The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, the Committee sought to coordinate and assist direct-action challenges to the civic segregation and political exclusion of African Americans. From 1962, with the support of the Voter Education Project, SNCC committed to the registration and mobilization of black voters in the Deep South. Affiliates such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama increased dramatically the pressure on federal and state government to enforce constitutional protections.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.
The AEGEE, or Association des États Généraux des Étudiants de l'Europe, known as European Students' Forum in English, is the largest transnational, interdisciplinary student organisation in Europe.
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest.
The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is a United Nations organization that contributes to peace and development through volunteerism worldwide.
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) is an initiative that attempts to "galvanize international action against extremism" through the forging of international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. The Alliance places a particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.
Community organization or Community Based Organization refers to organizing aimed at making desired improvements to a community's social health, well-being, and overall functioning. Community organization occurs in geographically, psychosocially, culturally, spiritually, and/or digitally bounded communities.
Dr. Doris Adelaide Derby is an American activist, documentary photographer, and retired Director of Georgia State University’s Office of African American Student Services and Programs and adjunct associate professor of anthropology. She was active in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, and her work discusses the themes of race and African American identity. She was a working member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), as well as co-founder of the Free Southern Theater, and the founding director of the Office of African-American Student Services and Programs. Her photography has been exhibited internationally. Two of her photographs were published in Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, to which she also contributed an essay about her experiences in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Derby lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, actor Bob Banks. They are active leaders in their community and members of local and national organizations.
Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI) is the largest youth music non-governmental organisation in the world, created in Brussels, Belgium in 1945, with the mission to "enable young people to develop through music across all boundaries". JMI has established four priority activity fields: Young Musicians, Young Audiences, Youth Empowerment and Youth Orchestras & Ensembles.
The United States Social Forum is an ongoing series of gatherings of social justice activists in the United States which grew out of the World Social Forum process, bringing together activists, organizers, people of color, working people, poor people, and indigenous people from across the United States. The goal of the gathering is to build unity around common goals of social justice, to build ties between organizations present at the event, and to help build a broader social justice movement. Planning for the first event was spearheaded by the organization Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide with dozens of other organizations from around the United States involved in the process. The US Social Forum defines itself as "a movement building process. It is not a conference but it is a space to come up with the peoples’ solutions to the economic and ecological crisis. The USSF is the next most important step in our struggle to build a powerful multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational, diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement that transforms this country and changes history."
Joe Richard Feagin is an American sociologist and social theorist who has conducted extensive research on racial and gender issues, especially in regard to the United States. He is currently the Ella C. McFadden Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. Feagin has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, University of California, Riverside, University of Texas at Austin, University of Florida, and Texas A&M University.
Youth engagement is the sentiment young people feel towards a particular person, activity, place or outcome. It has been a focus of youth development, public policy and social change movements for at least forty years. According to a Cornell University program, "Youth engagement is one of the buzzwords in the youth development field. Similar terms are youth voice, youth involvement, youth participation, and youth in governance."
May First/People Link (MF/PL) is a non-profit membership organization that uses mutual aid to provide Internet services, such as web hosting to progressive organizations and individuals. Founded in 1995 and based in New York City, MF/PL is one of the Internet's oldest progressive organizations. A member of Association for Progressive Communications, MF/PL directors, leaders, and members agree upon principles of progressive use of technology, outlined by a Statement of Unity.
The Institute for Social Movements, Pakistan (ISM) was first of its kind institution in Sindh, Pakistan that clubbed together social movements studies, activism and research. Established by prominent activists, journalists, development professionals and academicians from across Sindh, ISM was primarily active in almost all districts of Sindh and Sindh bordering districts of Balochistan. The Institute was established in Hyderabad in March 2010 after several deliberations held in Karachi, Hyderabad, Umerkot and Sukkur; however due to its important role in supporting civil, political, minorities and land rights in Sindh and Balochistan, ISM was involuntarily closed down on the pressure and threats by Pakistan Army associated intelligence agencies ISI and Military Intelligence on May 29, 2012. The founding directors of the ISM Zulfiqar Shah and his wife Fatima Shah were persecuted, harassed and threatened to death, and were asked to leave Pakistan, who left the country on May 30, 2012 and sought asylum with UNHCR in Nepal, which was granted to them.
Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a network of indigenous, grassroots environmental justice activists, primarily based in the United States. Group members have represented Native American concerns at international events such as the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2016). IEN organizes an annual conference to discuss proposed goals and projects for the coming year; each year the conference is held in a different indigenous nation. The network emphasizes environmental protection as a form of spiritual activism. IEN received attention in the news as a major organizer of the fight against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Collective Impact (CI) is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration. The concept of collective impact was first articulated in the 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article Collective Impact, written by John Kania, Managing Director at FSG, and Mark Kramer, Kennedy School at Harvard and Co-founder FSG. Collective impact was chosen as the #2 philanthropy buzzword for 2011, and has been recognized by the White House Council for Community Solutions as an important framework for progress on social issues.
The World Social Forum is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemonic globalization.
The Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) was an American lesbian feminist organization, among the oldest and longest running in the country. It formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1972 as a breakaway from Atlanta's Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and Atlanta Women’s Liberation. The organization dissolved in 1994.
Global Goals Week is an annual week-long event in September for action, awareness, and accountability for the Sustainable Development Goals. It was first held in 2016. It is timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly "High-level Week" in New York. The week includes many events, summits, conferences, forums, workshops, pledges, etc. in New York but also around the world. It usually runs alongside Climate Week NYC, the annual conference of Goalkeepers, Bloomberg Global Business Forum and many other high-level events.
Taylor Alxndr is an Atlanta social activist, community organizer, entertainer, drag queen, and founder of the LGBTQ non-profit "Southern Fried Queer Pride". Alxndr uses they/them pronouns and identifies as non-binary, and through their work with Southern Fried Queer Pride, they focus on working with black and brown trans youth. Alxndr also plans community events, including a "Paris Is Burning" ball in 2018. As a drag queen, they are the house mother of "House of Alxndr". Alxndr has spoken out in support of "voices who have been marginalized and erased" and black queer and trans people in the South. In 2020, a GoFundMe for Southern Fried Queer Pride raised over $70,000 to create a community space for the organization, and Alxndr was named one of one of the 100 most influential LGBTQ+ Georgians.
