vision. learning. integration. transformation.
Movement Matters' Organizing Institute was a major shift for me, both personally and for the direction of my work. A year later, I still keep their 'organizing framework' manual on my desk to fashion my own popular education programming and to use as a guiding roadmap. And that really just scratches the surface.
The Organizing Institute introduced me to an amazing, diverse cohort of organizers whose relationships continue to push me forward in my personal and professional growth. I really can’t say enough good things.
Patrick Gregoire,
2019 Organizing Institute Participant.
2019 Organizing Institute Participant.
Community Organizing Institutes
Movement Matters offers a variety of comprehensive Community Organizing and Popular Education Institutes that provide both theory and practical skills around relationship building, constituency building, and power building—MM's organizing framework.
These Institutes are designed to be of maximum utility to partner organizations: they are tailored to meet the cultural and organizational needs of participants, they build a learning community that continues to apply lessons learned well beyond the Institute, and they can be offered in English and/or Spanish.
These Institutes are designed to be of maximum utility to partner organizations: they are tailored to meet the cultural and organizational needs of participants, they build a learning community that continues to apply lessons learned well beyond the Institute, and they can be offered in English and/or Spanish.
There aren't many spaces to openly share the toll the fight for liberation takes on our mind, body, and spirit. At the weeklong Movement Matters' Organizing Institute, I found not only community but tools and strategies to deepen my organization's effectiveness as we continue to empower our communities.
Thank you to the incredible Movement Matters team for creating such an intentionally beautiful and spiritual learning experience.
Charlyn Anderson, 2020 Organizing Institute Participant.
Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute
Monday, May 2nd - Friday, May 6th, 2022
(in-person weeklong training)Movement Matters holds its annual comprehensive *weeklong training institute* in Washington, DC. This institute is designed for:
- new and seasoned organizers (1-3 years on-the-ground experience),
- popular educators and facilitators, and
- community leaders and advocates (that have moved beyond leadership development into organizing).
Based on Movement Matters' unique field-developed curriculum and nationally recognized training and facilitation style, the Organizing Institute provides an instructive, challenging learning and action space that deepens participants' vision, skills, and capacity.
Our training approach is grounded in somatics, expressive arts, story-sharing, and ritual practices that engage the bodies, minds, and spirits of our participants so that they can more fully experience the training content. In addition, these approaches model ways to more deeply ground community members in a lived experience of our collective values. We view these approaches as integral to allow us to embody the world we are trying to create within our organizing practice.
Beginning with the unique present-day context of each participant, we use three interdependent modules to unpack, analyze, build, and assess successful programs and campaigns while converging visionary, dedicated leaders/members and allies.Relationship Building- Mapping Our Landscape
- Strategic Outreach
- Doorknocking and Beyond
- Moving Through Discomfort
- Creating and Managing Outreach Calendars
- Relationships of Action
Constituency Building- Member and Leadership Development
- Popular Education
- Participatory Action Research
- Culture, Arts, Storysharing
- Somatics and Ritual
Power Building- Political and Strategic Analysis
- Developing Strategic Campaigns
- Implementing Escalating Actions
- What We Win
The Movement Matters Organizing Institute is unique in that it provides popular education training in an organizing context. There is no other training that has better prepared me to organize alongside tenants to preserve affordable housing. Marta and David’s commitment to supporting community organizers is indisputable.
Cecilia Bengham, 2017 Organizing Institute Participant.Movement Matters is committed to the use of a values-based approach to organizing and movement building that is intersectional, anti-oppression, anti-colonial, and anti-racist. Our educational approach and capacity building framework are firmly based in popular education, cultural organizing, and other liberatory pedagogies with the ultimate goal of transforming not only the outcome of our work but also the process by which we do it.
We ask that each participant come prepared to re-examine and move past their own discomfort to fully participate in our liberatory, creative/arts-based, non-linear, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, transformational learning and action spaces.My experience at the Movement Matters Organizing Institute was transformative. The Institute’s facilitators are engaging, and use creative methods to guide participants through the essentials of community organizing and power building. The strategic planning and relationship building techniques I learned at the Institute are effective, and I continue to utilize them in my organizing work today.
Brig Dumais, 2019 Organizing Institute Participant.All participants will be required to fill out a capacity questionnaire form and/or be part of a 1-on-1 prior to the Organizing Institute to ensure that we understand their capacity building needs, how to support their work, and how to tailor the curriculum.Participants also commit to follow Covid19-safety policies. Space is limited.2022 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute
(in-person weeklong training)
Monday, May 2nd - Friday, May 6th, 2022
9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
DC Eaton Workshop
Cost: $750To the best of our abilities, we gladly work on a sliding scale with individuals and groups that need the support.
Manual, resources, art materials, and snacks are included.
The 2022 Organizing Institute is now full.Connect with us if you have any questions or to request an Organizing Institute in your area.Youth Organizing Institute
Movement Matters works closely with youth organizers, youth programs, and youth focused organizations. We connect our organizing framework (relationship building, constituency building, and power building) with the lived experiences of young people to create Youth Organizing Institutes that are dynamic, transformative, and ground young people and their organizations in an expanded vision for change.
While the Youth Organizing Institutes are designed primarily for the participation of youth members of organizations, they are also designed to have adult staff accompany young people through the experience. Through participation in our Youth Organizing Institutes, adult staff and allies get a deeper insight into the way young people are experiencing racism, classism, and other forms of oppression in their daily lives. Adults are also exposed to different modalities for engaging youth in critical thinking and action.
For youth participants, our Youth Organizing Institutes offer ways to create deep relationships with peers, to gain structural context for addressing the issues that are impacting their lives, and to develop concrete skills for envisioning and driving youth-led change efforts.
Our Youth Organizing Institute can be offered in English, Spanish, and/or bilingually. We also make sure to tailor the curriculum so that it is culturally competent for different communities. As importantly , we can also adjust the content to make it relevant to the organizing context of the groups we are working with.
My experience at the Youth Organizing Institute was transformational and completely eye opening. I am a person that likes to see things from different perspectives and this Institute provided me and my peers with different perspectives on how to view systemic change and most importantly how to move and embrace our people towards systemic change.
Rosa Avila, 2019 Youth Organizing Institute Participant.Movement Matters Youth Organizing Approach
For a deeper understanding of MM's youth organizing approach, check out our report: Building Youth Voice for Youth Power in the DMV.
The report compiles findings from 18 formal interviews, informal listening projects and conversations with youth leaders and youth workers, as well as our own experiences in supporting and accompanying youth workers, youth advocates, youth organizers, and their programs for over 22 years.
We sincerely thank the groups we interviewed for their time and commitment to youth work in the DMV, and the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation for commissioning this report.Organizing Institutes On the Road
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC and offers regularly scheduled Community Organizing and Popular Education Institutes, Youth Organizing Institutes, and Advanced Trainings in the DC region. We also offer these institutes/trainings throughout the country (including Puerto Rico) when working with partner organizations.
Movement Matters staff collaborates closely with host organizations in other cities to identify an audience, tailor our existing curriculum to meet local “on-the-ground” needs, and bring our trainings directly to a host city. We are currently scheduled to conduct a four-day Youth Organizing Institute in Long Island, New York, as well as our Community Organizing Institute in Detroit, Michigan.
Connect with us if you are interested in having Movement Matters come directly to your community.
Applying What We Learn: MM Learning and Action Circles
We heard clearly from our alumni that there is a strong need for anti-oppression spaces for organizers, popular educators, and community leaders to continue building our skills and apply what we learn on an ongoing basis.
In response, we launched Movement Matters' Learning and Action Circles (LACs). We envision these spaces as a shared workshop where each participant can bring their ongoing projects and have the opportunity to cross-pollinate ideas with peers, access resources, get support in planning and implementation, and deepen their own skills. These LACs are also aligned to continue the learning from our Community Organizing & Popular Education Institute and our Advanced Training Series.
In response, we launched Movement Matters' Learning and Action Circles (LACs). We envision these spaces as a shared workshop where each participant can bring their ongoing projects and have the opportunity to cross-pollinate ideas with peers, access resources, get support in planning and implementation, and deepen their own skills. These LACs are also aligned to continue the learning from our Community Organizing & Popular Education Institute and our Advanced Training Series.
To request more information or to request an Organizing Institute in your area, connect with us.
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.