Momentum Community — The Momentum Manual
Summary
Momentum Community is a US training organization born from the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaigns. Its Momentum Manual adapts Ganz and Alinsky for 21st-century movement work, integrating structural organizing with mass protest and electoral action. The Manual grounds a contemporary momentum-model for movement work.
Body
Momentum is a US-based training and support organisation that works with movement organisers on shifting public opinion, developing hundreds of leaders, and mobilising by the thousands [source: momentum-community]. Momentum is committed to both strengthening existing groups and incubating new movement organisations, and brings organisers together to learn new skills and share hard-fought lessons - the cohort model is core to its pedagogy [source: momentum-community]. Previous participants come from organisations doing some of the most important movement-building in the US, which is the basis for the network’s claim that its trainings represent the field’s practitioner-validated playbook rather than an academic curriculum [source: momentum-community].
Coverage: Momentum’s offerings include cohort-based trainings, customised organisational support, and convenings that bring together movement leaders to address shared practice questions [source: momentum-community]. The organisation treats its curriculum as iterative - the playbook evolves through alumni feedback and ongoing field testing - and is one of the more visible incubator programmes on the US progressive-movement scene [source: momentum-community].
A campaigner reaches for Momentum when applying to a US movement-organising training cohort, when sourcing a US-style campaign curriculum, or when designing a new-movement-organisation incubation programme [source: momentum-community]. Treat as link-only; the training calendar and alumni materials are the working reference. [source: momentum-community]
Use it for
Designing a hybrid organizing+protest strategy for US progressive campaigns; aligning tactics with the broader theory of change; training staff and volunteers in the Momentum tradition.
Related
- affinity-groups
- campaigns-vs-movements
- citizen-lobbying
- civil-resistance
- coalition-building
- constructive-programme
- distributed-organizing
- framing-and-narrative
- incidencia-politica
- leadership-development
- one-to-ones
- pillars-of-support
- power-mapping
- public-narrative
- spectrum-of-allies
- the-campaign-cycle
- the-tactic-star
- theory-of-change
- three-and-a-half-percent-rule