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Social Movement Technologies
Sign up for SMT’s Funder Newsletter which goes out quarterly.
Join us for the annual Funder Briefing on February 8, 2024.
We’re glad to talk with you about your foundation or grantee partners’ needs. For more information, or to set up a time to discuss, email us at info at socialmovementtechnologies.org. The best starting point is to watch the info session recording below which details a range of ways SMT is partnering with funders.
In the present moment, organizing groups urgently need to expand their online/offline organizing capacity. Some have already incorporated digital tools and tactics into their work, while others must now work quickly to catch up. Groups are either going to adapt or be sidelined. More than an adaptation to a temporary change, this is part of an ongoing shift demanding new ways of organizing, and new ways of managing teams.
In response, many funders are finding it cost-effective to sponsor a cohort of grantee partners to ramp up their campaigning. SMT has a deep library of resources, training, and coaching available to groups and a proven model for bringing it to funder-supported cohorts. Funders are sponsoring grantees with support for:
SMT is working or has worked under contract with the following foundations:
Many more have sponsored groups of grantees to attend SMT trainings.
SMT has become a major source of online/offline campaign training for progressive movements. Founded 10 years ago, SMT has trained over seven thousand staff members from 4,900+ groups. During the week of March 23, 2020, SMT held a series of two webinars on the transition to remote teams and organizing in this moment – attended by the capacity limit of 1000 attendees.
SMT’s intensive digital campaign training has become a key go-to for digital training for staff, with over 1000 alums. Over 70 organizing networks are “Outreach Partners,” helping spread the word about SMT trainings. Major groups have sent 15-80 staffers to SMT intensive training including for example Amnesty International, Greenpeace, 350.or, and ActionAid, and in the U.S.: Center for Popular Democracy, People’s Action, Jobs with Justice, State Voices, Color of Change, SEIU, UNITE HERE, and many others.
The latest funder briefings were held in January 2023. They included an overview and testimonials from SMT funder partners, groups that have received coaching and campaign implementation support from SMT, and participants in SMT trainings. Watch the overview for funders of the Americas (23 min). Watch the overview for funders of social change work in Africa, Asia, Europe and MENA (18 min).
Highly recommend it for individuals in civic organizations looking to enhance their technological campaigning skills!I appreciated connecting with passionate changemakers across the U.S. to discuss effective digital campaigning strategies.SMT has been a great partner to co-design and launch a set of offerings that meet the growing digital and remote needs of the organizations we support, including bilingual access for our Spanish-speaking partners. The team is relatable, attentive and knowledgeable and their use of case studies helps to make complex information accessible!I felt supported by a community of hundreds throughout my learning journey.This program has boosted my confidence in organizing and sustaining digital campaigns.I initially thought this program was centered around communications, but it offered so much more. It provided an inside perspective on organizing work and how communications integrates with it.The program offered interesting case studies, expanded my digital campaigning knowledge, introduced new organizing tools and strategies, and enabled connections with professionals in the progressive space.
The program gave my team the tools and time to strategise how our grassroots migrant organising translates to a digital context. I picked up tools like source codes, which then enabled us to see that more people were registering from Instagram than through any other platform and caused us to adapt our strategy. We also became SMT an Outreach Partner to enable our network to benefit from trainings at lower pricesThe program was an eye-opener and better positioned me as a Communications Officer. I learned about digital mobilizing, online community building, and more.This program is very comprehensive and provides tons of tools and resources that have strengthened my skillset in digital organizing. This is a great program that I highly recommend.
I took the workers organizing in the digital age training. We really need this kind of training in Finland, which people in the US have had access to for some years. The training was effective to start organizing for instance on Twitter.
The trainings are terrific–geared for every level of experience. And being rooted in social change movement, especially helpful to organizers.Learned invaluable skills, gained practical knowledge, and connected with inspiring professionals.SMT has worked with us to develop and implement a broad and integrated social media strategy. They helped our leadership understand the importance of such a strategy and taught our activists the basic skills to execute it. From website maintenance to targeted twitter campaigns, they are there when you need them and they understand that it is all about movement building.
The Design Apprenticeship course helped me become bolder in my design choices. I became confident enough to push for a more systemic approach to design in the team, developing templates and guiding other creative colleagues. This program was pivotal in my development as a designer!SMT helped us create a social media presence to expand our cannabis worker organizing campaign. Our organizers have enhanced their social media capabilities. We have succeeded beyond our expectations. Working with SMT has been a great experience. They really understand organizing and communications.This program has been a great experience for me personally and for my work. With the few campaigns going under way I’m excited to show my colleagues what I have learned from SMT! We have had a fantastic experience with SMT…they have been highly responsive to the needs of our grantees.SMT supported our coalition so we could play a more powerful role in advocating for our work and priorities with funders and elected officials. They facilitated a process to take a loose group of collaborators across a large geography and worked with us to build a cohesive understanding of shared values and how we could present ourselves.It was powerful hearing directly from groups across the country using these powerful tools to win campaigns and create real change.I'm still digesting the valuable information from this training and applying it to my work. Meeting activists worldwide and learning about important campaigns was inspiring.The program offers excellent support, knowledge, and peer collaboration for learning about organizing and campaigning.I received input on how to align field and digital work which is directly connected to the advocacy research that we are doing.The digital training was expertly executed and helped me develop new ideas and best practice to implement in our campaign.The program made me think holistically about offline and online impacts.We’re starting our third straight year providing grantee partners with Social Movement Technologies training and coaching…our grantees are in good hands.We’ve heard really good things from our grantee partners. SMT has a strong, grantee-focused way of working.For anyone who wants to dive into the world of digital communications, this is the training for you!This program was pivotal in my early organizing career, providing a strong foundation for recognizing technology's power in social movements. It equipped me with tools to create effective systems for our organization and broader membership base.SMT's expertise in social media, ads training, and particularly their personalized coaching, has been invaluable for navigating the unique challenges of the non-profit sector. SMT's guidance has empowered us to adopt new technologies and strategies, leading to our most successful social media ads campaign to date. Their support is a game-changer for organizations stepping into unfamiliar digital territories.The course provided invaluable tools and strategies, real-world case studies from different cultural contexts, and a supportive learning environment that encouraged interaction and peer learning.The DCCP program enhanced my skills and provided valuable support. I've applied these skills in my job and community work. Well-designed and presented program!I'm grateful for the opportunity to expand my organizing knowledge with SMT. It's sparked creativity, and I'm excited to put new ideas into action.SMT helped us craft an effective public narrative for our campaign to get a mine closed. SMT helped us finalize a campaign strategy and come up with an effective plan to raise visibility and engage the public. Our campaign led to a pause in the mining. We will keep fighting!The program allowed me to deep dive into specific campaign strategies, learning from diverse examples of what worked and what could be improved.The program offered interesting case studies, expanded my digital campaigning knowledge, introduced new organizing tools and strategies, and enabled connections with professionals in the progressive space.I found this course inspiring, especially the strategies part. Learning from diverse students with different backgrounds was enriching."=
Our staff took a lot of SMT courses – including the intensive Digital Campaigning Certificate Program. It helped us take our digital campaigning and collectivizing actions to the next level! We used various tools to increase our follower base and successfully target authorities to take action at the village and municipal levels in India.
Without SMT we would not have been able to move our organizing from the field to the digital arena during COVID. They helped us set up systems, coached and trained our folks, helped us troubleshoot and launch digital outreach efforts all in crucial campaign moments. Can’t speak highly enough about what their help meant!
I implemented lessons on personal narrative, public narrative and emails directly into my campaign, so this was an instant gratification. I loved learning from the other Digital Campaigning Certificate Program participants who came from around the world, working on different topics.This program greatly helped integrate our thinking on organizing and digital campaigning. I wish all our organizers and digital staff could undergo this training.For change-makers looking to harness people power for good. Expert presenters and experience sharing with classmates enhanced my knowledge and provided valuable, immediately applicable skills.This program was very useful for understanding the digital aspects of organizing workers and incorporating them into a comprehensive campaign toolkit.The Digital Campaigning Certificate Program was immensely helpful, and I continue to apply its learnings in my daily communications and strategizing.SMT is the only training I know of that speaks our language of activism and uses the tools we use everyday in the field. They are a go-to resource to help raise the bar for communications in the labor movement.SMT’s training on using WhatsApp to activate our bases helped us activate more leaders by creating conversational WhatsApp groups for members and assigning different leadership roles to volunteers.The assignments provided a better understanding of how the nuts and bolts of digital organizing fit together.This program helped us harness effective tools and tactics that are aligned with our movement's needs and organizational values.
SMT's training helped me use my journalistic skills effectively to highlight people's struggles and create change. Using Twitter more effectively, we supported Syria's refugee camp hospital to get more media attention and raise funds to respond to the hospital's needs as well as build visibility on the issues affecting refugees.Each session was well-facilitated, skillfully blended presentation, discussion, and practical exercises, allowing me to immediately apply techniques to my work.It helped me better understand, through the experience of like-minded organizers, how to use accessible digital organizing tools to support the efforts on the ground.
Having access to experts through the certificate program was amazing. The course is so practical. I set up google ads for the first time and created our digital security policy and implementation plan. Our whole team uses the campaign strategy template now. Now we know how to improve our email deliverability and started a texting program.
SMT helped us think through what type of CRM we need and choose a texting platform to reach our base. SMT’s coaching has been instrumental in helping us develop a social media strategy that communicates our message through the voice of the young people involved in our organization.
Working with SMT was easy and collaborative. The training helped our Greenpeace Southeast Asia team get new insights into campaign best practices across the globe.I learnt a lot on grassroots movements, digital campaigns and communications in times of state intrusion or threats.
SMT helped GAIA use LinkedIn to reach a key constituency we were having trouble reaching - thousands of people who play a specific role in the waste management industry. We got responses from key players.SMT coaching enabled us to expand our presence within human rights spaces in Kenya beyond an LGBTIQ audience. It helped us use Twitter to connect with allies in the environmental justice and land rights movements. It was amazing to have someone to work with who knows our work and give us templates just when we needed them.Our coach was an everyday reminder of what we needed to do. He checked in and followed up on us. It really helped us activate Twitter in our campaigns and tighten up digital security. We moved from just having a Twitter handle to building on a hashtag that saw a jailed human rights activist released from prison.I really liked the A.I. custom training session, especially the parts tailored to our workstream and with examples pulled from our staff. It really helped to situate the tools in our work and open our team's minds to the possibilities.I found a lot of value in this Certificate Program that I use in my everyday work: from using social media effectively; significantly growing accounts and activating people online, pressuring targets in campaigns, and running Twitterstorms. Even when using other tools, I still apply the principles I learned!I strongly recommend SMT. Their strong organizing background, preparation and thoughtfulness made our strategy assessment with them enjoyable and really helpful.SMT developed a custom training for our youth climate fellows from around the world. It was a holistic training on creating campaigns from strategy to implementation and building our activist base. We appreciated SMT’s attention to detail around language and inclusion and always thinking about power building.This training provided invaluable clarity and direction for my digital organizing work, empowering my team to work more effectively.I was able to immediately use the tools I learned and apply them to our organization. The program was intense, but I loved every minute of it and learned more than expected.SMT's coaching was incredibly supportive, encouraging and accessible. SMT had a huge impact on evolving La Semilla's storytelling program. Through SMT coaching, we diversified our digital communications. Having SMT as a source of resources and as a thought partner has been incredibly impactful to our work.I had an amazing time. I am already applying the valuable content in my organization.The program was an incredible journey of meaningful learning and connections with amazing advocates nationwide.The SMT trainings I’ve taken have helped us mobilize and deepen engagement in our communities. Through Twitterstorms, phone banking, and other tactics that I learned through SMT’s trainings, we succeeded in our call to #ExtendtheReg for a million young people who would otherwise be disenfranchised by anti-poor COVID policies.
Taking this course really transformed my organizing skills to be more effective. 
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