for social/climate-justice activism TL/DR — I was once a dedicated activist in my youth. Later in life, for a few years, I became a full-time corporate consultant and worked alongside a lot of people and companies that were defending nasty unsustainable projects. Along the way, I learnt a lot about…

The “crisis within a crisis” moment we are living through right now, rising up against white supremacy and anti-black racism in the midst of a global pandemic, is a testament to how complex and downright systemic the problems we face have become. More than ever, progressive organizers see the wisdom…

As people-powered campaigning is clearly a practice on the rise, largely inspired by the dramatic rise of progressive grassroots movements, we often hear NGOs asking for more clarity on what kind of model would work best for them. Though self-arising, often youth-led movements around climate and social justice are certainly…

With a close eye on the world’s mounting (and interconnected) wicked problems, as well as our closing window of opportunity to act decisively on them, it’s clear to me that emerging people-powered movements — like the student-led climate strikes — are the only forces out there moving with the proper…

Back in April of 2018, with the help of an initial crew of volunteer bottom-liners — mostly seasoned campaigners themselves — we launched www.blueprintsfc.org, an “open library of advocacy how-to’s put together by campaign innovators in order to help progressive organizers and groups up their game more quickly.” I think…

For the last 2 years, as I did trainings on advocacy campaign innovation across the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, I kept hearing the same questions pop up on emerging strategies and tactics. “How can we set up distributed organizing…. or P2P texting…. or A/B testing…. in our org?”…

I was recently invited to speak at the Frank Gathering on public interest communications put together by folks at the U of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. Aside from the chance to share the stage with some great speakers like Upworthy founder Eli Pariser, my talk on “Campaign Innovation…

Though it’s just been a year, it seems so long ago now that we woke up to a political reality few progressives could believe or digest at first. As the country’s axis tilted for activists and organizers, from pushing for more change to fighting to preserve what we’ve won at…

Originally published at mobilisationlab.org on October 27, 2017. There is a lot of talk these days about the relative merits of organizing and mobilizing in campaign strategy circles. …