Strategy Ideas

“Charting a Course &mdash Long-Range Strategic Planning” by Sharon Behar, The Volunteer Monitor, Environmental Protection Agency, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 1996, 7 p.

http://www.epa.gov/owow/monitoring/volunteer/newsletter/volmon08no1.pdf Read the sections called "Charting a Course &mdash Long-Range Strategic Planning" and "Strategic Plan Checklist".

A brief introduction to long-term strategic planning for grassroots groups. Randy: The Kehler article is no longer on the web, but this one may have much of the same content.

“Clean Elections — Making a Difference,” by Micah Sifry, Yes! Magazine, Fall 2003, 6 p.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=656

Clean elections: How did the citizens of Maine achieve such a fundamental change in their political process? The answer is it took time and a wide-ranging coalition of activists.

“A Question for Journalists: How Do We Cover Penguins and the Politics of Denial,” by Bill Moyers, Speech to the Society of Environmental Journalists Convention, Austin, Texas, October 1, 2005, 24 p.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1007-21.htm

One-sentence description of this article.

“Mass Action Since Seattle: 7 Ways to Make Our Protests More Powerful,” by George Lakey, Training for Change, October 2000, 34 p.

http://trainingforchange.org/content/view/130/33/

Seven ways to make protests more powerful and open up new options for future mass direct action scenarios.

“Framing the Issues: UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff Tells How Conservatives Use Language to Dominate Politics,” by Bonnie Azab Powell, UC Berkeley News, October 27, 2003, 16 p.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
Read “The ‘free market’ doesn’t exist” section too.

Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them.

“Framing the GBIO: Building a Collective Actor Through Media,” by Adria D. Goodson, Social Moments: A Journal of Postitions and Possibilities, Sociology Department, Boston College, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1999, 12 p.

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/soc/SocialMoments/goodson4.htm

How the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) has utilized media and framing strategies to mobilize a new coalition in the Boston metropolitan area. Randy: Gamson‘s article is not on the web, but I found this article that might replace it.

“Truth is a Virus: Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore),” by Andrew Boyd, in Cultural Resistance, editor Steven Duncombe, Verso, April 2002, 18 p.

http://www.culturejamming101.com/truthisavirus.html

The Billionaires for Bush or Gore is a good example of culture jamming and guerrilla media provocations, a way to unleash a viral epidemic of truth.

“Winning the Battle of the Story,” by Ilyse Hogue and Patrick Reinsborough, in Loud & Clear in an Election Year: Amplifying the Voices of Community Advocates, The SPIN Project, 2004, 6 p.

http://www.smartmeme.com/downloads/Battle%20of%20the%20Story-SPIN.pdf

How compelling stories and infectious memes can be used to amplify grassroots efforts to build a more democratic, just, and ecologically sane society.

“The Class Divide,” by Cynthia Peters, ZNet Daily Commentaries, October 25, 1999, 5 p.

http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/1741 Paid subscription required.

Listening to working-class voices can make a progressive campaign stronger.

“Immokalee Workers Take Down Taco Bell,” by Elly Leary, The Monthly Review, Volume 57, Number 5, October 2005, 25 p.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1005leary.htm

Building a living example of what an anticapitalist society could look like, with people-run institutions and co-operatives of all kinds, especially in the bowels of the plantation culture South, is a beacon for all of us.

“The Dilemma Demonstration: Using Nonviolent Civil Disobedience to Put the Government between a Rock and a Hard Place,” by Philippe Duhamel, New Tactics in Human Rights, Center for Victims of Torture, 2004, 4 p.

http://www.newtactics.org/main.php/TheDilemmaDemonstration

How Operation SalAMI turned our own dilemma — how to inform the Canadian public about the real dangers and inequalities of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas when we were not even allowed to see the documents — into a larger dilemma for the Canadian government by revealing the secrecy on which the approval of the agreement depended.

“Zvakwana Builds Up Steam,” by Staff Editors, Zimbabwe Observer, June 20, 2004, 3 p.

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/jun21_2004.html#link11

A clever and daring underground movement has sprung up in Zimbabwe that is stoking public opinion against Robert Mugabe’s government.

“198 Methods of Nonviolent Action,” by Gene Sharp in The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Albert Einstein Institute, 1973, 4 p.

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations103a.html

Nonviolent actions can be classified into five main categories: protest and persuasion, social noncooperation, economic noncooperation (boycotts and strikes), political noncooperation, and nonviolent intervention.

“Chapter 2: Understanding Change,” Designing for Results: Integrating Monitoring and Evaluation in Conflict Transformation Programs, by Cheyanne Church and Mark Rogers, Search for Common Ground, 2006, 18 p.

http://www.sfcg.org/documents/dmechapter2.pdf

One-sentence description of this article. Randy: This may be the same article.

“Bringing About Change: Six Ways of Thinking about Achieving Environmental Advocacy Outcomes,” by James Whelan, National Environmental Movement Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 2001, x p.

http://www.environmentaladvocacy.org/resources/articles_papers/Bringing_About_Change.pdf

Randy: No longer available on the web.

“The Movement Action Plan,” by Bill Moyer, The Practical Strategist: Movement Action Plan (MAP): Strategic Theories for Evaluating, Planning, and Conducting Social Movements, Social Movement Empowerment Project, 1990, 21 p.

http://nonviolencehelp.tripod.com/downloads/practical_strategist.pdf

One-sentence description of this article.

“The Four Activist Roles,” by Bill Moyer, The Practical Strategist, Social Movement Empowerment Project, 1990, 1 p.

http://www.nonviolence.org.au/downloads/moyer_charts.pdf Look at all three charts.

One-sentence description of this article.

“Complementing Roles: Nationals and Grassroots,” by Mike Markarian, No Compromise, Issue 11, Winter 1998/1999, 3 p.

http://www.nocompromise.org/issues/11/11ActivistRoles.html

Some thoughts on how national and grassroots groups can be beneficial to each other.

“Strategy: The Fundamentals,” virginia.organizing, Virginia Organizing Project, 7 p.

http://www.virginia-organizing.org/articles/strategy.php

or

http://npaction.org/article/articleview/574/1/229

A good strategy makes it possible to do four things at once: (1) clearly define an issue and its possible solutions, (2) make it easy to get more people involved, (3) arrange contact with those who have the power to bring about the solutions you want, and (4) raise the money or other resources you need to carry out the work. Added by Randy.

“Strategizing Against the Iraq War,” by George Lakey, ZNet, September 15, 2002, 5 p.

http://www.trainingforchange.org/content/view/75/33/index.html

or

http://oregonpeaceworks.web.aplus.net/site/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=180&Itemid=86

Categorize the world into those who are closest to our position, those furthest away, and various levels in between. To win, it’s usually enough to move each group one step in our direction.

“Breaking Through to Great: Smart Strategies for Developing Winning Communications Campaigns,” Spitfire Strategies, 20 p.

http://www.spitfirestrategies.com/pdfs/smart_chart_2.pdf

Spitfire Strategies Smart Chart is a step-by-step guide to building a successful communications campaign.

“Worksheets,” SmartMeme, 1 p.

http://smartmeme.com/article.php?list=type&type=16 Download and study any worksheets that seem useful.

One-sentence description of this article.

“Midwest Academy Strategy Chart,” 1 p.

http://www.partnersinpolicymaking.com/curriculumchangechart.html

or

http://slac.rso.wisc.edu/flyers/strategy-chart.pdf

One-sentence description of this article.