Want to create kick ass activist campaigns that get results? Right this way…
I’m optimistic. I believe that many people are inherently kind-hearted and want to help others but often feel lost as to exactly how, especially when so many of us feel overwhelmed with our own day-to-day lives. This guide distills the absolute basics when it comes to making positive changes through grassroots activism. My aim is to inspire you as much as possible whilst also giving you a practical framework to follow. People are saying good things about it.*
The guide includes:
- Suggestions for thinking up smart, responsible solutions to base your activism around
- Practical guides to raising awareness, forming groups, lobbying decision makers, staging protests, volunteering and working with the media
- Cautionary advice about working with statistics, research, and guidance on finding compelling evidence to back up your goals
- A “When things go wrong” section details some barriers and common criticisms you’ll come across
- Interviews with a handful of successful activists, including Sarah Maple and the Guerrilla Girls
The guide is free to download. I’ve created it on my own so it’s not affiliated to any organisation. If you’d like to make a voluntary donation towards the work please donate it to the following charity who provide emergency healthcare to disadvantaged children in Iraq: Pre-emptive Love.
DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE HERE (right click and hit ‘Save Link As’): Pick Your Battle
*From forthwritten: “It’s written as an introduction but more experienced activists will probably get something out of it too, and is clear, direct and explains issues without over-simplifying them.”
From Dean’s World: “While I’m sure not everyone shares her politics (libertarianish liberalism), I think her practical guidelines are pretty darned good. She writes with an engineer’s logic and sensibility, which is hardly surprising given her background. But with a good sense of humor and reasonable humility too. Good practical non-nonsense stuff is hard to find in this arena.”
Pick Your Battle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (i.e. you can share this freely as long as you attribute the author and don’t make any money from it).
I’m not having any luck downloading the guide. it says ‘Firefox can’t find the server at shreeno.files.wordpress.com.’
Hi, sorry about that. I’m not sure what the problem is as several of my friends downloaded the pdf file with no problems. I will email you a copy.
Thanks!
Absolutely brilliant guide! Thank you so much for producing this and for distributing it for free! There’s loads of original ideas in it that you don’t often come across in your bog-standard guide.
What a lovely bit of feedback! I’m so glad you found it useful.
Hey I am an aspiring activist in Hong Kong fighting against the encroachment of the one party dictatorship of the communist party in China — doing a lot of slacktivism at the moment. but your book has inspired me to do more in a more effective way. hopefully.
activists are human too. Also, the point about finding out the root cause and targeting it is also important too. too many are burnt out reacting emotionally to each outbreak issues and end up being all over the place, and this is certainly not a sustainable way of doing it.
I think you have a very good point there that it has to be a win – win situation. some believes that activism is about sacrificing oneself for the good of others, and this is certainly not the case
dont want to write an essay here. just want to say i really appreciate your work! keep the good work going, and take good care!
Thank you! Yes I think activism should be sustainable – even though it often feels an emotionally-charged activity and so, being led by your emotions and fighting outbreak issues feels natural, it’s really beneficial to take a step back and see if you could be more targeted in your approach. I’m so happy I’ve inspired you! If you have other feedback (suggestions for improvements), I’d love to hear them as I’m working on updating the guide at the moment. Thanks again and take care.