About › Our work

Campaigns and organising

Druids Heath library closure protest

NEF believes that having ideas isn’t enough. In order to change how our society and economy work, people need power and the ability to take action. NEF’s campaigners and organisers work to create and support grassroots groups, campaigns and organisations who are fighting to change the rules.

Our campaigns

NEF has three flagship campaigns:

Organising

Organising is a practice developed over decades, which focuses on redistributing power and developing leaders. Organising values relationships between us above all else, and so develops people power, usually to work against the type of power held by governments and people or businesses with large amounts of money. 

There are many different schools of thought and methods of organising. NEF organisers don’t subscribe to one in particular. We help groups and movements by:

  • Working with local groups to help them run campaigns and increase their impact
  • Bringing localised groups together to give them national focus and mutual support
  • Providing training in organising and campaigning methods and strategy
  • Mentoring and developing individual leaders
  • Bringing groups from across movements together to help them learn from each other, and broaden their reach.
  • Supporting people to apply for and attend specific trainings run by our colleagues or other organisations, for example media training

We have a particular focus on working with groups whose success would help fundamentally alter the balance of power in their communities, workplaces or nationally. In the past we’ve worked with energy democracy groups, anti-fracking campaigners, community land trust groups, air pollution campaigners, trade unions and private renters. We aim to support groups in a way that means they can become, or remain, self-reliant and independent after our support ends.

Photo: Druids Heath and Monyhull Forum