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on building movements: what we see, what we hear.


2025 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute

10/1/2024

 

Community Organizing & Popular Education Institute

Monday, January 27th - Friday, January 31st, 2025
In person. Washington, DC.
Pre-Institute 2.5 hr Virtual LAC: Thursday, January 9th
Post-Institute 2.5 hr Virtual LAC: Thursday, February 27th

To apply visit: Organizing Institute
The application process is now open for our weeklong, in-person Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute. ​​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. 
“The art, healing and emotional processing in this Organizing Institute was life-giving. This on top of all the concrete skills, tactics and activities I'm taking back. I believe the relationships we built among organizers will make all of our base building and campaign work stronger and more joyful.​”
There will be additional 2.5 hour virtual pre-Institute and post-Institute Learning and Action Circles (LACs) to ensure the learning and integration of the materials. MM's training approach is also grounded in somatics, expressive arts, story-sharing, and ritual practices that engage participants' bodies and minds so that they can more fully experience the training content.
To apply visit: Organizing Institutes
35 training hours total. Limit 28 participants.

​For more information on our 2025 Organizing Institute or to bring an Organizing Institute to your city or region, connect with us.
​
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally and with national and international partners.

​​

2023 Movement Matters Organizing Institute

12/19/2022

 

Community Organizing & Popular Education Institute

Monday, May 1st - Friday, May 5th, 2023
Pre-Institute Virtual LAC: Thursday, April 13th, 2023
Post-Institute Virtual LAC: Thursday, May 25th, 2023

To apply visit: Organizing Institutes
The application process is now open for our weeklong, in-person Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute. ​​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. 
“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.”
There will be additional 2.5 hour virtual pre-Institute and post-Institute Learning and Action Circles (LACs) to ensure the learning and integration of the materials. MM's training approach is also grounded in somatics, expressive arts, story-sharing, and ritual practices that engage participants' bodies and minds so that they can more fully experience the training content.
To apply visit: Organizing Institutes
This weeklong, in-person training will take place in Washington, DC.
Space is limited.
​
​For more information on our 2023 Organizing Institute or to bring an Organizing Institute to your city or region, connect with us.
​
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally and with national and international partners.


2022 Community Organizing & Popular Education Institute: Embodying Social Justice

5/11/2022

 
After a year off and many delays due to COVID 19, we held our annual in-person Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute (OI) this May. We also engaged this year’s cohort in three virtual Learning and Action Circles (LACs) before the Institute and one LAC after.

Twenty-four participants representing ten groups and campaigns across the DC Metro region gathered  for 5 days of learning, cross-pollination, somatics, art creation, theater, visioning, planning and trust building.

The MM team revamped our OI curriculum this year, more deeply incorporating expressive arts, culture, and somatics into our organizing approach. In addition to a greater connection with the materials, these changes fostered a profound sense of connection and community within the group.
“The art, healing and emotional processing in this Organizing Institute was life-giving. This on top of all the concrete skills, tactics and activities I’m taking back. I believe the relationships we built among organizers will make all of our base building and campaign work stronger and more joyful.”
We greatly appreciate the contributions of many institutional and individual supporters of the 2022 OI, including the DC Eaton Workshop.

The 2023 Organizing Institute will open again to organizers and groups around the US. We deeply appreciate everyone's enthusiasm and trust as we slowly return to in-person sessions. 
For more information on our Organizing Institutes or to bring an Organizing Institute to your organization or city, connect with us.

​Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally and with national and international partners.


​

MM Immigrant Youth Organizing Institute: The Fierce Urgency of Now.

3/11/2020

 
This past Summer 2019, Movement Matters created and facilitated a weeklong Community Organizing Institute for Latinx immigrant youth in the DC area. Training youth is different than training staff organizers. It engages us differently, challenges us, offers new perspectives on our work, and keeps us on our toes. Flexibility and responsiveness became key parts of the week.

The Youth Organizing Institute allowed us the opportunity to deepen our use of arts and theater/movement based activities to engage young people in deep reflection on the issues they face in their schools, jobs, and community. We explored power dynamics and how they are used to reinforce the status quo. We grappled with the role of race in creating divisions among youth, as well as common experiences that could be built upon. In each of these discussions, we integrated the need for structural change. And in order to create this change, the need for a strong youth voice, for cohesive relationships, for bold action, for organizing.

There is much work that is still to be done. The deep conversations throughout the week meant we spent less time than we anticipated on some of the core organizing skills we hoped to cover. We touched on the need for relationship building, but didn’t get to practice some of the essentials of outreach and one-on-ones. We talked about the need to challenge power, but only touched on the tools for conducting target analysis and building strategic campaigns. These became the guideposts for our current work, not just in trainings with Movement Matters, but in our ongoing engagement with the organizations that brought youth to the Institute.
 
These organizations included CASA de Maryland, the Latino Youth Leadership Council, and Many Languages One Voice. It was truly exciting to bring youth from various organizations across the region together to ground themselves in a common experience, build relationships of action, and begin to envision a broader immigrant youth movement in the DMV—​especially at this urgent moment.  Through our ongoing work with these groups, and our partnership with the Meyer Foundation to expand the number of organizations focusing on youth voice and power, we are excited to continue to build knowledge and commitment to youth organizing.  We plan to build on this process and expand the circle of organizations and young people learning and creating change together.
​
​​Movement Matters is currently scheduled to conduct a 4-day Youth Organizing Institute in Long Island, New York this April 2020.
" My experience at the Movement Matters Youth Organizing Institute was transformational and completely eye opening. I am a person that likes to see things form 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.
​For more information, visit our Organizing Institutes webpage or connect with us.
​

Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally and with national and international partners.

​
​

2020 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute

11/13/2019

 
Registration is now open for our 2020 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute.

Five days of deep immersion into the mechanics and heart of relationship building, constituency building, and power building for change and equity.

​For more information or to register, visit: 
​2020 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute. 
We look forward to learning and building with you!​

​Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally and with national and international partners.

​

2019 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute

11/28/2018

 
Picture

Registration is now open for Movement Matters' 2019 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute.

Five days of deep immersion into the mechanics and heart of relationship building, constituency building, and power building for change and equity.
​
For more information or to register, visit: 
​2019 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute. 
We look forward to learning and building with you!
​

Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally and with national and international partners.



​

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  • Home
  • Our Work
    • Technical Assistance
    • Organizing Institute
    • Advanced Training Series
    • Learning and Action Circles
    • Action Coalitions
    • Action Research and Reports
    • Board Development and Training
    • Funder Training and Technical Assistance
  • Our Approach
  • Our Blog
  • Our Team