How to Wage Peace & Justice - Tools for Activists
How to Wage Peace & Justice - Tools for Activists:
Peacework Magazine's Annotated Guide to Organizing Resources
First compiled especially to accompany the How to Wage Peace and Justice Peacework Issue, March, 2008.
Sections in this How-to-Organize Resource Include:
- How to Engage in Nonviolent Direct Action
- How to Organize Strategically - Strategic Organizing
- How to Organize - Using Nonviolent Tactics
- How to Develop Nonprofit Organizations and Utilize Social Movement Theory
- How to Transfrom Conflict - Conflict Transformation Skills
- How to Organize Against Oppression - Countering Racism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism, Classism, Religious Bigotry, etc.
- How Youth Can Organize - for Youth, Teachers, and other Youth-Allies
- How to Counter Military Recruitment - Counter-Recruitment Organizing
- How to Create Alternative Economic Systems - Visions of a Better World in the Making
- How to Use Technologies for Social Change - Software for Activism
- Books - How to Organize, Tools for Activists
Share an Organizing Tip! Did you ever receive a pearl of social change wisdom? Please pass it on to others. What idea, tactic, approach, strategy, mind-set, or tool do you wish you began to grasp earlier?
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How to Engage in Nonviolent Direct Action - Skills and Nonviolent Direct Action Training Resources
International Handbook for Nonviolent Action - A printed resource and now a wiki from War Resisters International. Sections on the history and benefits of training and preparation, gender and nonviolence, developing nonviolent campaigns (including constructive program), actions across borders, testimonies from nonviolent campaigns, and utilizing media. See also this historic version from 1970. For a transnational dialogue about strategic and tactical considerations about increasing the effectiveness of nonviolent direct action training, please see the dialogue on Training for Nonviolent Action at the fascinating New Tactics for Human Rights site.
CANVAS - The Center for Nonviolent Action and Strategies is an outgrowth of OTPOR, the Serbian student movement that used nonviolent means to overthrow the dictatorship of Slobadan Milosevic. They offer three main sections of tools: unconventional nonviolent tactics (primarily virtual and online tools), and strategic resources (see below for more on strategy).
Handbook for Nonviolent Action - Written for a US audience by the War Resisters League and Donnelly/Colt Progressive Resources), edited and designed by Kate Donnelly. Modified slightly and hosted by ACT-UP New York, with supplemental materials on peacekeeping training and decision-making about disclosing your status when arrested. Also available at the SOAW site.
Nonviolent Action Handbook - Intended as a generic nonviolent action handbook and developed from the handbooks developed for large scale nonviolent direct actions, with expanded sections on different types of creative nonviolent actions and on the legal process, solidarity, and legal defenses. By Sanderson Beck.
Papers on Nonviolent Action and Cooperative Decision-Making - Including handouts to help understand nonviolent action, prepare for nonviolent actions, strategize, use cooperative decision-making techniques, quotations to ponder, and improving interpersonal communication. From Randy Schutt's Vernal Project.
New England Nonviolence Trainers Network - Sample agendas, games and exercises, quotations, forming affinity groups (groups of 5-15 people who support each other during and after a nonviolent direct action), countering oppression, consensus decision making, sample nonviolence guidelines, and more. See also the detailed agenda for facilitating a nonviolent direct action training from the Declaration of Peace.
Know Your Rights Trainer's Materials - From the Midnight Special Law Collective, which includes outlines for trainings dealing with police harassment, legal observer training, nonviolent street tactics, Grand Juries, training for jail solidarity, and includes some training for trainers outlines as well.
Large Scale Action Planning - Resources from the Root Activist Network of Trainers (RANT) Collective, some of the key organizers of large scale protests against corporate globalization, including Starhawk. Sections include: Action Planning, Affinity Groups and Spokes-Councils (a method whereby spokespeople from affinity groups meet, come to consensus, and bring proposals back to affinity groups - a way of scaling up decentralized consensus decision-making during large actions); Anti-Oppression Exercises for Nonviolence Trainers; Consensus tips; direct action tips including what to bring to actions; Legal/Jail section including jail solidarity and a legal observer training agenda; Media Skills for Direct Action; and some Spanish materials. Starhawk has also made more of her agendas for nonviolent direct action and magical activism available. See also Peacework's review of Starhawk's novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and her articles on Creating Permacultural Change and Reclaiming Nonviolence from Gandhian Puritanism. See also Starhawk's writings on activism and social change.
Creative Direct Action Visuals Manual, Balloon Banner Manual, Bird-Dogging Guide, Climber's Knots Manual, Media Manual, and Action Planning Manual - from the creative nonviolent direct action trainers at the Ruckus Society, especially for small-scale GreenPeace-style actions.
Nonviolence Training Project Training Resources - An Australian group of nonviolent direct action trainers put together this large collection of online resources, including sample exercises to discuss nonviolence, power, history, case studies, and strategy, and a freely downloadable few-hundred page Trainers' Resource Manual.
Training for Change Perspectives - Materials on creating revolutionary change through nonviolence, including many valuable essays by George Lakey responding to and dispelling misconceptions about nonviolent social change. See also "Is Nonviolence the Only Way?" by George Lakey, a review of How Nonviolence Protects the State in the September 2007 issue of Peacework.
Exercising Your Rights of Political Protest - training materials for those considering risking arrest. Two versions, one for Philadelphia and Washington DC, another for Massachusetts, but relevant beyond those regions. From the National Lawyers Guild. See also the Demonstrator's Manual written for New York, hosted on the ACT-UP NY site. See also the Free Speech materials listed below under How to Organize.
Jail Solidarity - guides to legal solidarity and court solidarity, in jail, dealing with police, media, plea bargains, lawyers, etc., from the Midnight Special Law Collective. Peacework published an abbreviated version of one of these guides, lawyer Katya Komisaruk's "How to Use Jail/Court Solidarity," in our March 2005 issue.
Using the Necessity Defense - Law Professor France A. Boyle's 2007 book, Law and Resistance: The Republic in Crisis and the People's Response, focuses on the use of the Necessity Defense to defend a protester against charges as a result of civil disobedience actions (also called civil resistance or nonviolent direct action) protesting the US war in Iraq. The National Lawyer's Guild wrote a model legal brief outlining the use of the necessity defense before the US invaded (also available in PDF form). The materials developed for the case of the Collateral Damage civil resistance action provide a specific example. See also law professor William P. Quigley's 2003 New England School of Law Review article, "The Necessity Defense in Civil Disobedience Cases: Bring in the Jury" and his legal briefs and Case Documents for School of Americas Civil Disobedience Defense. Peacework articles on the use of the necessity defense include: "'I Want to Express My Remorse' For Participating in War, Not Resisting It," "Maine Judge Praises Civil Disobedience," "Jury Acquits DU Weapons Inspectors," "Crying out Against the Despair of Militarism: On "Crossing the Line" at the School of the Americas," "Four Anti-War Activists Stand Trial," "Judge Delivers Mixed Ruling in US v Philadelphia Yearly Meeting" (a war tax resistance case), and "What Do You Do When a Child is Burning?: A Review of the film The Camden 28."
Legal Observer Manual - for lawyers observing demonstrations or civil disobedience actions to help safeguard free speech rights, from the Mass Demonstration Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, and the Legal Observer and Video Observer Materials, from the Midnight Special Law Collective, which also describes how to set up a large-scale action legal team. Basic Street-Medic Training Information - freely downloadable resource including what to pack in a small or large first-aid bag, Activists Guide to Basic First Aid, Spanish Phrase Book for first-aid, and A Street Medic's Guide to Cold Weather Demos. From the Boston Area Liberation Medic (BALM) Squad.
See also stories from Peacework, 2007-present, on nonviolent direct action.
How to Organize Strategically - Strategic Organizing
Albert Einstein Institution offfers Gene Sharp's famous 198 methods of nonviolent action, Gene Sharp's From Dictatorship to Democracy on the theory and practice of nonviolent revolutions against repressive regimes, now freely available for download in 22 languages, and Robert Helvey's freely downloadable book, On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals. See also Gene Sharp on video giving a talk, Principled Nonviolence: Options for Action. For related materials, see also the bibliographic list of resources available through the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, including the book, series of films, and computer simulation game A Force More Powerful.
SmartMeme Strategic Resources - Designing actions to change the story. See also the Peacework article by SmartMeme co-founder, Patrick Reinsborough, "San Francisco Mobilizes to Implode Empire."
Spitfire Strategies Communications and Strategy Tools - Includes freely downloadable tools: the SmartChart planning tool to focus communication approaches on strategic objectives, Discovering the Activation Point (free but requires registration) focuses on how to convince people to take action on an issue.
Advocacy Materials from the Democracy Owner's Manual - including: Developing Advocacy Strategy, Policy Analysis, Maintaining Advocacy Coalitions, Media Advocacy, Lobbying, Initiative Campaigns, and Internet Advocacy. See also the Peacework article, "Bechtel vs. Bolivia: the People Win!" by Jim Schultz, the Executive Director of the Democracy Center, the publisher of these materials.
Building Capacity for Social Change - A model stressing designing an organizing initiative, engaging in community planning, strengthening indigenous institutions, and transforming communities through community development. Freely downloadable from the National Community Development Institute, which works to build capacity in communities of color and other low-income communities through grassroots action.
Community Problem-Solving - Strategy for a Changing World. Includes tools for: Agenda Setting, Planning Together, Implementing Together, Learning Together, and Negotiating. By Xavier do Souza Briggs at the Community Proble-Solving Project at MIT. See also the links to promising development initiatives in a variety of areas, from public health to crime prevention.
Movement Strategy Center - Articles about organizational development for movement building with a strong focus on youth organizing.
Strategies and Tactics of Nonviolent Social Change - Syllabus from David Cortright with an emphasis on learning from the strategies of Gandhi and King. See also Cortright's article in Peacework's special issue on 100 Years of Gandhian Nonviolent Action, "An Odysey with Gandhi."
See also Peacework articles which focus on nonviolent strategy.
How to Organize - Using Nonviolent Tactics
Activism Training Materials & Resources - A large list of links with some overlap to the tools in this list, from ActionPA.org, a Pennsylvania-based environmental justice organization. Sections include: General Activism, Campus Activism; Strategy Development; Holding the Government Accountable; Organizational Development; Freedom of Speech; Media, Communications, and Lobbying; and using the Freedom of Information Act
Campus Activism Resources - Hundreds of freely downloadable how-to articles for student activists, from (countering) Ableism to the Youth Power-Shift Action Packet. From CampusActivism.org: Tools for Activists. The site also features an events calendar and contact info for groups at different schools.
New Tactics in Human Rights Tactical Notebooks - Tactical notebooks focus on a case study of a particular approach, e.g. "Action Theater," "Nonviolent Accompaniment," and "Making Allies," and then featured dialogues present a forum for designated resource people, and anyone else reading the site, to dialogue about how to improve our practice. The site also features a workbook on creative tactics and freely downloadable strategic organizing training tools. From the Center for Victims of Torture.
Community Tool Box - Advice for promoting Community Health and Development: assessment, planning, facilitation of discussions, developing leadership, engaging in advocacy, cultural competence, fundraising, evaluation, and more. Extensive document with 46 chapters with over 300 subsections. From the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas.
Database of Successful Strategies and Tactics - Profiles inspiring organizing campaigns and development/public health initiatives.
Media Activism - See Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Media Activism Kit and Media Contact List, MediaChannel, and Project Censored.
Free Speech/Freedom of Expression - a basic introduction to US First Amendment Law, from the Encyclopedia of Everyday Law. A more detailed and annotated analysis of each clause of the First Amendment,
including discussions of the the right to picket, parade, and pass out
leaflets, is available from FindLaw. For an analysis of the First
Amendment rights of reporters, see The First Amendment Handbook,
from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. For an
international perspective on free speech violations and how to
counteract them, see Reporters Without Borders for Press Freedom.
Peacework articles featuring US protesters engaged in, and often winning, free speech struggles include, "Judge Recognizes Free Speech Rights," "Maine Judge Praises Civil Disobedience," and "Peace Activists Win Free Speech Victory." See more Peacework articles from 2007-present on countering violations of civil liberties.
How to Develop Nonprofit Organizations and Utilize Social Movement Theory
Community Organizing - Freely downloadable training materials from the comm-org list serve.
Building Movement Project - How to restructure nonprofit organizations for social change.
Movement Strategy Center - Articles about organizational development for movement building with a strong focus on youth organizing.
Incite: Women of Color Against Violence Organizing Packet - From "Thoughts on Local Organizing" to "How to Write a Letter to the Editor."
Organizing for Social Change Research Guide - A syllabus from the Georgetown University Law Library
Organizing: People, Power, and Change - A syllabus featuring social movement theory and practice by Harvard's Marshall Ganz
The Praxis Project Information Resource Center - A directory of organizations working on a variety of equity, civil rights, and economic justice issues.
Directory of Organizations and Events - Wiser Earth: Toward a Just and Sustainable World Created by Community. As of 2008-03, lists over 100,000 organizations worldwide, categorized by issue. Also features an online events calendar.
How to Transform Conflict - Conflict Transformation
On Conflict and Consensus: a Handbook on Formal Consensus Decisionmaking - How to structure meetings to devise decisions to which everyone present can consent. Sometimes referred to as the Food Not Bombs consensus guide, written by C. T. Butler and Amy Rothstein.
Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation - Freely downloadable articles focusing on tools for analyzing and transforming conflict (peace and conflict impact assessment) including training, facilitation, and capacity building tools, with an emphasis on the need for nonviolent social change in order for conflict resolution to be meaningful. Don't miss the dialogue series listed at the bottom of the page. From the Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management in Berlin, Germany.
Reflective Peacebuilding: A Planning, Monitoring, and Learning Toolkit - Freely downloadable. Focuses on improving the effectiveness of our projects through continuously developing and refining theories of change; applying these theories at the personal, relationship, structural, and cultural levels; evaluating results, and scaling up promising approaches. Written by John Paul Lederach, Reina Neufelt, and Hal Culbertson for The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and Catholic Relief Services Southeast, East Asia Regional Office. Please also see this definition of conflict transformation, printed in Peacework, an excerpt from John Paul Lederach's book, The Little Book of Conflict Transformation.
Beyond Intractability - A knowledge base and encyclopedia featuring checklists, user guides, and summaries of key articles and books in the field of conflict transformation. Also see the sister site, the Conflict Resolution Information Service, both compiled by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess at the Conflict Information Consortium at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Search for Common Ground Resource Guides - Free downloadable guides for working with children and youth, evaluation, exit strategies, gender and peacebuilding, media and peacebuilding, monitoring, project design, security sector reform, strategic planning, and youth media. From Search for Common Ground, which works in 17 countries and produces the invaluable Common Ground News Service, on nonviolent initiatives in the Middle East.
Promote conflict resolution in schools - via Educators for Social Responsibility's Online Teacher's Center, and teach conflict resolution through current events brought to us by the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility.
Conflict Management Toolkit - An introduction to the field of conflict management through the lens of: conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and "statebuilding." Produced as an attempt to synthesize existing approaches by students at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Conflict Management program.
Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means - The Transcend Method - including a participants' and trainers' manual, from the folks at Transcend Peace University, which offers online courses on a wide-range of conflict transformation and nonviolent skill building, led by some of the preeminent activist-scholars and teachers in these fields. For more on universities who offer peace studies programs around the world, see also the resources and directory (available for purchase) compiled by the Peace and Justice Studies Association.
See also Peacework Magazine stories from 2007-present about peacebuilding.
How to Organize Against Oppression - Countering Racism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism, Classism, etc.
Colours of Resistance Organizing Tools - Checklists and articles about anti-racism and anti-oppression organizing and training. See also the hundreds of articles focusing on anti-oppression organizing hosted on this wide-ranging Canadian "thinktank and actiontank" site.
Anti-Racism Readers from the Catalyst Project - includes collections of essays on "Anti-Racism for Global Justice," "Decolonize This: Building Anti-Authoritarian Movements Against Imperialism," and "Leadership Development and Collective Liberation."
Incite: Women of Color Against Violence Organizing Packet - From "Thoughts on Local Organizing" to "How to Write a Letter to the Editor."
Women's Human Rights Resources - How to work for women's human rights worldwide, from the Center for Women's Global Leadership.
When Bad Things Happen: Responding to Human Rights Violations - against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people worldwide. From the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
Crossing Borders: Building Relationships Across Lines of Difference, a freely downloadable curriculum and resource guide regarding racism, immigration, steps for moving from dialogue to action, and tips for facilitating effective meetings, from the Center for Community Change.
Creating Inclusive Conferences and Mini-Conferences - Advice on creating multi-racial, participatory conferences, with a particular focus on environmental issues, from GreenForAll.
Anti-Racist Principles - for effective organizing and social transformation, from the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond.
Labor/Community Strategy Center - Insights from the organizers of the Bus Riders' Union struggle in Los Angeles.
Model Policy Proposals - Currently lists articles on "strengthening racial profiling laws," "in-state tuition for undocumented students," and "giving minimum wage coverage to farmworkers." Freely downloadable from the Applied Research Center: Advancing racial justice through, research, advocacy, and journalism.
Centers for Independent Living Training Manuals - A panoply of training resources for starting, maintaining, and improving independent living centers for people with disabilities, including measuring outcomes, mobilizing resources, nursing home transistion, affordable accessible housing, youth leadership, coalition building, and much more, from the Independent Living Net, a national training and technical assistance project working to strengthen the independent living movement. Also see the Justice for All email list-serve from the American Association of People with Disabilities for policy and advocacy updates.
Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression Training Groups - A list developed by School of the Americas Watch. Learn from these workshops, and, as SOAW comments, "Don't confuse the workshop with the work." See this similar Undoing Oppression Training list from Resource Generation.
Articles Especially for Whites Trying to Be Anti-Racist - From the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area. See also this collection of essays focusing on white anti-racism by Tim Wise, and these articles by anti-oppression educator Paul Kivel, on anti-oppression work, especially men's anti-sexist work, white anti-racist work, and analyses of classism.
See also Peacework articles focusing on countering a variety of forms of oppression.
How Youth Can Organize - for Youth, Teachers, and other Youth Allies
Guide to Social Change Led By and With Young People - by the Freechild Project. See also their guid to Cooperative Games for Social Change, and their guide for leading workshops to promote youth engagement in social change. A list of links to Youth Advocacy organizations is available from Youth On Board.
High School Students' Rights - A brochure on High School Student's First Amendment Rights from San Diego's Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. Another resource along these lines, Say What? High School Student Rights, is available through AFSC.
Pop-Ed Map - an extensive and annotated list of Popular Education links.
Rethinking Schools - One of the best magazines out there, period, and one of the two best (along with Radical Teacher, but RT has very little online) on how to remake education.
Campus Activism Resources - Hundreds of freely downloadable how-to articles for student activists, from (countering) Ableism to the Youth Power-Shift Action Packet. From CampusActivism.org: Tools for Activists. The site also features an events calendar and contact info for groups at different schools.
College Student Organizing Guide - How to start, revive, structure, focus, facilitate, organize, and mobilize a college-based group, freely available in html and pdf from the Student Environmental Action Coalition. Also see United for Peace and Justice's freely downloadable Beyond War: Campus Organizing Manual.
Jump-Start Guide for Gay-Straight Alliances - Sections include building a GSA or similar club, organizing an action campaign, strategies for training teachers, understanding direct action, examining power/privilege/oppression, creating youth-adult partnerships, trans-inclusivity, and evaluation-continuation-celebration. Useful for high school students organizing around any issue.
National Association for Multicultural Education - Resources for educational equity and social justice.
Teaching for Change - Building social justice starting in the classroom. A large catalog of resources for social justice and social change in the classroom.
See also Peacework Magazine stories about youth organizing, which profile student organizing, which focus on teacher activism, and/or stories since 2007 on countering ageism.
How to Counter Military Recruitment - Counter-Recruitment Organizing
The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth - The most comprehensive compilation of countering military recruitment tips, organizations, and resources.
Project YANO's Countering Military Recruitment Resources - freely downloadable brochures and pamphlets from the leading local counter-recruitment campaign in the US. Everyone countering military recruitment can benefit from reading the report on "Using Equal Acess to Counter Militarism in High Schools" (the link above downloads the PDF from their site: see also the excerpt published in the March 2008 Peacework).See also materials at YANO's sister organization, the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft, including the valuable brochure on high school student's First Amendment Rights. Another resource along these lines, Say What? High School Student Rights is available through AFSC.
Before You Enlist - AFSC's Counter-Recruitment Training Manual is available to order. A Guide to Working With School Boards is free. See also, available to order with sample sections free, Demilitarized Zone - War Resisters League's Guide to Taking Your School Back from the Military.
Opting Out Campaigns - The best guide for campaigns encouraging students to opt-out of the No Child Left Behind Act's Military Recruitment Provision is the Opt Out Guide to "No Child Left Behind" from the Resource Center for Nonviolence. Students do have the right to opt out themselves. Warning: there are too many slick and misleading resources available on the internet, some even from otherwise excellent groups countering military recruitment (e.g. Military Free Zone), which actively misrepresent or omit the fact that the law clearly states, and the Department of Education has confirmed, that students have the right to opt-out themselves. This is vitally important, because it means students can develop their own campaigns to educate and convince other students to opt-out. See also Peacework stories on Opt-Out Campaigns and the Department of Education confirming that students do have the right to opt-out themselves without parent signatures.
Alternatives to the Military Guides - Order AFSC's national resource book, It's My Life: A Guide to Alternatives After High School, which belongs in every guidance counselor's office in the country. At that same site, please also see model booklets of alternatives devised specifically for particular states. A list of job-finding resources for every state, Alternatives to Military Service By State (available in PDF and MS Word form, also important for every guidance counselor's office), was developed by the Center on Conscience and War and the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth. Many of the above resources have sections on financing college without joining the military, but also see the hyperlinked downloadable fact sheet on College Financial Aid Resources from Project YANO. For additional resources, see See also Project YANO's free Careers in Peacemaking and Social Change brochure. For an organizing guide to help you host an Alternative Jobs Career Fair at a local college, see Good Works' Alternative Career Fair: Student Organizing Guide.
See also Peacework Magazine stories on countering military recruitment since 2007 and from 1999-present.
How to Create Alternative Economic Systems - Visions of a Better World in the Making
Movement Vision Lab - Articles about creating: an Active and Inclusive Society, a Community Based Economy, and Global Justice
Brian Martin's Publications on Peace, War and Nonviolence - How to uproot war, from one of the foremost peace researchers in Australia. In particular, see Economic Alternatives as Strategies - Chapter 12 of Nonviolence versus Capitalism. (See also Martin's essay, "Gene Sharp's Theory of Power," in the May 2005 issue of Peacework, one of a cluster of articles reflecting on Gene Sharp's work.)
Participatory Economics - One proposed alternative to capitalism, from Z Magazine's Michael Albert. (See also Albert's Essay, "Buying Dreams: Visions for a Better Future" from the December 2003 issue of Peacework.)
Grassroots Economic Organizing - News from the frontlines of economic solidarity and grassroots globalization from below.
Resources on Democratic, Participatory, and Equitable Enterprises - From a Cooperative Economics issue of Peacework, May 2006.
See also Peacework articles since 2007 on Alternative Political Systems and Movements
How to Use Technologies for Social Change - Software for Activism
TechSoup - The Technology Place for Nonprofits. Offers tips and evaluations of software, especially for established nonprofit organizations. Their Toolkits are a collection of the best-of TechSoup, including: databases, donor management, web 2.0, open-source, and a sample Request for Proposals (RFP) Library. TechSoup is best known for offering donated and discounted software for tax-exempt nonprofits.
Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) - the membership organization of nonprofit professionals putting technology to use. Their webinars are free tutorials on using a particular piece of software or type of software in nonprofits.
Grassroots.org - Offers free web hosting, free website design, search-engine optimization, and other services for nonprofit groups.
SourceForge - The largest repository of free and open-source software, hosting over 175,000 projects as of March 2007. To see ratings and comments by users about a piece of software, both open-source and closed-source, see VersionTracker or TuCows.
NGO-In-a-Box - Selected collections of free open-source software to help a nonprofit organization get up and running. Produced by Tactical Tech and Women'sNet, the Base Edition includes Ubuntu Linux, an office suite, finance, email, finance, fundraising, project management, and more. There are also Audio/Video Editions, a Security Edition, and an Open Publishing Edition. Each one is freely downloadable, comes with how-to and support material, and can be burned onto cds for distribution on computers with no or limited internet access.
MobileActive - How to use mobile phones and text messages to assist social change organizing.
DotOrganize - How to use online tools to create wide networks while using offline organizing to create deep relationships. Focus on integrating online organizing tools to work together. Also hosts an Organizer's tool crib, describing and rating online tools for nonprofits. See also NetAction's Virtual Activist 2.0, a free, online training course on how to use email for organizing, how to integrate email and web tools, how to fundraise online, how to protect privacy, and how to engage in effective technology planning.
Blogging Feminism - (Web)Sites of Resistance - how feminists are and can further feminism through blogging.
Collaborative Competitions - by Changemakers.net. Organizations from around the world share what they're doing to improve the world, and readers discuss how to improve the project. For example, as of March 2, 2008, there are 76 entries from 31 countries with proposals for how to improve local water supplies. See also their links to sites which are using video games for social change.
Technology for Nonviolent Struggle - A full length book, freely downloadable from Australian peace activist and researcher Brian Martin, assessing the potential for various technologies to assist fundamental nonviolent social change, repulse invaders nonviolently, or conversely, to assist repression.
See also Peacework articles on anarchist economics, Open-Source, and the creative commons.
Books - How to Organize, Tools for Activists
Multiracial Organizing Books from the Center for Third World Organizing
Activist Books from the South End Press publishing collective
Progressive Leadership Books from New Society Publishers
How-to Books from AK Press, a worker-run anarchist publisher and distributor of radical books
Conflict Resolution and Mediation titles from Jossey-Bass, (see also their many titles related to organizing, sustaining, leading, and fundraising for nonprofit organizations)
Highlander Center Bookstore - Tools from the legendary social change training center which trained Rosa Parks before December 1, 1955 and celebrated its 75th year in 2007.
Books for Young People - From Friends Council on Education. Lists include: Recommended books on peace and social justice; Bridges: An Annotated Bibliography of Cross Cultural Fiction 1970-2002; and Quaker Testimony-themed literature for children.
See also Books reviewed and poetry printed in Peacework, including nonfiction works, fiction, and poetry.
This is version 1.2 of How to Wage Peace and Justice: Tools for Activists: Peacework Magazine's Annotated Guide to Organizing Resources
