Strengthening Networks is the second of four online case examples we created to support and inspire organizers, advocates, and community leaders during Covid19.

​Engaging new members of loose networks and building relationships of trust and action with them and among them are key to creating a long lasting, active constituency; one that shares values, a vision for change, and the energy and focus to lead in making that change.

​We welcome questions, thoughts, and dialogue on these tools, including how to apply them to your particular initiative/campaign.  Connect with us!
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As we continue to work closely with campaigns and other organizing projects during Covid19 we have been advising groups and organizers on how to adapt cultural organizing and deep constituency building to current physical distancing requirements—ensuring that the voices and leadership of community members are at the forefront of demands, actions, and solutions.

We developed our newest online tool to support and inspire groups during a critical time; to animate ideas that lean on creativity and perseverance so we can continue building  constituency and grassroots power to make change. Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Petition Drop is the first of 4 case examples we will be sharing over the next month.

We welcome questions, thoughts, and dialogue on these tools, including how to apply them to your particular initiative/campaign.  Connect with us!
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Colleague - comrade - compx:

:  We stand with those who are protesting.
:  We stand with those who can’t join the protests but want to.
:  We stand with organizers.
:  We stand with our Black families and communities.

We stand steadfast in our belief in and support of actions and expressions of rage and grief. We stand steadfast in our belief in and support of long term organizing and building institutions led by those most impacted by oppression and injustice. We stand steadfast in our belief in and support of movement building that envisions and enacts new ways of being and new ways of challenging anti-Blackness and white supremacist culture at an individual and organizational level. These beliefs are more critical in this moment than they have ever been; when the weapons of the state are being used to murder and silence Black lives, when Indigenous lives are destroyed for oil and profit, when immigrants are kept in cages, when Black trans women and men are brutally killed, when Asian-Americans are attacked and scapegoated for the Corona virus. The direction of our work has not changed, it has just become more urgent.

Increased unemployment assistance is no longer the goal, universal basic income is. Rent remediation is no longer the goal, cancelling the rent is. Police accountability is no longer the goal, police abolition is. Let’s find deeper ways to engage with each other, with our communities, and with our work. Let’s find ways to transform these moments of protest and consciousness into long term capacity to organize for audacious demands. To meet the moment, our campaigns need to shift from short term, small incremental change to bold structural transformation.

We love each of you who have been part of our network, of our community, of our home. We are with you to grieve, to rage, to strategize, and to build. You carry us forward as we find our way to be of most use at this time. Continue to be with us. Since Covid 19 we have been experimenting with different ways to hold space where appropriate, and to support others where we can. Join us when it feels right and possible. Call on us when you need to. Challenge us to do more/better when we need to.

Keep fighting. Keep struggling. Keep feeling. Keep taking care of yourselves. We see you.

~ Movement Matters
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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 in 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.

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.

Movement Matters is convening six local organizing groups and their community leaders to investigate key players in local DC politics; research who influences these decision-makers, how they wield this influence, and its impact on efforts to create change. ​

In our engagement with local organizers over the last year, two key themes emerged: 
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For more information on our Participatory Action Research (PAR) projects,
​visit our Research and Reports webpage or connect with us.​

Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.
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​Movement Matters is pleased to announce our latest report, Building Youth Voice for Youth Power in the DMV: Lessons from the Field.
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​Building Youth Voice for Youth Power in the DMV: Lessons from the Field informs the growth of youth voice and youth power work in the region and also has lessons for the field that extend beyond the DMV. The report offers a framework for youth work that helps clarify the distinction between approaches while also identifying how these approaches can be networked together as an ecosystem to support the development of youth power.

We thank the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation for their ongoing efforts to change the way philanthropy is supporting work on the ground and for commissioning this report.

We sincerely appreciate the time, trust, and recommendations provided by the groups we interviewed as well as their commitment to youth work in the DMV.

With the support of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Movement Matters will also be leading action-oriented conversations (Autumn 2019) around strengthening and deepening youth voice, youth work, and youth power in northern Virginia and regionally.

We heard clearly from our alumni that there is a strong need for anti-oppression spaces for organizers, popular educators, and community leaders in the DC region to continue building our skills and apply what we learn on an ongoing basis. ​

The lack of staffing capacity at our change organizations often leaves us overwhelmed and barely able to keep up with immediate demands in front of us, with no ability to reflect and improve upon our work. That is simply unsustainable, especially now. 

​​​In response, we launched the 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. The sessions are grounded in Movement Matters’ Organizing Framework of: Relationship, Constituency, and Power Building. The LAC’s cement organizers’ capacities and skills in these areas and continue the learning from our Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute and Advanced Training Series.

​All Learning and Action Circles (LACs) are free of charge and only open to our training or technical assistance alumni. The LACs take place the second Tuesday of every month from 10AM - 12PM.  

To the best of our abilities, we provide our alumni with tailored support including  preparing for these sessions so that they can get the most out of our time together, and apply the learning thoughtfully and successfully to their work.

For more information or to register, visit:
Advanced Training Series.
We look forward to building with you!
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Base-building is a crucial foundation of community organizing and one of the most challenging areas of growth currently faced by groups throughout the DMV region. Changing demographics in the Washington, DC area have meant that a privileged, politically savvy population is advancing policies, practices, and priorities that devalue the experiences and contributions of long-time low-income communities of color. The region’s growth and prosperity are touted while Black and Brown neighborhoods are destroyed, new development pushes communities to the fringes, racial wealth and income gaps increase, and institutions critical to the culture and survival of low-income communities are undermined. 

In the face of these dynamics, our organizations and communities will be powerless without a cohesive and well-developed base that shares a rooted analysis and has built the trust and discipline to react as a united group. Well-designed, consistent gathering places, and the reflective and skilled facilitation of them, are irreplaceable steps in developing this type of constituency. However, these essential skills are often overlooked as expendable “soft” components of organizing. 

Far from being a luxury, effective meetings and skilled facilitation are vital in building a sense of common identity and cohesion necessary to transform a group of individuals into a constituency that can envision change and take the necessary risks to attain it. These ensuing ‘relationships of action’ drive movement-based organizing work.

Movement Matters grounds our Advanced Facilitation Training in this constituency building context, lodged within our own community organizing framework. In October 2018, we brought together 24 participants representing 12 regional organizations to connect the theoretical role that facilitation and meetings play as the “spine” of the organizing process with practical skills to create more dynamic meetings. 
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​We engaged in activities that increased participants’ abilities to utilize physical movement and graphics in their facilitation, reframe and redirect comments to deepen participants’ engagement with a theme, and incorporate activities that create strong relationships of action among members.  

Movement Matters staff modeled these tools and approaches to facilitation throughout the training, allowing participants to experience the process and its impact as they honed their own skills.

We are already actively working with several participating organizations to incorporate the skills and approaches from the training into their organizing work. For example, Movement Matters is helping the tenant organizing team at LEDC build a structure for their city-wide multi-lingual, multi-racial tenant leadership group that is based in liberatory approaches to group learning and identity. We are also helping to strengthen the organizers’ utilization of graphic facilitation and meeting design to move away from a lecture style of training and group building. This tenant leadership group is also leading the development of DC's first tenant union, which will launch the Summer of 2019. We are engaged in similar conversations and practice with several other local groups to help them tweak and/or revamp their constituency building practice through enhanced meeting design and facilitation.

As we reflect on this training, we are envisioning ways to strengthen and expand the content. We expect to repeat this curriculum on a regular basis with organizers from the DC area and other regions throughout the country.