Community Organizing 101: How to Start a Social Movement
A practical guide to leading your local initiative, even when you have zero experience
I used to think social movements needed to be big to have an impact.
Today, I don’t think that’s true.
Since starting an Authentic Relating group for my community in Edinburgh, I realized that the size of the group isn’t the most important. As Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Would everyone agree that communication workshops with 20 participants can change the world? Maybe not. But I can see our bi-weekly sessions having a ripple effect. People report having new relational experiences in their daily lives — including more emotional intimacy, setting healthier boundaries, and better conflict resolution.
The consequences of what we’re doing in the group extend far beyond the individuals who participate in them.
Large movements always start small. You cannot have thousands of people advocating for a cause if you first don’t have ten. That’s why I think most of us can start a social movement within their community.
In this article, I want to share with you a blueprint for how to do just that.
Introducing the Concept of a “Local Social Movement”
You don’t need to be an activist or have leadership skills to start a movement. What you need is to change your mindset about what a movement is.
The way I see it, we can’t afford to wait for major leaders to ignite a social revolution. With the complex world we live in, the revolution needs to happen quietly, in a decentralized way, and from the bottom up. Different people are able to see different slivers of reality and, consequently, different social needs. They are the best candidates to address those needs — as they’re closest to the issue.
How would they do it, though? This is where the idea of local social movements comes in.
First, what are social movements? There are tons of academic definitions. However, this simple one from Lumen Learning, a company providing learning resources, will serve us well.
Social movements are “purposeful, organized groups that strive to work toward a common social goal.” Local social movements are those that operate on the level of a town or city, or even within a smaller entity, e.g. a college campus.
There is no minimum number of people that warrants talking about a movement.
What matters is the organized effort toward a common social goal. On a local level, this could mean:
- Advocating for more equal treatment of patients in a local hospital
- Mobilizing artists in a neighborhood to put on an exhibition together
- Writing a petition to the city council to save the local park
- A host of other activities geared toward creating a better society.
The important thing about local social movements is that anyone can start one. You don’t need specific credentials, experience, or education. As long as you genuinely want to benefit your community, it’s unlikely that people will question your efforts.
If you’re passionate about a social cause or change you’d like to see — do everyone a favor and start a movement. Even if it seems small and insignificant, the consequences will ripple out into the world.
What do YOU Want?
Social movement leaders often think they need to serve the community first. This leaves little to no space for connecting to their personal aspirations.
In my experience as a community organizer, one of the most important things has been connecting to my intrinsic motivation for social action. Naming what kind of world I wanted to live in, what fascinated me, and what skills I wanted to be learning gave me the fuel I needed.
And trust me — if you want to be a community organizer and not burn out, you need a lot of good fuel.
I learned this by first picking a cause that didn’t suit me. After Greta Thunberg’s COP24 speech and the rise of climate activism in 2018, I thought this was all that mattered. I joined Earth Strike. Then, I jumped at the first opportunity to organize a climate protest.
After a few months of relentless action, I understood that — as vital as it was — talking about climate wasn’t my cup of tea. I dreaded doing the research. I didn’t have the drive to understand the scientific intricacies. I ended up feeling burnt out and frustrated before the group I was co-leading even gained any real momentum.
Since then, I learned that the first step to starting a movement is sourcing motivation within yourself. Don’t think about the big, lofty goals you think “the world needs.” Start with yourself:
- How would you like to change?
- What would you like to learn?
- What kind of culture do you want to be surrounded by?
I asked myself these questions when starting the Authentic Relating group, two years after my climate activism fell flat. I realized that, after as a solitary writer coming our of the pandemic, I mostly yearned for authentic connection with people. As others around me suffered from loneliness, too, I understood this to be a broader social need.
The idea for the group came from merging my personal motivation with the need I saw in the world. To this day, this combo is what motivates me to keep going — even if the process gets messy.
In the next part of this article, I’ll lay out four steps of my community organizing process which I hope can be a blueprint for your movement. Ready?
Step 1: Anchor Your Intention in a Place and Collaborator
If you’re anything like me, your passion for change may spark a lot of ideas. It can be easy to start with one project and then go off on a tangent before seeing the first goal through.
Sounds familiar?
That’s typical for the Organizer changemaker type. And, quite frankly, it’s also how the human brain is wired. Novelty bias was a helpful adaptation in the times when survival depended on our ability to switch focus quickly to detect potential dangers.
But in the context of community organizing, changing the plan before you give it a real shot isn’t helpful. You need to stay with one idea long enough to allow yourself to really test it. How can you do that?
My answer was anchoring my intention by bounding it to a specific place and a collaborator.
First, I brought the idea for the group to one community center in Edinburgh that I really knew and trusted — The Salisbury Centre. They had a community events program, part of which was providing space free of charge. This is where I decided to start the group. Having the meeting space for free was a massive help in the beginning.
I was also lucky enough to get help from a mentor responsible for community empowerment at The Centre. She met with me a few times before the group started, and then attended the first sessions. Knowing that I was accountable to someone helped me structure and organize those first workshops when I had little idea what I was doing.
I recognize I was very fortunate to get this level of support right from the start. Your situation may be different but, in any case, I suggest you focus on these two things in the first place.
Decide where your meeting spot will be. You need one. Whether that’s your local community center, library, coffee shop, or outdoor location, picking a spot and sticking with it will ground your idea in reality. It’ll be easier for your mind to start envisioning next steps.
Then, find one ally who can support you in the process. Not two, not three — one. I discovered it’s much easier if you have one go-to person to bounce ideas off of at the beginning, as it doesn’t add too much complexity.
You’ll have plenty of more opinions in the mix in due time.
Step 2: Prototype Your Activity or Event
Now that you have your anchor, leverage it. Your first task is to organize one activity, meeting, or event that you can invite people to.
This way, you’ll get a chance to talk about what you want to do long-term.
Just like you found one person to anchor you in your intention, think about one event to organize and invite people to. Venturing too much into the future won’t serve you at this point. Instead, focus your energy to hold as good a meeting as possible. Then, use it as a springboard to generate social momentum.
To my mind, you need four basic components to make that happen.
Create an event description
This will help you think about how exactly you want to use your first meetinsg, and communicate it to others. The easiest way to think about it is that you’ll need some text and some visuals. Ideally, the text isn’t too long and straight to the point. Make sure it contains the basics — what, who, when, where, why. The rest is optional.
You’ll also need one or two appealing photos or illustrations that you can reproduce across social media, emails, websites, and posters.
Decide on your communication channels
Who are you going to reach out to, and how? Who can help you get the word out? Do you know of any community spaces, newsletters, local coffee shops, or socially active friends who could pass on the information?
Make a list of people and organizations you can contact, then send them information and visuals you produced in Step 1. Other than that, just mention what you’re doing as much as possible in everyday interactions. The power of word of mouth is huge.
Run your event
This is usually the most exciting, as well as the most scary part. Running the first session or meeting for your movement is a big thing. This is when you’re taking the first action in the real world, verbalizing your cause to others, and inviting them to join.
There are many things you can do to prepare for it. For me, what was useful for the first Authentic Relating was a really detailed plan of what I was going to do and say. I also asked a friend to help with practicalities, arranging the space, etc. This allowed me to feel a bit more prepared for different scenarios.
With that, keep in mind that you can’t prepare for everything that might happen, questions people might ask, etc. Give yourself permission to not be perfect. People usually appreciate the leader being humble and admitting they don’t have all the answers, as it helps them see how they can contribute.
Ask for feedback and contact details
After you’ve run your prototype event, you want to learn from it. That’s why I strongly advise to allocate some time for feedback at the end of the meeting. Ask your questions before people go home — later on, it will be much harder to get responses.
Think in advance of what questions you want answers to. Is it about people’s views on the cause? The format of the meeting itself? The plan of action you proposed? Different questions will make sense in different contexts, so think about yours.
Think about the way in which you want to get feedback. For example, depending on the number of participants, it may be more practical to gather written or spoken feedback.
Finally, don’t forget to ask people for contact details. Then, treat those contacts as invaluable. Congratulations — now you have a bunch of email addresses or phone numbers from people who are actually care about your cause!
If all these steps seem a bit daunting — this is where your ally comes in handy.
Think of ways in which they could support you in holding your first event — and, ask for help. Your ally can be the difference between making this happen or abandoning your idea.
Step 3: Establish Regularity and Predictability
After you’ve had your test run and gathered a handful of contacts, you’re on the other side. You’ve made it happen. There’s probably still a lot of unknown around how to proceed, what to improve, how to get your message across, etc.
But if you’ve held an event or meeting once, nothing should stop you from doing it again. And again. And again.
This is the stage in which you’ll need to establish regularity and predictability for your group. People need to learn that this wasn’t a one-off meeting, but a start of a long-term project. It’s helpful to commit to a set number of meetings over a specific period.
When deciding that, be realistic about what level of commitment you’re able to sustain.
When deciding about the frequency of my Authentic Relating group, at first I was tempted to run it weekly. In hindsight, I’m really grateful that I had enough humility to start small. I decided to do it bi-weekly instead, and it still felt like quite a bit of work.
Especially at first, holding space within which social change can happen can be tiring. There are so many things to take care of. Planning the meetings. Thinking about long-term goals. Communicating with other members. Dealing with your own feelings that arise due to your stepping into this new role.
That’s why it’s so important to consider your capacity before making a commitment to your group. Remember that there is no “right” frequency with which to meet. Make it work for you — otherwise, nothing will work.
With time, you’ll be able to increase frequency and scope of your actions as others get more involved into organizing. Until then, use your resources wisely to:
- Decide on a regular time and place where you’ll meet.
- Make sure the information is out there. First, keep using the channels you used to get the word out about the prototype event. Then, explore new ones if you have time.
- Keep gathering contact information of the people who show up. Ideally, message them in between in-person meetings to establish stronger relationships.
- Think of what kind of activities you’d like to do with your group. Is it about discussion? Doing a rally together? Putting on an event? Running a support group? Envision possible ways in which your movement can make a difference.
At this stage, a question may also arise about how to make decisions and put some simple governance in place. This is a topic for a whole different article (or book). I can, however, recommend two approaches to look into, which will allow you to put the basics in place: Microsolidarity and Sociocracy.
Because of the nature of our Authentic Relating group, we don’t have that much formal governance in place. At this stage, whoever feels called to facilitating a session can do so. This also means they get to decide what activities they’d run.
I found that, naturally, people who don’t have a clue about facilitating don’t volunteer for doing that.
We also have our agreements that are the foundational piece of our group’s culture. They are the norms we read out loud at the beginning of each session to remind ourselves what way of being we want to enact. If somebody breaches an agreements, there is a basis on which the rest of the group can call them out and request change.
We also have an arrangement that people need to book a spot via email before coming to the group. This ensures the facilitators know how many people show up, and we avoid overcrowding the space.
Step 4: Involve Others by Inviting Shared Ownership
A movement, no matter how small, is hard to sustain if only one or two people are doing all the work.
At first, it’s natural. If you start a social movement, people will expect you to lead. They’ll rely on you to make decisions, plan meetings, take care of the communication, and do admin tasks.
If you want to keep it going for longer, though, you’ll want to invite more people to do the organizing work. As you establish regularity and get to know group members, you’ll get a feel for who may have the capacity to get involved. At the same time, you’ll start understanding what talents and skills different people bring.
That’s the time to start distributing tasks and encouraging a sense of shared ownership. Make it clear to others that you don’t want to and can’t take care of everything. People should understand that the more they get involved, the more impactful the movement will be.
Some people will pick up the invitation more promptly than others. For those who seem like they could help but aren’t sure how, here’s what you can try.
- Come up with a list of tasks that need done on a regular basis. These are the tasks that contribute to your movement running smoothly. In the case of the Authentic Relating group, these are three main things: (1) facilitating the sessions, (2) taking bookings and replying to emails, and (3) sending a bi-weekly newsletter. I created a simple spreadsheet listing all these tasks for 3 months-worth of meetings. Then, I invited people to sign themselves up for the tasks they wanted to do on particular dates.
- Offer people individual attention. Not everyone is going to declare their participation on the forum of the whole group. Some people need to talk through with you how they could get involved and need some encouragement. For example, I understood at some point that a lot of people in our group were interested in facilitating. Some just needed a one-on-one meeting to talk things through and brainstorm their first workshop together.
- Recognize achievements and talents. Nothing pumps people up more than being recognized for what they do well. Whenever you notice someone’s contribution, interesting perspective, an act of kindness, or any other expression of their positive qualities — offer praise for it. If it’s genuine, it’ll leave them feeling seen and appreciated.
Ultimately, you can’t make anyone do anything for the movement if they don’t want to. Be humble. Keep offering your skills, talents, and work — without overextending yourself. You’ll get to a point when people will want to make sure that what you built lasts.
That’s when they’ll step in to help.
Now Go, Get Started, and Let Things Happen
Two years ago, I had no idea how the Authentic Relating group would unfold. During the “prototyping” session, I thought that might have been it.
“Maybe I’ll just give it a shot, find out people don’t like it, and then go home,” I remember thinking to myself.
Even after we started meeting regularly, I had doubts. I was so nervous before running each session that I seriously thought about quitting just to spare myself the stress. But when I told this to my therapist, he said that often, we’re most afraid to do the things that are the most important to us.
So, I decided to keep going a little longer. I made a deal with myself that if things don’t start feeling easier before Christmas, I’ll quit.
It was precisely then that… it started feeling easier. I took some pressure away by letting go of specific outcomes and the need to be a “perfect community leader.” I decided to just see what happens. And, indeed, things started happening.
I grew my confidence. The longer I ran the group, the easier it felt. Others stepped in to help and I got support from people I hadn’t even known a few months earlier.
My takeaway? You can’t control or predict where your movement will go. The best you can do is to give it an honest shot and see what happens. That’s what I encourage you to do.
We need more community leaders. We need people who will put themselves out there. So go, get started, and let things happen.
If you want to brainstorm ideas or ask for support, email me at marta@civlead.org. I will reply to every email.
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