Welcome to the MoveOn Council Training Hub!
Whether you are brand new or a veteran organizer, everyone has room to grow. These trainings are for MoveOn Council members who want to become better organizers and bring more people into the progressive movement. You can find training resources that will help you build your skills in the four critical parts of the MoveOn organizing cycle: building our base, building our leaders, building our councils, and winning campaigns.
This site is our "online toolbox" -- we can do trainings individually online, as small groups over the phone, and together with other Council members in-person.
Click here to register your council's in-person training in our online registration tool.
To request a phone training or in-person training for your Council, please talk to your Regional Coordinator or Field Organizer, or email: councilorganizer@moveon.org.
After each Training, please fill out this debrief survey, so we can continue to improve these materials!
The basics of organizing
Introduction to Organizing with MoveOn
- Council Network Primer (Word document)
- Intro to the Organizing Cycle (coming soon)
- Core Member Orientation – for new core members (Video - 13 min.)
- Building a new MoveOn StartUp Council (coming soon)
Recruitment How to recruit MoveOn members
Recruitment is critical to organizing. We need to constantly be bringing new people in and giving them an opportunity to take action for progressive change. Phone banking is a critical part of this work.
- Recruitment Guide
- How to use the MoveOn recruitment call tool (Video - 5 min.)
- Basic phone banking (Video - 3 min.)
- Follow up calls after events (Video - 8 min.)
- Planning a Flyering event
- Planning a Door-to-Door Canvass
Media How to reach out to the media
- Media Guide
- Sample script for calling a reporter (coming soon)
- Principles of staying on message (Word document)
- Principles of staying on message (Word document)
- Letter to the Editor Party Guide
- Placing an Opinion Editorial Guide
- Media resources from other progressive organizations:
- Making an Impact through Media (Video from the Center for Progressive Leadership)
- Menu of media tutorials (Spin Project)
- Tips on writing news releases and advisories (PDF from the Spin Project)
- Online tool to for find local news organizations (Progressive Democrats of America)
- Tips on getting news coverage (CODEPINK)
Building the Base, Leaders & Councils
Public Narrative
Each of us has a story that can move others to action. As you learn this skill, you will be learning to tell a compelling story about yourself, the community you organize with, and your strategy that encourages others to join you in creating change. In addition, you will gain practice in listening, and coaching others to tell a good story.
- Story of Self (New Organizing Institute Video - 1 hour)
- Intro to Public Narrative & Story of Self (Word document)
- Story of Us & Now (New Organizing Institute Video - 40 min.)
- Story of Us (Word document)
- Story of Now (Word document)
- Example Stories:
One-to-one's How to connect with other members
One-to-One conversations are the building block of organizing. We do one-to-ones to build relationships, identify people's motivations, goals, ambitions and struggles, while at the same time clarifying our own. Through one-to-ones, we figure out how we can work together to make progressive change.
- One-to-One resource page
- One-to-One basics (Word document)
- One-to-Ones (Video - 12min.)
- Building Relationships (New Organizing Institute Video - 32 min.)
Facilitation How to facilitate an event or meeting
Council Building Planning
Planning is the key to success for our organizing. We need to know our goals and have a road-map to get there!
- Council Building Planning Guide
- Council Building Planning (Video - 14 min.)
- Council Structure (coming soon)
- Building Successful Teams Part 1 (Video - 40 min.)
- Building Successful Teams Part 2 (Video - 30 min.)
Making Leadership Asks How to ask others to step up to take leadership.
- 'Core Group Member Asks' outline
- Making Leadership Asks (Video - 9 min.)
- Identifying Leaders (coming soon)
Building Campaigns
Council Training Events
