Better-futures - Resource List

A sample of resources for resisting the unsustainable profit-driven systems we've inherited by creating alternative practices that contribute to better-futures.

Rather than an exhaustive list, this list forms part of my more general Recommendations Snapshot by offering a sample of the projects I value, sorted by my interests in:

• amplifying resources that cultivate international impacts
• facilitating cross-pollination in support of multiple local projects
• tools & services developed to support those building better futures
• stories with strategies for sustain hope in future-building efforts

For projects that function at the local scales required to navigate contexts dominated by the social/legal/economic structures of Federal and State Governments of Australia, see Examples of Local Projects for Better Futures

Amplification projects & resource development

• Decolonising Economics
• Australian Community Land Trust Network
• Living Economies Educational Trust - a "voluntary network of educators that work to promote community well-being by promoting sustainable, interest-free means of exchange to strengthen regional economies".
• Post Growth Economics Network - an international group of researchers and practitioners interested in the emerging fields of post-growth and ecological macroeconomics.
• Post Growth Institute - an international organization accelerating the world’s shift to a society that thrives within ecological limits.
• The Leading Change Network Resource Center
• AORTA - the Anti-Oppressive Resources and Training Alliance is a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy.
• Alternative Futures and Regional Prospects Research Network
• IndigenousX, an Indigenous owned and operated media, consultancy, and training organisation.
• Food Not Bombs International- an "all-volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded, and shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment. We are not a charity but dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action. Our movement has no headquarters or positions of leadership and we use the process of consensus to make decisions. We also provide food and supplies to the survivors of natural disasters, and people participating in occupations, strikes, marches and other protests".
• The (Australian) Queer Archives
• Anti-racism Everyday - "a guide for white folks to commit to anti-racism"
• Commons Social Change Library - a project collecting, curating and distributing key lessons and resources developed by progressive movements around Australia and across the globe.
• Crip Lit: Toward An Intersectional Crip Syllabus, compiled by Tovah Leibowitz (2016)
• Decentralised organising resources list - an open-source "mega list of handbooks and toolkits for groups working without top-down management from social movements to workplaces"
• Decolonising Science Reading List by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 2015
• Earth Defenders Toolkit, stewarded by Digital Democracy and co-created with Amazon Frontlines, Forest Peoples Programme, Amazon Conservation Team and Open Development Initiative.
• Map of Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930 - an educational tool.
• Mutual Aid Toolbox! collated by Big Door Brigade
• Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) Collective - builds educational tools, games, and programs to support selected causes - from the causes of small community groups to national nonprofit organisations.
• Our Knowledge Our Way in caring for Country: Indigenous-led approaches to strengthening and sharing our knowledge for land and sea management. Best Practice Guidelines from Australian experiences - Woodward, E., et al., (Eds) 2020
• The Tactic Star - "a tool for planning and evaluating tactics developed by Beyond the Choir"
• Upstream a podcast offering a "mixture of heartfelt stories, expert interviews, and rich sound design, we challenge traditional assumptions and invite our listeners to imagine what a democratic, just, and sustainable economy might look like".
• My non-binary life Podcast
• Organizing Engagement - an online open-access publication dedicated to advancing knowledge, understanding, and practice at the intersection of education organizing, engagement, and equity.
• Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons - a book (or free pdf) that showcases a hundred sharing-related case studies and model policies from more than 80 cities in 35 countries, published in 2018 by Sharable.
• On the Commons - a movement strategy center to foster a commons-based society through supporting collaborative ways of working that help shift societies away from a capitalist market-based system.
• 10 Principles of Disability Justice, by Sins Invalid (2015), also see the PDF version
• Back to Back Theatre - a theatre company, led by people perceived to have intellectual disabilities, with a body of work spanning 30+ years and ongoing projects that cultivate an ongoing dialog about the assumptions we hold about ourselves and others.
• Annual Regenerative Activism Conference
• Movement Generation - Justice & Ecology Project - nurture, strengthen, and build the movement ecosystem of organizations and alliances that are achieving a Just Transition through movement building rooted in the principles of ecological justice.

Cross-pollination projects & coordination efforts

• The Commons Social Change Library
• Friends of the Earth (FoE) - a decentralised federation of autonomous groups, working to protect and/or educate about the natural environment through intersectional approaches to fighting for justice. For example, see Melbourne FoE FoE Australia, and other members of Friends of the Earth International)
• SAGE - supporting grassroots ecosystems by hosting gatherings that help us nourish each other, so that we can nourish our world.
• Beautiful Trouble - a global network of organizers, artists, trainers, and writers who form the community of praxis seeking to equip social movements with an ever-growing suite of strategic tools and training to help grassroots movements be more creative, effective, and irresistible.
• Beyond Return - a network of activists seeking to lift existing movements and forge links where there were none to help drive us toward a better collective future.
  
• Community Exchange Network - a "global network of communities using alternative exchange systems."
• Embassy Network - a community of people from a wide range of locations who "start and support spaces that prototype new approaches to an open, creative society. These spaces are embassies of a future that is abundant, collaborative and transparent"
• Enspiral - a community that emerged to "support more people to spend their lives working to solve the greatest challenges of our time" (New Zealand)
• Extinction Rebellion - "a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency"
• The Post-growth Economics Network (PEN) - a collaboration platform for researchers working on topics around post-growth economics.
• Precious Plastic Community - a "platform to empower people across the planet to start working with plastic waste locally while trying to decentralise and localise plastic recycling technologies, infrastructures and knowledge by providing open-source designs for machines, moulds and consumer products, as well as business models and tools for you to set up and run a workspace."
• RIPESS - connecting new economy and social change organisations and networks around the world RIPESS supports smaller-scale networks, such as NENA, a network of individuals and organisations working to transform Australia’s economic system so that achieving ecological health and social justice are the foundational principles and primary objectives of the economic system
• Sins Invalid - "a disability justice based performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and LGBTQ / gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized"
• The New York City Working Group on Gender and Language
• Transition Network - is a charity set up to work with and alongside a grass-roots movement of independent Transition initiative community groups and Transition Hubs in many countries - including at a national level (e.g., Transition Australia), and at a council-region level (e.g., Transition Darebin).
• Design Justice Network
• Conversation at the Crossroads - a community based in Melbourne with both a local and global mission to connect people from all walks of life committed to advancing the well-being of people and nature through conversation.
• The Post Growth Incubator - an 8-week program for social entrepreneurs who want to apply Post Growth Entrepreneurship to their startups.
• Radical Open Security - a non-Profit computer security consultancy.
• BRAC International - a socially responsible for-profit organisation engaging people in sustainable economic and income-generating activities (such as microfinance services).

Social/Non-Profit Enterprises, Tools, & Services

Services and tools developed to support contributions toward better futures (payment options variable)

• Indigitek, founded in 2015, Indigitek is a not-for-profit organisation led by Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people focused on increasing the participation and success of Indigenous people in the tech industry and continuing a proud tradition of 85,000 years of innovation and entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
• Pathcarvers - Pathcarvers teaches woodcarving as a way to help people with mental and physical health challenges – 'a tool for positive social change',
• Beyond the Choir - provide training, advising, and direct support to a range of movements and organizations to craft resonant messaging, plan strategic campaigns, develop leaders, and mobilize larger bases of support (based in )
• Open Collective a tool designed to help collectives raise and manage their funds transparently.
• The Corrospondent - "an online platform for unbreaking news, committed to collaborative, constructive, ad-free journalism." - archive only as of Jan 2021.
• The Hum - a collective offering practical guidance for self-organising teams in the form of courses and resource-sharing.
• CoBox - a suite of prototypes for open hardware and software that seek to provide accessible governance tools for organisations and networks through a distributed, encrypted, offline-enabled data hosting cloud platform.
• Hologram - aims "to create a positive health epidemic by offering structured experiences of peer to peer care, trust and cooperation that are necessary and possible in times of desperation, when emergencies, economic and social conditions make health unachievable for most people."
• Yarn Bark, provide a range of cultural learning, strengthening and immersive offerings delivered by highly skilled First Nations facilitators (available in a range of locations within so-called Australia).
• Home Ground Realestate - a social enterprise real estate agency: all profits are reinvested back into the community through Launch Housing, to provide life-changing support to disadvantaged Victorians.
• Tender Funerals - a not-for-profit funeral service that offers choice and transparency in delivering personalised, meaningful and affordable funerals in times that can create financial or emotional distress, and community education and empowerment around after death care.
• Advaya - a collective-run platform for 'transformative education that sits at the intersection of ecology, wellbeing, and community' with a consultancy for event-management and resource-curation 'linking inner transformation with outer change, weaving stories of beautiful transformation, resistance and renewal'.
• The Ulex Project - a not-for-profit organisation providing training for activists seeking to build social movement capacity for social justice and ecological integrity, and maintating a residential training centre in Spain as a hub to strengthen connections for pan-European solidarity and social movement resilience.

Sustaining Hope through Stories of Resilience, Survival, and Strategies for Change

• Glimses of Utopia, Jess Scully (2020). Offers examples of people coming together to reshape the world to be fair and more sustainable.
• Films for Action - an online film library curated over 15 years with over 1,000 free documentaries and 4,000 short films (plus over 150 pay-per-view documentaries) spanning 34 topics related to changing the world.
• Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, edited by Ejeris Dixon, Leah Lakshmi, and Piepzna-Samarasinha (2020)
• Frontier War Stories Podcast by Boe Spearim
• Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times by carla bergman and Nick Montgomery (2017). A book that draws together examples of people offering everyday and organized resistance to the status quo - including within youth-led movements, anti-violence education, queer kinship practices, Black liberation, Indigenous resurgence movements, and multiple strands of anarchism - to develop the concept of joyful militancy as a strategy for sustaining collective transformation.
• Hope in the Dark, by Rebecca Solnit (2016)
• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020) - also see,the Revolutionary Left Radio podcast, posted 2021.02.11: The Ministry for the Future: Climate Change, Sci Fi, and our Near Future
• The Curb Cut Effect: How Making Public Spaces Accessible to People With Disabilities Helps Everyone, by Disability Science Review (2016)
• Hope and Activist Burnout, by Holly Hammond (2010)

tags: resource-sets commoning

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Continue to Examples of Local Projects for Better Futures

This resource set is being curated in an on-going process. It is being created on lands of the Wurundjeri people by E. T. Smith (2020) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.