Action (how-to)

Below you'll find how-to guides to help you organize, no matter how experienced you are.  Basics at the top, then easy actions that don't demand much, intermediate actions, and finally campaign ideas for long-term power building.

Organizing Basics

Some guides to the bare-bones basics of getting organized and building community power.

How to Have Better Meetings

Staying Informed

Starting A Collective

Canvassing (Meeting Your Neighbors)

Strategy & Tactics

Campaign Planning

Member Dues and Finances

Language: Translation as a Revolutionary Practice

Easy Actions

These are low-demand, non-resource-intensive activities, perfect for a new collective or for when you have a little extra capacity:

Tabling / Media Distro

What You Need:


Stock up on media: Print some favorite articles and zines, get used copies of great political books, stock up on stickers and posters.    You are of course encouraged to download from us, or make your own!


Pick a place where you’re likely to meet like-minded people.  Set a start time and an end time.  Try to make sure you will have at least 2 members present at all times - tabling with political material in public can invite attention and sometimes some hostility, so it helps to have company.   Make sure the contact sheet is out with a pen for people to sign up.  Afterward, enter their information in your secure database and get rid of the paper so that their contact information isn't easily accessible to any random passers by.


We highly recommend just having a big sign that says “Good Neighbors Democracy Movement - Free Art and Media” or something like that, and letting folks come to you rather than soliciting them.  If you meet some people and give away some stuff, that’s a big success!

Write and Publish a Zine

What you Need:


This is an easy one!  Pick a topic with your group that people need to be informed about.  It could be something on a big topic that you wish there was already a zine on, or a local topic for people in your community.  It could be history, or a current event, or revolutionary theory, or poetry or art.  It's really up to you.  


Meet regularly and make sure people know their tasks to keep things rolling.


Keep images and text bold and simple so it's easy to photocopy en masse.  When it's done, print it, copy it, table with it, send it to us, put it up online - get the word out any way you can.


Bonus points if you have a contact who can print things for you in large runs for free.

Mutual Aid Drops

What you'll need:


This is a really basic idea:  Pool your resources to make some drop-offs of things that make people's lives easier.  Could be boxes of eco-friendly detergent sheets to leave in your local laundromats.  Could be first-aid kits or sewing kits.  Could be new packs of socks and underwear for our homeless neighbors.  Could be veggie seeds or local wildflower seed packets to share door-to-door.


As you build relationships, try and figure out how your mutual aid can expand, build people's power and resources to meet their own needs, and involve people in the fight for a better world.  It's easy to become set in a pattern of good solidarity work that, sometimes, can become an end in itself rather than building more power toward revolutionary horizons.


Two important things:  

1. Make sure it's actually useful and if you leave it somewhere, you're not just littering.  Maybe chat with the people who might receive it first if you aren't sure.

2. Make sure your group's contact info and a simple tag-line is on it so people can get involved with your group if they like.

Community Film Night

What you'll need:


Another easy and fun one.  Plan a film night for your community.  Whether it's a documentary on a social struggle or important historical subject, or a topical fiction film (we've had a great time showing Pan's Labyrinth to talk about revolution and the Spanish civil war, or Princess Mononoke to get people talking about ecology for example), or even just something totally stupid and fun if you have a hook for it, a public film showing is a great way to get people together and thinking about change.


You can secure space with a library or permission from a local cafe, or do a guerilla outdoor film showing if there's electricity and the weather's good.  Don't forget to test your equipment and make sure you have closed captions, multilingual subtitles if possible, and a good audio setup!


Make sure the discussion part isn't too guided, preachy, or forced.  Let people bring up whatever sparks their interest.  It's one thing if you advertised it as a political film and discussion, but if people feel like they got baited into a preachy political thing on false pretenses they will resent it.



Monthly Public Art Campaign

What You Need:


The idea here is to start filling your city with radical ideas!  Break the online algorithms and fill the city with beautiful art.


For best results, have a great artist pair with an apprentice artist and a great writer pair with an apprentice writer to start boosting and transferring skills.  Start switching it up as skills build.  Start each month with a new poster; Copy it, schedule sessions to spread it around the city, and then create a new poster on a new topic for the next month!

Community Free Festival

What You Need:


A Community Free Fest, also called a "Really Really Free Market" in contrast to the capitalist "free market", is a festival where everything is free.  Invite everyone to come give away what they don't need, and take anything they want.  It's a great way to meet neighbors and redistribute resources.


MAKE SURE you have CLEAR and MONITORED separation between stuff people are giving away and their non-shared personal belongings.  Also make sure you tell people to TAKE THEIR EXTRA STUFF HOME, and that you have transportation to carry anything that gets accidentally left behind to local donation points.


For best results, host every few months or so and use as an opportunity to advertise other events.

Know-Your-Rights Training Session

What you need:


Help yourselves and your neighbors gain the knowledge you need to organize. 


Schedule an event - ideally with experts from local legal support organizations, or reach out to a group from a neighboring town.  If you can't get an expert, you can research and share together, but make sure people know the limits of what you know.


If you have qualified speakers that can speak a language widely used by folks in your community for whom the material is most relevant, try to do the event in locally relevant languages and advertise it in the same.


2 critical notes:  1, your rights under law are rarely followed by the authorities, who aren't used to being challenged on these issues.  They will likely violate your rights - but if you know, you can challenge them in court and win.  2, we obviously don't have enough rights because the laws are made by the rich.  Remind people of the larger fight.

Set Up Your Online Presence

What You Need:


The internet can be a great way for people to find you and join you.  If you meet someone and give them a flyer, or if you put up stickers or posters, your website and social media tags can allow people to catch up with your group later if they want to get involved.  It can also be a way to provide news and security updates to your community.


Of course you'll want to create a social media presence wherever you think you can best reach others in your area.  Don't be afraid to venture onto a site you don't personally use; It could be a great way to branch out.  See what sites people in your group use, or are willing to learn, and delegate members to create and manage the necessary profiles.


Keep in mind that the flow of information on social media is controlled by corporate forces.  If you have any degree of success, they might start making trouble for you.  Consider also creating a website yourself - there are a lot of free or cheap platforms to do it on.


Open a shared repository online for files your group needs to share.  Keep a local backup on your own computer if you can.


Finally, write to us so we can connect with you and add your information to our own directory!

Host an Ecology Expert Presentation for the Community

What You Need:


Learning about our local ecology - including our water, our soil, the plants and animals that live around us, and more - is critical to being able to care for the ecosystem and nurture it.  This is our responsibility as neighbors, and also necessary to provide a material foundation for freedom.  An ecology event brings a local expert to share their knowledge in a community discussion.


There are many forms of experts.  You could start with an outreach campaign to see if there are people in your community with something to share.  You could see if there are indigenous people in your area who may already engage in public education and who may have a critical perspective to share*. You could see who has written books on your area, or done research.  You could talk to the local parks or forestry departments.  You could check the faculty at a local school or college.


Keep in mind that experts disagree, and there may especially be tensions between corporate and state interests, and wildlife defenders, or between self-proclaimed conservationists and indigenous peoples.  Your community has divisions, and part of building community power is learning about these divisions so you can support the right cause.  Always prioritize native knowledge and sovereignty when it comes to your community's relations with the land and the web of life you are in.  


Consider pooling money so that you can compensate your speaker for their time and resources.


*Note: DO NOT reach out to any random indigenous person as if they are automatically going to be an ecology expert or want to share their knowledge with non-native folks.  Be respectful and humble. If you don't already know the community, consider reaching out to a public-facing native organization in your area, expressing your interest in creating a space for indigenous community members' perspectives on a local issue) 

Host a Guest Organizer from Another Group

What You Need:


As Good Neighbors we do our best to forge alliances with other groups in the struggle, rather than pretending we have all the answers and seeing other groups as competition.  We have so much to learn from each other.


Consider reaching out to a group you'd like to learn about and support.  Consider pooling your money to offer them fair compensation for their time and resources as you would anyone else.  Consider how you can share your experiences in exchange - and make sure to be as respectful and humble as possible.  


Remember: Don't expect someone to know about or share about a group they just happen to be a part of based on their race, gender, or some other aspect of their identity.  Reach out to organized, public-facing groups.  To learn about more informal communities that your group may want to support like delivery workers, immigrants, homeless folks, etc., try hosting a social event, food share, movie night, or some other low-stakes event where you can build relationships organically.


Make sure to discuss how your groups can best support each other in the future - and if you're really aligned, think about having some 'crossover' members that attend both your group's meetings regularly to weave your ties even closer.


Local Ecology Tour


Getting people out to physically see and interact with your local area in an ecological sense can be really powerful.  Show people where local birds and wildlife find food and shelter.  Show key biodiversity hotspots - like undeveloped plots, abandoned areas, creeks, parks, etc. - and discuss how you might defend them or help them regenerate.  Show all the ways our modern cities and capitalist development are killing and threatening the natural communities around us, as well as our air, food, and water.


Consider your route, food and water, and the safety of attendees.  Consider making the event a regular monthly or yearly occurrence!

Collective Learning:  People's History Tour


Like the ecology tour, this is way of helping people learn about your area so that you can see it and interact with it in a new light.  The People's History tour aims to collect and share knowledge about the history of oppression and resistance in your area.


It may take work to uncover - and it may be critical to speak with communities in resistance who are often written out of official histories.  Try looking into your local history of colonization and decolonial indigenous resistance, slavery, segregation and racial oppression and resistance, ecological struggles, womens struggles, queer struggles, labor and immigrant struggles, housing struggles, etc.  No matter where you live there is history of oppression and resistance, and once you do the work of uncovering it you'll never see your place the same way.


Consider your route, food and water, and the safety of attendees.  Consider making the event a regular monthly or yearly occurrence!

Intermediate Actions


Are you a little more seasoned and ready for a challenge?  Here is a list of ideas your group could take on: