PARTNER
RESOURCES
Security & Safety
The Get In Formation Training Series (G.I.F.T.S.) from Vision Change Win is a security and safety-focused training, with multiple levels of content for individuals and organizations to progress through.
Visit their website to register online.
The Bridging Divides Initiative’s Community Safety Directory lists de-escalation trainings available from organizations across the country.
Visit their interactive map to learn more.
Nonviolent Action
Beautiful Trouble: Training offers trainings on a variety of topics, including Strategic Campaign Design, Creative Tactics, and Nonviolent Street Smarts. Their BATMo (Beautiful Action Training Modules) is a toolkit that assists trainers in facilitating workshops about collective action.
Fill out their inquiry form or visit their website to learn more.
On Earth Peace (OEP) is an independent nonprofit organization and a recognized agency of the Church of the Brethren. OEP offers programs grounded in Kingian Nonviolence.
Visit their website to learn more.
Narrative and storytelling
Over Zero was founded in response to the global need to counteract and prevent identity-based violence and other forms of group-targeted harm.
Resources such as media guides are available on their website.
Rising Organizers offers public and private, tailored trainings to groups and individuals interested in developing their organizing skills.
Visit their website or reach out to info@risingorganizers.org.
Organizing
Training for Change offers regular public trainings covering a variety of organizing skills, including a three-hour Campaign Strategy 101 workshop focused on community organizing.
Apply on their website or reach out to info@trainingforchange.org.
The Organizing Center offers organizing workshops and resources, including 1:1 support during office hours where you can speak with an expert about specific questions.
Register on their website or reach out to info@theorganizingcenter.org.
People’s Action offers options ranging from information sessions and 101 overviews to weeklong leadership trainings.
Sign up on their website.
Rural Organizing Project is a state-wide organization that supports a multi-issue, rural-centered, grassroots base in Oregon. We work to build and support a shared standard of human dignity: the belief in the equal worth of all communities, the need for equal access to justice and the right to self-determination.
Find resources and virtual gatherings on their website.
Women’s March mobilizes the power of feminists to promote feminist economies, reimagine democracy, and end white supremacy.
Find initiatives and actions on their website.
RuralOrganizing.org is a national network of civic leaders, organizers, and activists fighting for our hometowns based out of Columbus, Ohio
Find more resources on their website or reach out via their contact form.
Understanding the Moment
The 22nd Century Initiative works toward a people-powered multi-racial democracy in this century and the next by advancing strategic alignment that brings together frontline organizations, national pro-democracy groups, training resources, think tanks, and advocacy organizations.
Horizons Project has a deep commitment to systems-level organizing with the existing ecosystem of social change: i.e., all those working for change with different priorities and from different vantage points across the ideological spectrum.
Find resources on their website.
Political Research Associates (PRA) is a social justice research and strategy center devoted to supporting organizations, civic leaders, journalists, and social sectors that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society.
Visit their website to find research, strategy, podcasts, magazine, and more.
Let us know How can we help
Use this form to tell us a little bit about what kind of training and support you need
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
The goal backfire is to turn political violence into a turning point for freedom, dignity, and justice.
When the actions of those who enable, incite, and enact political violence actions are counterproductive for them,
their actions can be said to backfire.
The costs imposed on perpetrators can take two forms:
Direct losses—including a loss of political support, a loss of social standing, economic losses, and in some cases being held legally accountable.
Increasing support, power, and mobilization for campaigns for freedom, dignity, and justice.
5 PRINCIPLES
Making Political Violence Backfire
In order for injustice to backfire, it must be revealed.
Revealing can happen through research and other forms of evidence gathering, or through detailed interviews with people who have suffered abuse.
Sometimes revealing means creating conditions so that cover-up of a potential abuse is more difficult, such as when activists all carry cameras and plan ahead for sustained documentation of public actions.
The evidence of injustice must be presented in a way that seems credible and that actually gets distributed.
Counter devaluation by humanizing (redeeming) those who have been abused; this reduces the social distance between them and the broader audience.
Provide context and details about the targets’ lives
Elevate their positive values and actions
Have others (especially those in roles that the audience trusts and respects) speak up on their behalf
Anticipate devaluation by conducting advance training and adopting a code of conduct for political activities that inoculates targeted individuals from being provoked by perpetrators
Counter perpetrators’ attempts to reinterpret incidents of injustice by reframing them as unjust.
Document the impact of and damage from the abuse to help neutralize the perpetrators’ narratives
Communicate why the abuse was not justified and why it violates laws or widely held values
Communicate who should be held accountable for the abuse (for example, reframing abuse from an individual problem to a systemic problem)
Remember that while an injustice may seem obvious to activists, it should never be assumed that it is obvious to other audiences
When perpetrators try to divert action into official channels, redirect public outrage toward mobilization.
Remember that public or independent investigations tend to work slowly, focus on technical procedures, rely on experts, and give the appearance that justice will be done. This can result in decreased public mobilization, making inquiries less aggressive in pursuing the truth.
Backfire options include:
supporting the process
criticizing the process
making demands of the process
launching a parallel process
using the institutional process as a campaigning tactic
Resist threats and attempts to reward silence about injustice, turning these into catalysts for more backfire.
Attempts to inhibit public concern by threatening, bribing, intimidating, or otherwise co-opting those who speak out or organize against injustice may extend beyond targeted activists—sometimes perpetrators may further try to silence activists’ family, friends, and colleagues.
Anticipating intimidation and rewards, activists can warn their friends, families, and colleagues of such efforts, prepare to document these efforts, and develop strategies to make them backfire if or when they happen.
Being public about the fact that a group is prepared for threats may actually have a deterrent effect on perpetrators, making them aware ahead of time that such tactics will be used against them in “the court of public opinion,” and possibly also even a court of law.