:  1- Who are your supporters? 2- Connecting with your supporters 3- What motivates them?  4- Interest mapping 5- Making it fun, and more! 

Tools & tactics to engagement community members in community bodies such as coalitions & youth leaderhsip teams.

A guide on Campaign Strategy terms and frameworks, with a focus on fossil fuel divestment. This resources covers definition of a campaign, spectrum of support, act-absorb-train, power mapping, and SMART goals.

Template and Workbook to aid in facilitation of a campaign strategy

This free tool kit supports shared learning for both members of a mentorship pair. It provides a progression of activities that pairs can use to self-facilitate meaningful conversation related to personal and professional growth. 

Guide to starting Community Defense Zone campaigns includes tools, examples and templates. The guide is geared towards creating community-based sanctuary, countering criminalization, and changing policies at local and state levels.

An overview of an interview project. It focuses on participatory research; research done for and by individuals in the community. Interviews by community members allow us to document what is going on in our community, learn more about ourselves and give voice to individuals who are often denied presence and visibility in our society.

Consensus is a process for group decision-making. It is a democratic method by which an entire group of people can come to an agreement. The input and ideas of all participants are gathered and synthesized to arrive at a final decision acceptable to all. Through consensus, we are not only working to achieve better solutions, but also to promote the growth of community and trust.

Copwatch groups seek to end police repression through directly monitoring police while they are engaging the public through questioning, detainment, or arrest. Copwatch volunteers spend time walking the streets, observing police and witnessing/recording police interactions with citizens on camera, videotape, audiotape, and/or paper. They often concentrate in areas where known “trouble-making cops” are assigned or areas of high police activity. Copwatch groups also advise people of their rights and listen to their stories.

This Toolkit promotes an approach called community-based interventions to violence or what some call community accountability or transformative justice as a way to break isolation and to create solutions to violence from those who are most affected by violence – survivors and victims of violence, friends, family and community. It asks us to look to those around us to gather together to create grounded, thoughtful community responses.

It builds on our connections and caring rather than looking at solutions that rely only on separation and disconnections from our communities. It invites us to involve even those who harm us as potential allies in stopping that harm and as active partners in deeply changing attitudes and behaviors towards a solution to violence. It expands the idea of violence and it's solutions from that between individuals to one that includes communities – both close and intimate communities and the broader communities of which we are a part.

This document holds a list of questions to ask at the top of a meeting to help break the ice and open up opportunities for community building. 

Make the Road New York created this website and bilingual (English and Spanish) guide to help support immigrant communities targeted by the Trump administration. Note: The guide is written for New York City so some information may not apply elsewhere. Make the Road offers detailed trainings on the content in this manual.

This zine explores various issues related to computer security including basic principles for staying safe, a look at anonymity, picking passwords, the dangers of Google, etc. It’s a good mix of “how to” type information and narratives that tell important stories about why digital security is important. It is published by the Riseup.net collective who provides Internet services for various anarchist and anti-authoritarian projects.

A basic introduction to participating in a large-scale direct action protest (although the tips would likely be helpful for smaller scale actions too). Covers affinity groups, staying safe on the streets (crowd dynamics, police, using the buddy system, etc.), basic medical information, chemical weapons (their use/effects and how to mitigate those effects), and jail and court solidarity. If you are going to read just one zine on direct action, this is arguably one of the most important.

Guide to mitigate racial, gender, and other hidden biases in recruiting and hiring processes within your institution/group. Touches on job posting, resume screening process, and conducting interviews.

This resource provides best practices for recruiting for and running successful events as well as tabling sessions.

This resource provides some best practices for campaign fundraising on campus.

This resource helps you think through who has power on your campus and who the primary and secondary targets of your campaign are.

This is an extensive guide for divestment campaigns working to file a legal complaint with their state's attorney general. The guide includes the purpose and process of filing a complaint as well as a template, helpful contacts, and other resources.

This zine provides a basic outline of how to organize a “protest march.” This is defined as your basic, run-of-the-mill march. Whether or not we like them, anarchists seem to frequently get into positions where they feel compelled to organize such marches. This guide will help you do that with ease–or help make a case against doing it.

A short guide on best practices and tips for tabling and how to develop a tabling rap, particularly on college campuses.

Intended for community organizers to apply tools and concepts of Research Justice to organizing. This toolkit encourages marginalized communities to recognize their own expertise and to develop their own analysis of the issues that impact them. We hope readers use this toolkit to spark their own conversations about community-driven research strategies. In each section we have included sample workshops from our Research Justice Training Program as suggested guides for these discussions.

Bilingual (English and Spanish) Know Your Rights information and materials for police & ICE encounters.

Good community organizing involves leadership development. This resource discusses valuable leadership styles and skills necessary for a successful campaign.

A resource on leadership development, covering principles, guidelines, and tools/tips of leadership development. This resource covers ladder of engagement, how it relates to the Act-Absorb-Train Cycle, one-to-ones and propositions, and mentorship.

Accessibility checklist with feedback from disability rights advocates

"Part education, part activation, the Me And White Supremacy Workbook is a first-of-its-kind personal anti-racism tool for people holding white privilege to begin to examine and dismantle their complicity in the oppressive system of white supremacy."

What do you say when people say -- at a meeting, an event, tabling, etc -- "What are you doing?" What is the story out there in the world about your organization & your campaign? Use this guide to craft thoughtful, powerful messages about your efforts and maximize your media presence!

A guideline on "The Meeting Arc", a framework for effective meeting facilitation.

This resource provides tips on how to facilitate successful and meaningful group and one-to-one meetings.

A 2-page handout on what one-to-one meetings are and how to conduct them. Made by Alyssa Lee at Better Future Project.

A toolkit that assists native and tribal communities in using storytelling and mapping for cultural preservation. Many native and tribal communities across the US constantly struggle to protect their land, cultural resources, and sacred sites against development and resource ex­traction. Our Voices, Our Land features guides on how to gather stories and combine them with digitally mapped locations of community assets. It details research planning processes, how to conduct interviews, and how to create maps using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS).

A short resource on how to plan a campus rally, including roles that need to be covered and a few guidelines on speaker line-up. 

Compilation of best-practices from campuses around the country who are refusing single-use disposable plastics, including: how to assess where plastic is coming from on your campus, stakeholders to engage with to make change, tangible alternatives to single-use disposable plastics, and actionable next steps.

A participatory research toolkit on how to do community surveys to support social justice campaigns. It includes information on all stages of the survey process—from deciding to do a survey to analyzing the information you gather.

Radical Defense covers defensive street tactics for those who will be engaging in mass street actions. It covers evacuating wounded people, breaking police holds, unarresting, breaking police lines, and defensive equipment. The zine accompanied a workshop that was given during the anti-globalization era, but much of the information is still relevant.

A short resource on ideas for campus recruitment.

Attached you will find tips & resources for managing a project remotely, as well as a recording of the meeting that discusses these tips. 

This resource shares some best practices for meeting and speaking with potential campaign allies.

The toolkit is geared for white folks to learn a more truthful history of Thanksgiving, and to connect to and support Indigenous organizing today.

Step by step logistics to setting up a Reusable To-Go Container Program on campus. Determine important stakeholders, projected budget, cost savings arguments, how to distribute and collect containers, and engaging general student body. 

Running a successful campaign means building a coalition. This resource helps you think through potential allies in your campus community.

Activities that facilitate relationship building through storytelling, recognizing commonalities and differences among participants., placing them in the context of historical systemic oppression and resistance.

"This manual is designed to aid your work as an organizer: building campaigns that enlist grassroots power to achieve outcomes that improve the world. Our objective is to lay out key ideas and practices that, in our experience, result in campaigns that succeed. This includes fundamentals of building relationships, analyzing power, and writing campaign plans. We also dig into some detail on topics such as how to enter a community, enlisting volunteers and cultivating their leadership skills, connecting your campaign to a larger movement, and how to learn from success and failure to improve your skills and campaigns. "

Check out this resource to help you understand who the allies and opponents of your campaign are and strategies for engaging with each group of people.

Story-based strategy tools allow change makers working alone or facilitating large groups to develop effective strategies to create a world where the goals and futures we imagine are possible or inevitable. The tools are facilitated, participatory activities that help amplify frontline community expertise on critical issues. 

Effective storytelling is a key skill for successful leadership. This resource walks you through structuring and developing your story.

This resources provides some best practices for getting a Commitment campaign started on your campus.

Guide to communicating with decision makers, building coalitions, project management and smart goal development to be able to make a difference in your own community.

A list of ideas of projects that college campaigns can do during summer and other extended breaks.

Tech Tools for Activism is another great zine that provides an introduction to computer security for activists. Undertaken as a collaboration between radical technology groups and collectives, this zine offers concrete alternatives for corporate and “unsecure” computer technologies including options for email, hosting websites, browsing the Internet, using mobile phones, and free software. This is a good introduction with practical examples on how and what to do to be more safer and more secure in your use of computers. This is “version 2.0” of the guide.

A how-to guide for grassroots organizations conducting community-driven campaign research. It’s the product of over ten years of experience working with grassroots organizations to develop strategic and effective campaigns for change. The toolkit contains user-friendly activities, worksheets, and case-study discussions that demystify the process of campaign research for organizations and their membership.

This resource summarizes the cycle of steps necessary to organize a campus campaign.