What We Build Together
Individual action has limits. Collective action doesn't. From mutual aid networks to open-source civic tools to cross-party coalitions. Collaboration is the mechanism by which ordinary people change systems. Here is what that looks like when it works.
Part I
Mutual Aid: Cooperation That Actually Reaches People
Mutual aid is not charity. It is neighbors supporting neighbors, horizontally, without gatekeepers, without eligibility requirements. It works because it is built by the people who need it.
A. What Mutual Aid Is (and Isn't)
Scholar and organizer Dean Spade defines mutual aid as survival-focused community self-help where participants recognize their fates are linked. The distinction from charity isn't semantic. It's structural. Charity flows top-down: a donor with resources gives to a recipient in need, preserving the power differential between them. Mutual aid is lateral: everyone in the network is both giver and receiver, and the network itself becomes a form of collective power.
Mutual aid explicitly politicizes need. It doesn't pretend poverty is individual failure. It builds community resilience while acknowledging the structural conditions that created the crisis in the first place.
This isn't new. The history of mutual aid in the U.S. is long and largely unwritten:
- •Black Panther Party (1966–1982): Free Breakfast for Children Program fed 20,000 kids daily at peak. Free health clinics ran across 13 cities. These were survival programs: immediate material support embedded in political organizing.
- •Puerto Rican Young Lords (1969): Garbage offensive (literally collected trash in East Harlem to force city sanitation response). Ran a free tuberculosis testing program that exposed city neglect.
- •Depression-era fraternal organizations: Before Social Security, mutual aid societies provided unemployment relief, death benefits, and medical care to members, particularly in immigrant communities.
B. COVID-19 Surge: What Got Built
Starting March 2020, over 1,000 local mutual aid networks formed across the United States in a matter of weeks, with no central organization, no federal directive, and no playbook.
Forty-seven neighborhood networks coordinated across the five boroughs, largely via shared Google spreadsheets and Signal groups. In the first eight weeks, they delivered groceries and supplies to over 100,000 isolated residents. By 2021, many networks pivoted to vaccine coordination, driving elderly residents to appointment sites, translating vaccine information into 14 languages.
100,000+ households reached in 8 weeks. Zero federal coordination.
Launched with a single Instagram post asking neighbors to help neighbors. Raised $2.3 million directly from community members. Supported 7,000 households with groceries, household supplies, and direct cash assistance. Run entirely by volunteers. No nonprofit overhead, no executive director, no grant applications.
$2.3M raised, 7,000 households served. All volunteer-run.
Maintained a crowdsourced national map of networks. At peak in 2020: 1,200+ active networks listed: everything from single-block grocery pods to city-wide coordination networks.
What made these networks work:
- Hyper-local, at the neighborhood or block level, not citywide bureaucracy
- Low barrier: no application, no eligibility, no proof of need required
- Fast, with same-day response in many networks
- Sustained: networks persisted and adapted after the acute emergency passed
C. Mutual Aid Beyond Crisis
The emergency wave of 2020 didn't dissipate. It built infrastructure. Many networks that formed during COVID became the basis for ongoing community organizing.
The LA Tenant Union and NYC Tenant Organizing Project apply mutual aid frameworks to housing: when one tenant faces eviction, the network responds collectively, showing up to hearings, coordinating legal support, organizing building-wide rent strikes.
80+ community fridges operate in New York City alone. Stocked by neighbors, maintained by neighbors, governed by a single principle: “Take what you need, leave what you can.” No means testing, no appointments, no shame.
80+ fridges in NYC. Hundreds more across the country.
10,000 tools shared by 3,000+ members on a sliding-scale membership model. No one needs to own a $500 circular saw they'll use twice. The tool library model now exists in dozens of cities, reducing consumption, reducing costs, building neighbor relationships in the process.
Find or start a mutual aid network:
- → MutualAidHub.org: national map of active networks
- → Big Door Brigade: "How to Do Mutual Aid" guide
- → Dean Spade: Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (Verso, 2020, free PDF available)
Part II
Civic Tech: Open Tools for Open Government
Some of the most effective government accountability work happening today is built by small teams, volunteers, and nonprofits using open data and open source. These tools are changing how citizens access information and hold power accountable.
The definitive database of money in U.S. politics. Tracks every federal campaign finance filing, every lobbying registration, and every revolving-door move between government and K Street. Founded as a nonprofit in 1983, it has become the first stop for journalists, researchers, and watchdog organizations investigating political money.
50M+ page views annually. Used by journalists at every major U.S. outlet.
Daonra connection: OpenSecrets is a primary data source for this site's lobbying and money-flow features.
ProPublica has built some of the most consequential civic data infrastructure in the country, often as a byproduct of investigative reporting. The Congress API provides machine-readable access to all Congressional votes, member information, and bill tracking. It is free, open, no key required for basic use.
Dollars for Docs tracked $2B+ in pharmaceutical payments to doctors, and contributed directly to a federal law.
- •Dollars for Docs: Tracked drug company payments to physicians before federal disclosure was required. Contributed to the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (2010), which became the Open Payments database.
- •Nonprofit Explorer: Financial data on every registered U.S. nonprofit from IRS Form 990 filings. Searchable, downloadable, no subscription required.
- •Congress API: Votes, members, bills, committees: all in JSON. Any developer can build accountability tools on top of it.
MuckRock is a platform for filing, tracking, and sharing FOIA requests. It makes public records accessible to anyone, not just journalists with institutional lawyers and institutional patience. The site handles the bureaucratic mechanics: finding the right office, formatting the request, tracking deadlines, escalating when agencies stonewall.
100,000+ FOIA requests filed. 20,000+ documents in the public archive.
Notable releases include police surveillance technology contracts, FBI domestic surveillance program records, and local government misconduct documentation that never would have surfaced through traditional channels.
Daonra is itself a civic tech project. Open data from USASpending, the FEC, OpenSecrets, and public government databases, made accessible without paywalls, subscriptions, or data literacy requirements.
The same financial transparency data available to lobbyists and major newsrooms. Available to anyone with a browser.
What Daonra tracks now
- → Government contracts (USASpending)
- → Lobbying registrations (LDA filings)
- → Campaign finance (FEC)
- → Congressional stock trades (STOCK Act)
- → Dark money flows (IRS 990s)
- → Revolving door (custom entity resolution)
Coming next
- → District-level contract spending
- → Bill votes cross-referenced against donor alignment
- → State legislature coverage
Community Organizing: How Individual Frustration Becomes Collective Power
Organizing is not activism. It is infrastructure. It is the patient, methodical work of building relationships, developing leaders, and applying collective pressure on specific targets until they move. Here is how it actually works.
A. The Core Framework: Power Analysis + Relationship + Action
Power Analysis
Who has the power to give you what you want? Who influences them? What do they care about? What are they afraid of losing? Effective organizers spend weeks mapping power before making a single public demand.
Relational Organizing
One-on-one conversations, not canvassing, not flyers. Meeting people where they are, listening to their specific grievances, understanding what motivates them. The IAF model: every leader does 30+ one-on-ones before the first public meeting.
Action
Direct confrontation with the target. Public meetings, sit-ins, phone banks, media pressure, showing up in numbers. The goal is to make inaction more costly than compliance. Tactics are chosen based on what the target cares about, not what feels good to do.
B. Industrial Areas Foundation: The Model That Works
Founded 1940 by Saul Alinsky. Now 65 affiliated organizations across the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and Germany. IAF affiliates organize through institutions: churches, mosques, unions, schools. Leaders are trained in power analysis and relational organizing. Campaigns are chosen by members, not staff.
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Texas IAF, Colonias Infrastructure (1990s): Secured $250M in infrastructure improvements for unincorporated border communities (water, sewage, paved roads) for 400,000 people with no formal political representation.
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BUILD (Baltimore): Won the first city living wage ordinance in U.S. history in 2002.
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ACORN: 400,000 members at peak. Secured $4B in Community Reinvestment Act lending commitments. Won living wage laws in 100+ cities.
C. Tenant Organizing: The Housing Fight
Median rent has risen 30%+ since 2019 in most major U.S. cities. Corporate landlords now own 40% of single-family rentals. Tenants who have organized have demonstrated what collective action can actually win.
10,000+ members. Negotiated rent freezes with individual landlords. Blocked 100+ evictions through collective action. Won “just cause” eviction protections in multiple LA jurisdictions.
Organized building by building. Won rent stabilization extensions. Blocked luxury conversion of affordable buildings. Documented model now used by other NYC boroughs.
Individual tenant cases are almost always lost. Collective cases almost always have leverage. A landlord facing one eviction fight can proceed. A landlord facing a building-wide rent strike backed by 50 organized tenants calculates differently.
D. The Mechanics: What Makes Organizing Work
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A specific, winnable demand: Not "better housing" but "no rent increases above 3% for existing tenants in this building until code violations are resolved."
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A clear target: A person with power, not a system or an institution. Mayor Jane Smith, not "the city."
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Relationships before mobilization: People show up for people they know, not for causes they've only seen on social media.
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Leaders, not followers: The goal is to develop 50 leaders who each bring 10 people, not 500 followers who show up when asked.
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An escalating pressure campaign: One action rarely works; the sequence matters. Start with a meeting request. If refused, show up publicly. If that fails, escalate to disruption.
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A theory of change: A specific answer to "why will this target concede?" If you can't answer that, you don't have a campaign. You have a complaint.
Cross-Partisan Coalitions: When Left and Right Find Common Ground
The most durable reforms happen when the coalition for them is too broad to be dismissed as partisan. Here are documented cases where people who disagree on most things agreed on structural change, and won.
Koch Brothers + ACLU (2014–present)
Charles Koch (libertarian right) and the ACLU (civil liberties left) found common ground on mass incarceration for completely different reasons. Koch: government overreach, fiscal waste. ACLU: racial injustice, constitutional violations. Together they built the Coalition for Public Safety (2015), which included Americans for Tax Reform, the Center for American Progress, and the Brennan Center.
What it won: FIRST STEP Act (2018): the most significant federal criminal justice reform in decades. Reduced mandatory minimums, expanded good-time credits. Signed by Trump. Passed 87–12 in the Senate.
ACLU + FreedomWorks (2013–present)
Post-Snowden revelations created unexpected alliances. Tea Party conservatives and progressive civil libertarians both opposed warrantless mass surveillance, arriving at the same position from opposite directions. The coalition: Demand Progress, EFF, FreedomWorks, ACLU, Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty.
What it won: USA FREEDOM Act (2015): limited bulk phone records collection, reformed the FISA court, increased transparency. Passed with bipartisan support.
Represent.Us (2012–present)
Founded explicitly to be cross-partisan. The strategy: find issues where conservatives and progressives share an enemy (corrupt politicians) even when they disagree on everything else. The frame: not "liberal reform" or "conservative reform" but "the politician on both sides is selling your vote."
What it won: Anti-corruption ballot initiatives passed in South Dakota (2016), Missouri (2018), North Dakota (2018), and Colorado (2018), all with bipartisan voter support. South Dakota passed 52–48 in a deep-red state.
Ranked-Choice Voting: FairVote and Odd Alliances
RCV has been endorsed by Democratic Socialists, Tea Party activists, traditional conservatives, and progressive reformers in different jurisdictions, often in the same election cycle. In Alaska, it was adopted via ballot initiative in 2020 in a state that went 53% for Trump. The coalition included voters who hated closed primaries, rural conservatives, and Alaska Native groups.
What it won: Alaska adopted Top-4 + RCV in 2020. Mary Peltola (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) won with documented bipartisan support in 2022.
Bipartisan in Congress: Two Acts, One Pattern
Requires all federal agencies to report spending data in standardized, open formats. Passed the Senate unanimously. USASpending.gov is the direct result, a searchable public record of every federal contract and grant.
Makes federal data open by default. Passed on a voice vote. Supported by both the Obama and Trump administrations, a rare example of cross-administration continuity.
Cooperative Models: Distributing Power Through Ownership
Cooperatives are not fringe economics. The cooperative sector employs 280 million people globally, about 10% of the world's employed population. Here are the models that change who holds power.
A. Worker Cooperatives
A business owned and democratically controlled by its workers. Workers vote on major decisions. Profits are distributed among members. No absentee shareholders.
Mondragon Corporation
Basque Country, Spain · Founded 1956
Founded by a Catholic priest, José María Arizmendiarrieta, in one of the poorest regions of Spain. Now one of the largest worker cooperatives in the world.
- →80,000+ worker-owners across 257 businesses in manufacturing, retail, finance, and education.
- →€12 billion revenue (2022).
- →CEO pay ratio capped at 6:1, versus roughly 300:1 at the average U.S. corporation.
- →Workers cannot be laid off. During recessions, they are retrained or transferred to other Mondragon companies.
2008 financial crisis
Mondragon did not lay off workers. It reduced wages temporarily (with a worker vote) and transferred employees between companies. At industrial scale, democratic ownership proved compatible with international competitiveness.
Evergreen Cooperatives
Cleveland, Ohio
A network of worker-owned businesses anchored by long-term service contracts with large Cleveland institutions: hospitals and universities. Includes Evergreen Energy Solutions (solar), Evergreen Laundry, and Green City Growers, the largest urban greenhouse in the United States. Hiring prioritizes workers from surrounding low-income neighborhoods. Inspired by Mondragon; adapted for the U.S. urban context.
B. Community Land Trusts (CLTs)
A nonprofit organization that acquires land and holds it permanently in trust for the community. Residents own their homes but not the land beneath them, which remains permanently affordable and outside the speculative market.
Champlain Housing Trust
Burlington, Vermont · Founded 1984
The oldest and largest CLT in the United States. Founded after a city study found renters couldn't afford to buy. Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington at the time of founding. 2,500+ homes in the trust with formula-limited resale prices, permanently.
2008 housing crash
CLT homeowners in Burlington had a foreclosure rate of 1.3% versus 4.6% nationally. Permanent affordability built in structural stability that market-rate homeownership could not.
Why CLTs matter
They are the only mechanism that permanently removes land from the speculative market without government ownership. Once in a CLT, land cannot be financialized.
C. Credit Unions
Not-for-profit financial cooperatives owned by their members. Profits returned as lower fees, better rates, and dividends. Profits are not extracted by external shareholders.
The U.S. Credit Union Sector
5,000+ institutions · 140 million members · $2 trillion in assets
- →Average credit union CD rate: consistently 0.3–0.5% higher than commercial banks. Average loan rates consistently lower.
- →Community Development Credit Unions (CDCUs) serve low-income communities where banks have withdrawn. mortgages, small business loans, financial education.
- →Self-Help Credit Union (Durham, NC): $17 billion in assets. $10 billion in financing provided to low-income families and minority-owned businesses since 1980.
Global Solidarity: How Movements Cross Borders
The problems are the same everywhere. The solutions travel. When a tactic works in one country, it spreads, sometimes over years, sometimes in days.
A. Labor: The International Pattern
The 8-hour workday
Won first in Australia (1856), then New Zealand, then the UK, then the United States (1938, Fair Labor Standards Act). A pattern of cross-border labor solidarity spanning 80 years, with each victory making the next more legible and achievable.
The Fight for $15
Began with NYC fast food workers' strikes (2012). Spread to Seattle (first $15 ordinance, 2014), then California, then UK living wage campaigns, then Australian minimum wage increases. Now a global reference point for labor organizing.
International union coordination
The AFL-CIO works with 56 million union members across 150 countries through the ITUC. When Amazon workers in Germany strike, it affects Amazon's U.S. wage negotiations. The company operates across those borders and so must labor.
B. Climate: Fridays for Future
Greta Thunberg began striking alone outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018. Within 12 months, the tactic had propagated across every continent.
- →7.6 million people in 163 countries participated in the September 2019 global climate strike, the largest climate protest in recorded history.
Documented policy outcomes
UK declared a Climate Emergency (2019). European Green Deal accelerated. New Zealand Zero Carbon Act passed (2019). Hundreds of municipalities declared climate emergencies worldwide.
C. Anti-Corruption: Cross-Border Exposés
Panama Papers
11.5 million documents. Coordinated by ICIJ across 370 journalists in 76 countries, publishing simultaneously.
- →Iceland's Prime Minister resigned within days.
- →Pakistan's Prime Minister disqualified by the Supreme Court.
- →150+ investigations opened globally. ~$1.2 billion in recovered taxes.
Pandora Papers
Same model, larger scale: 600 journalists, 117 countries, 11.9 million documents. Exposed the offshore wealth of 35 current and former world leaders.
D. Technology Transfer: Open Source for Civic Good
Once civic technology is open-sourced, it becomes free infrastructure. The work is done once; the benefit compounds.
Alaveteli (mySociety, UK)
Open-source FOI request platform. Now running in 25 countries, enabling freedom-of-information filings from Ukraine to Kosovo to Australia.
Decidim (Barcelona City Government)
Open-source participatory democracy platform. Now used by 400+ organizations and governments across 40 countries.
OpenSpending (Open Knowledge Foundation)
Open-source government budget visualization. Deployed in 70+ countries.
What these movements prove: the problems of democratic backsliding, housing unaffordability, corporate capture, and labor exploitation are global, and so are the solutions.
Borders are not a reason to start from scratch. When a tactic works (a school strike, a CLT model, a coordinated document leak, an open-source platform) it travels. Every movement inherits the work of the last one.
Where to Start
The hardest part is starting. The entry points below are low-barrier, proven, and directly connected to the work documented on this page.
Find or Start a Mutual Aid Network
MutualAidHub.org maintains an updated map of local networks in the U.S. If none exists in your area, Big Door Brigade's free guide walks you through starting one.
MutualAidHub.org →Use Open Civic Data
Daonra, OpenSecrets, MuckRock, and ProPublica's Congress tools give you access to the same financial transparency data available to major newsrooms, for free.
Start on Daonra →Get Organized
If you're dealing with housing, wages, or workplace issues, find your local IAF affiliate, tenant union, or worker center. Organizing works. Individual complaints usually don't.
Find an IAF Affiliate →Support Open Source Civic Tech
Tools like Alaveteli, Decidim, and OpenSpending are free because people contribute to them. Code, translations, testing, documentation: all needed.
mySociety Projects →