Building and exercising our power is an essential part of movement-building. Many attribute social and political change to heroes (think of Rosa Parks or Wangari Maathai) as if they spontaneously stood up to injustice in unexpected moments, or to hashtags that appear out of nowhere to galvanise people. These lone-hero narratives render invisible all the organising and power-building that enabled such leaders to speak truth to power. ‘The Arab Spring’ of the early 2010s, for example, is often attributed to a handful of social media activists and a hashtag, ignoring the many years of organising by trade unions, women’s groups, students and others that preceded that uprising. In the US and beyond, media stories about #MeToo credit Hollywood celebrities for kicking off a movement when, in truth, the more recent mobilisations are built upon decades of workplace organising by women workers, feminists, and allies around the globe.

Building power – the process of generating power within, power to, power with and power for – involves a range of strategies that interlink the individual and the collective, leadership-building and organising, networking and defining shared visions, narratives, and agendas.

Over time, investing in movement infrastructure enables organised, decentralised action at multiple levels by a vast network of connected leaders, activists, groups, institutions, unions, think tanks, media endeavours, people who care, and, in some contexts, political parties.

Building coalitions and connections is not easy because of polarised politics and distrust, and all the different ways that structural discrimination, prejudice, and power over play out between us. How we lead, support, and respect the leadership of others can build trust and effective collaboration. If ignored, the power imbalances inherent in differences (such as lived experience, class, race-ethnicity, gender, and sexuality) create conflict and prevent coming together. Forging authentic and intersectional connections across different organisations and communities, however, can create strong alliances and more powerful agendas.

See more tools, approaches, and ideas about building collective power, organising, and dealing with conflict in We Rise: Building Up and Chapter 17 in A New Weave of Power, People and Politics, pg. 320-324 on conflict.

Organising vs mobilising

People often conflate organising with mobilising.¹⁰ While they are connected, they demand different strategies.

• Organising means bringing people together to find common ground around a shared injustice and problems. Through dialogue (or popular and political education process), they build political relationships and consider solutions that become a specific demand or forward-looking agenda over time. Organising happens in phases. It might start with loose formations but ultimately seeks to widen, multiply, and diversify the people who come together through alliances and networks with a sense of belonging, shared vision, and values that are key to movements. Organising can happen face-to-face or – especially in dangerous contexts – virtually or both. Many activists frame the challenge of organising as “How do we build our base or constituency?”
• Mobilising refers to sets of actions taken to activate and expand supporters through outreach to garner attention and to pressure for change using the power of numbers and virtual as well as face-to-face actions.

Mobilising tends to be short-term and tactical while organising means investing in leadership and skills, including the capacity to mobilise.