Aspiration brought together some of our brightest and most passionate eAdvocacy allies to lay down the content for the Online Organizer's Almanac, a comprehensive volume about online advocacy, eActivism, and internet-based organizing.
The almanac was written at a 5-day Book Sprint in San Francisco. The authors collaborated both in person and remotely, nonstop from a Monday morning to a Friday evening to create these materials. The content was assembled on the FLOSSManuals.net platform, a collaborative online environment for authoring open documentation and manuals.
Understanding online tools, tactics and technologies is an ongoing learning challenge for all activists and organizers. The Almanac was written for what are lovingly called the "Accidental Online Organizers", those individuals who as a result of happenstance, fate, passion or an advanced ability to type have found themselves tasked with selecting, implementing and/or learning to use online tools to campaign and advocate. The Almanac is an attempt to capture and contextualize the best practices the authors believe in based on our trials and errors, successes and failures. It represents the collected learnings from working both individually and together over many years, exploring how the internet can be effectively and sustainably utilized to support activists and movements in the struggles for social change and social justice.
The authoring team included:
- David Taylor, founder of Radical Designs and Online Director for Rainforest Action Network
- Matt Holland, Director of TrueMajority
- Chris Michael, coordinator with WITNESS
- Arnold Chandler, policy advocate, researcher and technology strategist
- Beka Economopoulos, grassroots field and online organizer
- Kip Williams, Online Campaign Strategist
- Allen Gunn, Executive Director of Aspiration