Wild News

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 [...]