Humanity stands at an unprecedented and decisive era in relation to both social and ecological history, and defined by the confluence of these two historical threads.

 

The earth’s ecology is now significantly shifted by human activity. Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor has never been wider. A billion people live in hunger, while industrial expansion erodes our biological heritage. In Canada, as the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, the social safety net is cut away.

 

Progressive minded, fair-minded people, sensitive to human justice and ecological preservation, find themselves faced with this unprecedented dilemma: We now must create social justice within the constraints of a deteriorating earth ecosystem.

 

We must simultaneously achieve social and ecological justice. We must do more with less.

 

A group of people – educators, activists, entre-preneurs, and citizens, who have been working both independently and together for decades – are uniting to re-envision our social and ecological movements.

 

We believe we must face this historical imperative with open minds, clear thinking, and a magnanimous spirit for the entire spectrum of social and ecological challenges before us. We must remain grounded in social and ecological reality and effective in our modern political reality.

 

We believe it is time for a renaissance of genuine movement building.

 

Progressive, active citizens support “sustainability” and “social justice” goals. What are our challenges? What are the real solutions? To answer these questions, we must understand our dilemma.

 

As human society sets out to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice on earth, we face two serious challenges: One, humanity already over-consumes the biological capacity of the planet. In ecology, this is known as “habitat overshoot.”

 

Secondly, about 15 percent of the human community consumes 85 percent of the resources. Still, a tiny elite consolidates evermore power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands. We need to balance the social justice accounts. Clearly corporations and the system they have established cannot go on setting the agenda with disregard to those of us who live here.

 

Ecology, however, teaches us that we need to frame these human aspirations in relation to the biological capacity of the earth, the energy, and resources that support our burgeoning populations and economies.

 

Free-market fundamentalists claim we’ll close this gap, and restore the planet, by growing our economies, perhaps with “green” jobs, but this business-as-usual growth strategy fails to account for ecological reality.

 

According to data compiled by the UN, the Global Footprint Network, and Dr. William Rees at the University of British Columbia, total human consumption already exceeds the earth’s capacity by 30 percent. Most natural services to human societies – forests, fish, minerals, energy, fresh water, and clean air – decline annually, a clear case of bio-logical habitat “overshoot.”

 

So our dilemma begins to become clear: How will we balance human consumption with the earth’s capacity; while sharing that natural bounty more equitably?

 

We know for certain: humans cannot and will not proceed as we have in the past. We are setting out to shape the world that we dream of, a world of ecological balance and social justice, with practical, well-thought-out, serious action plans.

 

 

We believe that genuine solutions exist, but to discover them, and implement them, we must shed the delusion of infinite growth and the inequities of concentrated power.

 

We cannot achieve the necessary results without a fully integrated movement, which accounts for both social justice and ecological balance. We labour now in an age characterized by the ecological human society. Ecology informs us that our social and natural issues are linked.

 

Find others who share our concerns and can add perspective to our understanding and action. Find and fund key conveners, who can assemble people working from specific silos of concern. Our events would seek to attract the same key participants year after year, to establish a continuity of goals and strategies.

 

Develop the ideas and empower the actions that will prove critical and effective at this point in history. 

 

We would like to help develop a research organization that could supply significant data and analysis of issues to our member groups. Our colleague, Rex Weyler, does ecological and economic research for local and international groups (Greenpeace, Save our Rivers, Friends of Bute Inlet) and is working with International researchers (Gund Institute, Hadley Centre, Bill Rees at UBC, One Earth Foundation)

 

We could expand this research capability, integrating ecological and social analysis. A healthy research arm of our plan will help us ensure that we are accounting for current world data – social and ecological – critical to making wise choices. Strong research will ensure that our work is well informed, our optimism is not delusional, and our actions prove relevant

 

We will also integrate our research with groups such as CCPA, Greenpeace, David Suzuki Foundation, and others who are already doing similar work. Together we will expand the knowledge base of our social and ecological movements.

 

Map scenarios for building the next generation of progressive social, ecological movements. We believe that with our collective skills and cross-sectoral meetings and conferences, we can design a curriculum for building progressive movements to make Canada a more just society. As we prove successful, we may be able to help others in the world at the same time. This document is a partial prescription on how to enact just such a curriculum. (See below: “Nuts and Bolts,” regarding specific action plans.)

 

We must deeply understand and integrate the issues we face. We will develop our wisdom and common sense of what is wrong with humanity’s current trajectory, and how to make meaningful, integrated change.

 

We will develop a strong communications capacity for our network, so that we may tell our story, articulate our challenges, inspire movement building, and achieve both justice and genuine sustainability

 

We will link diverse groups across Canada. To achieve this, we are developing a “Silo model networking” system that empowers various social “silos” or interest groups – ecological, labour, education, economic, and so forth – to articulate their key goals, and integrate those goals with other silos of concern and other movements. This network will share skills, knowledge, assets, goals, and actions.

 

We are actively building the capacity of our network with skills-development, training, leadership, fundraising, communications, community mobilization, on-line interface, social media activism, member-ship development and so forth.

 

Our organization will aid in the training and networking of progressive social change organizations and individuals to enhance capacity and effectiveness. We are organizing conferences and workshops to learn and share skills and to network with professionals, consultants, and those with relevant experience in effective social change.

 

 

Training topics may include leadership development, fundraising, communications, community mobilization, on-line and social media activism and membership development.

 

One long-range goal is to establish a model of sustainable living that integrates education, nature, wilderness, movement building, social networking, and practical skills such as food production, and community ecology. (See details below.)

 

design, develop, and launch coordinated, integrated community actions to build the future we want to see. Some actions may be protests, others proactive community development, but the end result of our work is aimed at systemic transformation.

 

We are not doing this work just to talk among ourselves or enrich our organizations. We are here to make change by engaging a broad spectrum of the population who are supportive of the causes we sup-port, but may lack organization or resources. We are doing this to restore the Earth’s health and civic justice.

 

 

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A wide-ranging, integrated social and ecological movement will prove complex. We do not under-estimate the challenges of addressing genuine change.

 

We believe we can make the most of this complexity by supporting core “silos of concern,” within each segment of our movements while simultaneously reminding ourselves to integrate these movements.

 

Here are some of the issues, ideas, and actions that we are addressing and considering:

 

 

We are paying special attention to researching and understanding the critical issues of our time: Ecological overshoot, social injustice, racism, the struggles of trade unions, declining public education, consolidated corporate media, political corruption, militarism, and an unsustainable global system of industrial growth driven by the corporate agenda.

 

integrated change requires that we build our networks into active coalitions. We are already working to blend civic and ecological groups, labour and public education; research, and progressive media.

 

Our plan intends to bring various silos of concern together, to form wider and wider coalitions, and to develop a common sense of what is wrong, how we can improve the effectiveness of the movement, and to articulate a set of shared demands.

Our events will convene people to build collaboration and trust around their silos of concern.

 

In our gatherings, we will bring together various “silos of concern” – climate change, poverty, housing, drug laws, resources economy, and so forth – with the intention of learning and integrating our foci of action.

 

We will ask each silo of concern to outline their key issues and goals, and we will look for ways to integrate and coordinate those goals.

 

We have made tentative reservations at Camp Alexandra in White Rock, British Columbia to convene an initial gathering of various silos of concern. Our intention is to begin identifying the key concerns for and network with special interests of concern to strengthen coalitions around these topics of concern.

 

We can help cross-pollinate the silos of concern, bring together the groups into activist social forum to discover synergies. Common themes and actions could be discussed and planned. Eventually a common front of demands would be organized with a set of demands relating to each of the silos.

 

The primary function of the organization will be to network people together so that their actions will prove effective.

 

Some organizations guard their membership list, but we’ll operate in the opposite way, fully open and eager to make connections among people of good will and common concerns. Added to these networking events, will be instruction on fundraising, communications and strategy to achieving the goal. Push pull electoral strategies will be discussed along with targeted fundraising for swing ridings.

 

We will help link trade unions with progressive media; the labour organizations are in a position to help fund relevant media, and the progressive media are in a position to promote the goals of trade unions.

 

Films & video:

Documentary films and video are historic agents of change. We will help link organizations and issues with filmmakers and documentary film festivals, including California Newsreel, IDERA, Brave New Films, New Day Films, NFB, Cool World, Cinema Politica, World Community Films and Working Films and other organizations working in a similar vein. Smart Docs, our film distribution program, is focused on reaching maximum distribution for important films so their full potential can be realized.

 

Currently there are many films, filmmakers, and festivals in Canada, but these may fall short of the full potential due to their inability to widely distribute such films.

 

We could help by acquiring distribution rights to great documentaries and link to organizations like World Community Film Festival to promote the films to hundreds of cities rather than the few cities they now reach. Much of the work is already being done by World Community in viewing and selecting the films. This work will be augmented by acquiring rights and expanding promotion, and by reaching out to schools and community groups.

 

Our film distribution system will partner with others working in other countries on the same model and we are already making links with those organizations. See Smart Docs explanation on our web site for further details.

 

We will assist in creating shared working spaces that can cut costs and become hubs of collaboration, including common working spaces, equipment, materials and affordable professional services. The Center for Social Innovation in Toronto provides an example. We may take the concept one step farther and purchase a building. One of our financial specialists, Ayaz Virani, has agreed to develop this project, and we are discussing this idea with specific NGOs.

 

Lasting change will include cultural celebration. In a world that promotes conformity, honest creativity and celebration is political because it embodies the spirit of a fully integrated human community.

 

Events like the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and Under the Volcano Festival, Clay and Paper Theatre, Headlines, help make direct links among social movements.

 

We want healthy cultures living with healthy oceans, rivers, forests, and organic diversity.

 

As a network of concerns, we can help each other reach and influence public policy, agenda, and budgets.

 

To achieve this, we will link our concerns with political movements at every level, from community coops to regional and global political affiliations.

 

We can help identify political parties and candidates with genuinely beneficial social-ecological principles, and who can achieve real results.

 

Organization:

We envision a national organization, with linking groups in Vancouver, the prairies, Toronto, Montreal and the Maritimes, and elsewhere. Our network will include NGOs, civil society groups, foundations, trade unions, and membership organization such as the Council of Canadians.

 

Our organization will seek members, like the Council of Canadians, who can support the organization with monthly and annual donations.

 

We believe in working at all levels of complexity and simplicity as required by circumstances. Some projects can be undertaken with only a small amount of seed funding. Others will require significant investment.

 

Significant inspirations that have inspired our organizational plan include the Hollyhock Leadership Institute, Chris Cavanagh, Judy Rebick and the Catalyst Center, Kim Klein and Klein and Roth Consulting, GIFT, Will Horter and Dogwood Initiative, Dorothy Stowe and Quaker Community, Jinny Nicarthy, IDERA, Wilber Force and their approach, TREC, and others. These people and organizations are worth studying for inspiration and organizing ideas.

 

 

As Si Kahn is reputed to have said, “We do not know what effect we will have, we can only work our shift.”

 

While this document covers a wide range of projects which may at first seem impossible to accomplish, we intend to link and work in partnership with thousands of individuals and civil society organiza-tions. Our mission is to bring people together, create community and common ways of seeing to move forward the agenda of systemic transformation. Our mission is not to centrally control but link like-minded people who form their own agenda and work plan in concert with people all across the country of similar concern. This work will be undertaken in building blocks which create foundation and move forward from there in a strategically planned and prioritized work plan. Others may see doing the work in different ways and we encourage the diversity. What follows are some ideas which have come to fore after many years of study. These are not the only ideas that have validity but obvious ones that we intend to undertake over time as our organization’s priorities. These will shift and grow as more people become involved, take up different issues in different ways.

 

It is our belief that the key is coordinating and developing push pull strategies that get politicians to sit up and take notice. Thirty five hundred votes separated the NDP from the Liberals in the last Provincial Election in British Columbia. On the Federal scene the Conservatives rule as if they have a majority, but could easily be toppled if just a few swing ridings did not go their way. The task at hand in our view is building a group of supporters in those swing ridings who are prepared to use their clout to demand change. This cannot be done by one party, but must be done by a whole host of civil society organizations focused on pressuring and reporting on Party positions in those swing ridings and holding those accountable after elections to meet their commitments on our demands. It is only through building long-term relationships in those swing ridings that we will be able to ultimately prevail in enacting those changes we are seeking.

 

 

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Some practical details of our Social / Ecological Movement Building Project

 

We have commissioned a website, where we will post news, images, and links from our supporters. We intend to post short biographies and photos of supporters, with an outline of their contributions, skills, and actions. Our supporters will be expected to go out and find other like-minded people who support building a social movement around their silo of concern. These supporters will be both organizations and individuals. The main focus of discussion will be coordination with others to achieve an agreed on set of objectives. To be practical, those that are interested on stopping tankers on the West Coast will be linked as individuals and with organizations who want to coordinate to-gether on such a campaign. People with a concern with this issue will be able to find each other through our site.

 

We will employ all the powers of the Internet to build our movements and support our members. We will link into and expand the global network of social and ecological activists, integrating skills, knowledge, experience and campaigns. Media and internet activists will be linked with church groups.

 

We may sometimes feel over-whelmed by the consolidation of media and political power, but we still possess the simple and proven means of communicating with people: direct actions, t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, and of course, the internet. Good public communication is about creativity and clarity.

 

We will use these simple, traditional tools of public organizing, which remain available as a means of achieving public awareness and genuine, smart change.

 

A new socialism:  

Society cannot simply be driven by private greed and corporate profits. We must recognize and enhance our reliance on community. Historic socialism suffered from the same industrial growth strategies of capitalism. In the age of ecological limits, we want to build a socially conscious political movement that is also responsive to ecological reality.

 

A key component of our collective work will be to train and educate ourselves and our networks of progressive social change organizations, such that their capacity and effectiveness is substantially enhanced. Training will include leadership development, fundraising, communications, community mobilization, on-line and social media activism, and membership develop-ment.

 

We will stage events for activists from across the country to meet and discuss their common concerns, political and mobilization strategies, economics, and so forth. These events will help build a new vision for an equitable, just and ecologically sustainable society and economy.

 

We will begin with some of our key concerns, including climate change, inequality, human rights, peace, privatization, democracy, media, workers’ rights, housing and poverty.

 

We will attempt to attract the same key participants year after year, so that it is an ongoing dialogue. We will encourage and facilitate smaller events between large formal gatherings. These salons, as we call them, will promote coalitions of people by allowing them free access to one another in order to design collaborative efforts.

 

At the salons, we will provide training sessions between major workshops, where participants can work on specific parts of plans, such as building databases and tracking supporters in key swing ridings and polls.

 

We will take advantage of low cost public facilities such as universities, community centers for in town gathering and places like Camp Alexandra for out of town gatherings. We may use other church and organizational camps for these events.

 

We will attempt to subsidize certain participants that may not be able to attend without support to make events financially accessible to all social activists.

 

Media Workshop:

As one early focus, we will stage media training workshops to help activists learn communications skills and interface with public media. We’ll work with progressive media activist groups such as Agi Pop, Ruckus Society, Yes Men and Adbusters.

 

The electoral system in Canada and in many western democracies is clearly set up to prevent change. If these structural blockages are not removed, people will eventually be cowed, forced to live under effective dictatorship, or seek change by other means.

 

For many citizens, our current political system no longer makes much sense. Clearly 52% of the citizens of British Columbia saw no reason to vote in the last election. We are seeking truer forms of democracy where minorities are represented on a proportional basis. Furthermore, the unfair advantages given to the powerful under our current system will be revoked.

 

Our organization will foster discussions of critical social issues, corporate control, colonialism, poverty, resources, political parties, and what is wrong or right with them. We would discuss how people attain political power and create change. We will foster debate about economic systems and a common understanding about a way forward for the future. The discussion among the silos of concern will be a process of community visioning about our shared future.

 

We can poll parties on our concerns, monitor and publicize their actions, issue report card reports to voters, and identify political alternatives for those unhappy with the limited choice among traditional power bases.

 

Report cards on politicians and parties will track performances and identify key political choices. We will focus our efforts in swing ridings where the current rulers are most vulnerable. We will encourage civil society organizations to go out of their way to form relationships in those riding. Ken Wu, in Victoria and the Ancient Forest Alliance, along with others are already working on this strategy. They will be asked to teach others the how and why’s of how they are proceeding.

 

We will help communities develop their political power through neighbourhood events. We can invite people to social gatherings, pot luck dinners and film showings in critical neighborhoods and swing ridings.

 

We can do this work all year long, between elections when people are not so cynical and are more prepared to listen to serious solutions and be influenced by people they begin to know and trust.

 

Our linked social and ecological movements can help make common political action tools available, such as fundraising strategies, web platforms, social networking tools, data bases, and a system of dialogue about what works and what doesn’t as presented by those practicing in the field. Jacob Hunter and Dan Grice of WhyProhibition.ca and many others are already doing this work and are prepared to share what they have built at great expense.

 

We can employ classic push and pull strategies of organizing and creating change within the current political framework. It is said that 3500 votes determined the outcome of the last election in British Columbia. We can investigate and discuss with NGOs and political parties how to change or influence the votes of those 3500 key voters if the Party that lost would sign on to a specific coalition’s set of demands. We could identify key voters both federally and provincially by building relationships with them and educating them around particular concerns.

 

Fundraising and movement building are inexorably linked. The obtaining of funds from the general public is key to building movements. We can help organizations awaken to understand this link to achieve results within NGOs which operate in their silos of concern. Groups will learn how to build support within communities on a person-to-person basis.

 

There are two pieces to this development. One is a set of technical skills. The other piece is a set of sales skills which revolve around relationship building. These skills have been clearly identified by a few NGOs who have been able to marshal resources to build strong independent organizations. Those that clearly stand out include Greenpeace, Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Council of Canadians. Greenpeace and the Council rely on individual donors who are not issued tax receipts and they are two of the most effective organizations in the country. Since charitable status organizations are not allowed to engage in political lobbying, they experience a terrible catch 22: They are not allowed to do the real work that they set out to achieve. We will work with groups to avoid this trap.

 

The effectiveness of various silos of concern could be greatly increased by focusing on specific aspects of targeted fundraising and relationship building. These concepts have been clearly defined and outlined by the work of Kim Klein and other sophisticated financial planners who practice this type of relationship building in their business lives.

 

Many labour leaders have commented that if the media were not so controlled by corporate interests the attitudes of all in our society would be different. The truth of that statement is self evident, yet few trade unions actively promote diverse sources of information to their members.

 

For example, a quick survey suggests that most trade unions do not have the email addresses of more than 20% of their members. A movement building group could help bring these organizations up to date, showing them how to use the modern tools available to communicate with their own members and with the larger public.

 

Most alternative, online media sources struggle to find donors to allow them to grow. Trade union members are a logical source for such support. This project could help link trade unions with alternative media.

 

Trade union websites could easily provide links to relevant news sources such as the Tyee, The Dominion, Rabble, Real News, Democracy Now, Huffington Post, Alternet, Coop Radio, and so forth. Alternative news could reach a new audience of millions of trade unionists. We wonder how many trade unionists have said, if only the media were different. Yet, at the same time, activists are working hard with little or no pay to produce that alternative information. If unions at least made these sites available to trade union members and gave them an RSS feed of interesting stories once a week, a logical audience would reach back to the publications and support them. These organizations are currently grossly under-funded and are perpetually striving to seek a wider market. Logically, if trade unions were told about the sites, some would donate funds directly; and one key problem of how to fund them would be closer to a solution.

 

We could help labour organizations by being web services software and content providers. We intend to develop a feed of news which covers labour issues, community events, music and cultural events, and other ways of bringing progressive activists together. Rabble.ca is already providing a similar service but has little direct reach to trade unions.

 

Most trade unions have always wanted better media and alternative media. In fact, easy sources have recently come into existence. Rabble.ca, The Dominion, Tyee, Real News are all now out there and offer a non-corporate view of the world and provide a much truer non-corporate education of members if they were only promoted to members. Our network could help link the labour organizations with new media.

 

Listings could be gleaned and relisted from local sources and compiled by volunteer editors similar to how Rabble.ca now functions. The web service platform would be sold to the union and maintained by the content provider. Content would be managed by a combination of the union and the volunteer editors. It would likely contain a discussion board for local events in the community and the union itself.

 

Eventually, if the silos of concern want to make progress they are going to have to appeal to political parties or politicians who actually have the power of budget and agenda. Where political parties can be identified that support the silos demands, they will be supported. The push pull initiatives will allow us to monitor and publicize political practices of parties.

 

Education system:

We will seek students and progressive educators who can help lead movements for genuine change. There are many projects and pieces of projects in which students can assist, learn skills, network with active change agents, and practice their particular expertise in a real world process. Often students have led movements for change and we suspect that will be the case here.

 

We can also use educational institutions to garner available funding and use the public space they can provide.

 

 

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Funding genuine change:

We will secure our movements by securing resources and developing financial skills: funding, accounting, and reporting. We will help social movements understand and manage money, raise money, account for money, and develop financial resources.

 

Significant Funding:

The Ruth and Henry Goodman fund has committed $225,000 dollars for an initial three-year budget. We are currently looking for other major partners to support the organization or to organize particular pieces of a coordinated strategy.

 

We are proceeding, based on initial funding, and not waiting for other partners prior to starting the project. Over the past 12 months we have actively recruited a number of key individuals who are committed to assisting in large and small ways to take on pieces of the overall plan. As an initial goal, we hope to find 500 to 1,000 partners in each region of the country who are prepared to contribute approximately $300 dollars per year to support an organization dedicated to the goal of building activist social move-ments.

 

 

We may be able to help foster an awaking by organizations that, in order to achieve their goals, they need to build support within communities on a person-to-person basis, linking individual donations to the work of important organizations.

 

Organizations such as Greenpeace and Council of Canadians clearly stand out in this regard. Both rely on individual donors who do not get tax receipts, yet these organizations are two of the most effective in Canada, and in the case of Greenpeace, worldwide. The effectiveness of the silos could be greatly increased by focusing on specific aspects of targeted fundraising and relationship building and educating the general public as to why tax receipted charities and their goals run at cross purposes.

 

Some of the concepts we have outlined here have been taken directly from the work of Kim Klein and others, including sophisti-cated financial planners who practice this type of relationship building in their business lives. Since charitable status organizations are not allowed to engage in political lobbying, there experience a terrible catch 22. If you want to make change, clearly you have to be working politically.

 

The financial demands of NGOs are similar to any business. It takes money to make change. We can help organizations convert their brand power to revenue. Organizations that are sufficiently developed could qualify for loans specifically ear-marked for fundraising. These funds could be offered at a reasonable interest rate, secured by the organizations, and paid back over time by using the loan capital to create revenue streams generated from smart fundraising.

 

Public Outreach, for example, claims they can accurately predict the return that groups can get from the application of capital to fundraising projects. Others fundraising advisors, such as Harvey McKinnon, Bob Penner and Mal Warwick, perform a similar service with direct mail campaigns.

 

Our intention is to build a loan fund which is pooled from philanthropic organizations and progressive entrepreneurs. Borrowing organ-izations would use funds to build their own donor base. The fund currently has available $100,000, ready to be lent to organizations with developed fundraising strategies.

 

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If this document makes sense to you, then come and join us. There is no time like the present to make a start.

 

Visit us at www.smartchange.ca

 

 

 

 

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For further information, contact:

 

Smart Change Director and

Ruth and Henry Goodman Fund Director

Michael Goodman, (604) 526-2548

director@smartchange.ca

 

www.smartchange.ca

 

 

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May 5, 2010