The Movement Infrastructure Project
From the website:
The Movement Infrastructure Project is a grassroots initiative aimed at getting organizers and activists the tools and resources that they need to take bold action, build strong organizations and create transformative change.
We’ve got big plans for the months and years ahead, but right now we’re excited to kickoff this project with:
An Equipment Library where movement organizations can borrow or rent sound equipment, staging, projectors, tools, tables, chairs, tents, and all sorts of other gear. Our inventory will be growing but click here to check out what we’ve got in our catalog already!
A Movement Calendar, tracking grassroots actions and events, and major political timelines like the Congressional Calendar, Supreme Court argument and decision days, and national and global events. Check it out to see what’s going on or if you see something we missed fill out this form to add it to the calendar.
A Library of Resources on organizing actions and events in DC including information on permitting across the myriad of Federal and Local jurisdictions in our community, a database of meeting and event spaces in DC, and a “know your rights” document.
A Space for Meetings and Events! We’re partnering with the Petworth United Methodist Church on Grant Circle to create a physical presence for the Movement Infrastructure Project. We’ve got office space, art-build and production space, and we can use the sanctuary and church hall for bigger events like forums, meetings, lectures, and training.
As we go forward we’re hoping to stand up a training program, convene intentional meetings and forums for information sharing and collaboration and create more robust digital tools and shared equipment.
Who We Are:
We are a group of organizers, activists, and artists with decades of experience in the climate, labor, racial justice, housing, health equity, immigration, reproductive freedom, peace, and global justice movements. We have seen how having access to the right tools can help our movements grow, scale and adapt to new challenges and opportunities and we are excited about cultivating a set of tools that our movements can rely on in this political moment.
Right now we’re all volunteers, however we’d love to raise enough resources to pay people for their labor.
Many of us are based in Washington, DC so most of the physical infrastructure we can offer is located in DC (although we can travel for major mobilizations!) but many of the information-based resources we share (training materials, calendars, etc.) can be useful no matter where you’re located.
Provisional Organizing Principles
[As this project rapidly scales up and brings in new voices we will want to engrain everyone’s ideas and insights into our guiding organizing principles, but to help guide our work through this initial phase of the Movement Infrastructure Project we have adopted these provisional organizing principles, in draft form, to guide our work.]
We work across social movement spaces and many of us are inspired by different issues, campaigns and movement traditions, but our collective work is guided by a set of shared values and principles.
We work together to create the world that we want to live in. We are committed to supporting transformative political, social and economic change to build a healthier, more equitable world where all of our communities can thrive.
We do not want to reproduce the same violences we are committed to dismantling, so we are committed to anti-oppressive principles, transformative justice, and supporting sustainable organizing.
We are working together to create and share resources that can unlock the potential of our movements. As we use and share those resources, we all take collective responsibility for stewarding those resources to ensure that they continue to be available for our movements. We appreciate that making change is work, and are committed to honoring and when possible, compensating our own and others’ labor towards our collective goals.
We oppose all forms of repression of dissent and commit to acting in solidarity with the people and organizations facing retaliation and criminalization. We will work together to take appropriate measures to assess risks and keep each other safe. At the same time, we recognize the seriousness of the moments we are meant to meet, and will engage with the urgency these situations require.
We prioritize and center the voices of the people that are most directly impacted by the problems we are working to solve. We recognize that in social movements and in philanthropy resources are too often not distributed equitably and getting resources into the hands of organizers that need them the most is at the heart of what we are trying to do. We are committed to prioritizing the needs of grassroots organizers that too often do not have access to the resources they need to facilitate their work.