Wild News

Experimenting with what it looks like to develop deeper organizing capacity across a large (200k+ member) California labor union, on May 6th -9th, Jake Waxman coordinated a training team with Nneka Akubeze, Dan Grandone, and others from across the country to train 42 SEIU 2015 staff. The goal? Building power to achieve dignity for both workers and patients in long term care. The next stage of this journey is for these staff to recruit 125-150 member leaders from across the state to return in July for a training to launch district leadership teams capable of impacting this year’s elections to [...]

Former Wild Alum and Senior Director of Organizing for Dream.Org, Sean Wilson, recently invited the Wild team into a pilot project partnering with the National Basketball Association to launch the first Justice Next Cohort of 18-24 year old system impacted youth in Sacramento, California. The program aims to empower young adults to emerge as influential leaders within their communities concentrating on areas such as criminal justice reform, workforce development, and climate equity. Over 5-days in April we trained the facilitation team and then the cohort of 20 youth leaders who will be coached over the coming months as they [...]

I had the distinct honor of joining the Leading Change Network, in partnership with ActionAid International in leading a workshop, alongside two incredible Black woman trainers from Sweden and the UK and an incredible director of training and development at our host site MS TCDC, in Arusha, Tanzania. Together, we trained 15 ActionAid Country Directors and support staff from 15 different countries, ranging from across the continent of Africa to Haiti, Spain, Nepal, Myanmar, and Palestine. The workshop was titled “Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading Organization”, a unique blend of Public Narrative and foundational practices in building relationships [...]

Reporting fresh off a coffee shop tour reconnecting with organizers exploring opportunities to dial-up our efforts, locally and nationally, on the road up to the 2024 election and beyond. Wanted to share both the challenges and opportunities that surfaced—while inviting you to join us for what’s ahead! Wondering if these challenges resonate? A loss of organizing culture amplified during the pandemic and ongoing disappointment of not being heard by our politicians *many we’ve elected! A frustrating pattern of playing defense stuck blocking the harmful bills coming through our legislature vs. having a vision of alignment and what we’re fighting [...]

Whew! What a time in Florida, y'all! I'm just getting back from an incredible organizing workshop with 46 young folks aged 16-22 who converged at the Hope CommUnity Center (HCC) from central and south Florida. And this was just the precursor! These inspiring young leaders learned organizing just that weekend with a plan to coach their peers the following weekend where nearly 220 people gathered to ignite a movement! As you walk into the HopeCommUnity Center, you see a beautiful mural which represents the history and community. Once you pass the front desk, you are greeted with at least [...]

Recently, I had an insightful conversation with a fellow organizer who said, “I think we need to re-establish a culture of organizing in our state”. Still recovering from the pandemic and so often stuck playing the game of coming up with a bunch of surface-level tactics to simply meet the metrics of our funders, with little to show for it in the building of organization. That resonate? These snapshots of where people are leading by example in the “doing of it” need to be shared in light of what feels like an absence of deeper organizing happening in Wisconsin [...]

Wild Fam, We're still feeling the fire after returning from Detroit, MI where we held Wild’s first Youth Empowerment Project Winter Summit with 70 emerging leaders from 16 states centering organizing at the heart of it. Participants recruited in teams developed organizing campaigns back home impacting youth including: access to affordable housing, transportation and food security, workforce development, uniform policy, and criminal justice reform to name a few. We are now half-way through our pilot year-long journey of co-creating this transformative space for young leaders ages (14-30) who are planning to put it into practice through their local organizing [...]

Launched in 2016, the Wisconsin Leadership Development (WiLD) Project trains community organizers, both new and seasoned, to engage others around their own core values, structure effective leadership teams, and make strategic choices that lead to measurable, effective action for change. Our signature workshop utilizes five basic organizing leadership practices that draw upon a rich history of community organizing, social movements, and campaigns. This framework is taught at the Harvard Kennedy School by Dr. Marshall Ganz, a celebrated civil rights organizer, and has been adapted in cultures and contexts launching grassroots efforts around the world. While typically offered in person over [...]