What Is Movement Building?
How You Can Help Build Strong Movements for Social Justice
Social movements build people power
Social movements are created when groups of people come together to bring about change and solve problems that no one person or institution can solve alone. They often inspire people to see the world not as it is, but as it could be. Successful social movements make the impossible possible.
Social justice movements, at their core, fundamentally challenge power-holders and the status quo in order to eliminate inequality, exclusion, and injustice rooted in oppression. They educate and mobilize people to actively support that change.
Movements are focused on long-term and transformative change versus short-term or single-issue wins. Progressive social movements advance social, political, environmental, and economic justice. Examples include civil rights, racial justice, labor, and women’s movements more broadly - and Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and #MeToo more specifically.
There are also movements on the right. Examples of conservative or right-wing movements include the Tea Party, anti-abortion (what we would refer to as anti-choice), and gun rights movements.
Wikipedia has an extensive list of progressive and conservative social moments. Mapping American Social Movements uses interactive maps to document dozens of social movements from the 1870s to the early 2000s. Revolution and Protest Online is a database of primary resources on select political and social change movements across the globe.
Movement building is the process of growing and sustaining movements over time
Movement building is different from grassroots organizing which is done at the individual or community level and coalition building which tends to be issue-based and focused on specific, shorter-term goals.
Core elements of movement building:
Activate and organize diverse groups of people, organizations, and coalitions to recognize a shared vision.
Strengthen connections across people, organizations, sectors, and issues so that they can work together to coordinate and align activism and advocacy.
Provide resources to organizers, build a strong pipeline of leaders, and amplify their messages.
Combine research, advocacy, media and campaigns, legal action, community organizing, and direct action (think: protests, boycotts, pickets) to gain support and bring about change.
Lift up the voices and vision of people with lived experience/those most impacted by the problem.
Social movement cycles
All social movements have cycles that include ups and downs, and successful movements will go through several cycles. If movements can harness each high-energy moment in the cycle to change more and more hearts and minds, they will eventually gain enough public support to achieve their desired change.
Sowing the seeds of change
Small groups work to raise awareness by trying to make the invisible, visible. Most often, this includes nonprofit organizations that work on the issue, dissent groups that take direct action, and grassroots groups made up of — and working with — people with lived experience. In this phase, organizers and activists are often ridiculed for their beliefs and are considered fringe elements. These early efforts often have little success because they don’t have enough public support or political clout.
During this phase in the movement cycle, different groups begin to recognize their shared values and interests and start to work together to develop a movement infrastructure. They create formal and informal networks to facilitate communication, coordinate activities, build capacity, and pool resources.
Catalyzing event
Movements gain momentum when a galvanizing incident grabs the public’s attention and motivates people to get involved (think: a public tragedy, exposé, political announcement, or planned public action). The catalyzing event creates a powerful example that helps explain to everyday people what the issue is and why they should care about it. It is an opportunity for activists and organizers to educate and mobilize newly interested people and build support for their demands. It generates new resources for the movement, including money and volunteers.
The movement is able to share its vision for a different future with a critical mass of people who are sympathetic to the cause and looking for opportunities to take action. This helps the movement to enter the mainstream. Ideas that once seemed radical become more widely accepted. Movements that can take advantage of this moment are able to harness their power to demand transformative change.
Backlash
Many movements experience backlash once they begin to succeed in changing hearts and minds. Power-holders and those resistant to change will try to maintain the status quo by funding counter-movements, launching misinformation and disinformation campaigns, and trying to discredit movement leaders.
Mainstreaming (and its pitfalls)
As the movement grows, what was once considered a fringe idea becomes mainstream. In some instances, to appeal to the broader masses and maintain momentum, the movement may pull back from its most radical and transformative demands and develop more centrist strategies and messaging.
In this phase, movements also become vulnerable to co-option. Examples of co-option include:
Being taken over by a larger movement that may be considered part of the establishment.
High-profile leaders replacing lesser-known grassroots organizers.
Corporate profiteering that uses the movement for marketing purposes versus committing to changing harmful internal and external practices.
To absorb resources and funding produced by the catalyzing event, movements begin to build formal infrastructures. This often leads to structures and systems with rules and hierarchy (aka institutionalization and bureaucracy). This process moves organizers and activists off the streets and into offices - making movements less nimble and more afraid to take bold action.
Contraction and evolution
After a high-energy moment, there is often a period of contraction and evolution. This is a normal and inevitable part of the social movement cycle. People’s attention will start to wane, opponents will adapt and change their tactics, and fundraising and volunteerism will slow down. Those that remain engaged may become disillusioned at the lack of progress or feel that the movement has been watered-down as it adapts to mainstreaming and institutionalization.
New normal and re-sowing the seeds of change
During this phase, movements have the opportunity to take stock of their successes and failures, reinvest in infrastructure development and training, create sustained action, and prepare for the next catalyzing moment.
How you can support movement building
Act in solidarity
Listen to what people with lived experience are calling for and act in solidarity with them.
Stay engaged
Continue to take action past the catalyzing moment. Pick one cause that resonates with you and commit to ongoing everyday activism in support of that movement. Not sure how? Learn more in our How To Be An Everyday Activist guide and explore our Learn and Take Action Archive for ideas on how to get involved in the issues you care about.
Donate
If you can afford to do so, set up a recurring donation with some of your favorite organizations. Many people make donations during a catalyzing event. We encourage this and recommend that you continue to give what you can during these times. However, year-round donations create opportunities for movements to plan ahead and build capacity throughout each phase of the cycle and to take advantage of the next catalyzing moment.
No-strings-attached donations from individual donors like you help organizations to imagine bold solutions that challenge the status quo versus relying on grant funding from the government, foundations, and major donors that may only be used for specific purposes. Supporting movement building may mean expanding your giving plan to include donations to organizations and groups without 501(c)(3) tax deductible status.
Learn more in our Making the Most of Your Monetary Donations and How To Make a Giving Plan guides.
Educate yourself
Learn about the history of the movement, its demands, and proposed solutions. Reflect on how the movement’s messaging may have changed as it became more mainstream and challenge yourself to support its most progressive agenda. Actively combat misinformation about the movement.
Watch out for co-opting and corporate profiteering
Support grassroots activists and organizers. Learn how you can hold corporations accountable to putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to committing to social change in our How To Harness Your Consumer Power For Good guide.
Choose one action and just do it!
Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. Everyone has something important to offer. We present a range of actions that empower you to help in ways that are right for you. Whether you have five minutes or five hours, you can make a difference.
Learn more in our How To Be An Everyday Activist guide.
About Everyday Activism Network
Everyday Activism Network is a one-stop-shop where you can learn about and take action on a variety of social justice issues and causes. Each week, we publish new guides designed to support your everyday activism.
Take Action guides provide a variety of purposeful actions to choose from.
How To guides help you learn how to optimize an action for maximum impact.
Terminology guides educate you on terms and concepts related to social justice and taking action.
Inspiration guides spotlight organizations and changemakers doing great work and how to support them.
By doing the research and planning for you, we provide opportunities for you to easily engage on the issues you care about, making better use of your time, talent, and resources.
Read more about How It Works.
Learn & Take Action
Explore our archive to learn how to help on a variety of social justice issues and causes.
Follow & Engage
See this guide as a graphic slideshow and join a like-minded community of everyday activists.
Originally published July 13, 2021.
Guides identify both fast actions that you can take in under five minutes and more time-intensive actions that deepen your engagement. Our fast actions tend to be time-bound, as a result, some guides in the archive may contain expired links. Not to fret, we also recommend anytime actions that never go out of date.
