Overview: What is Momentum?

Momentum is the name of a training institute and movement incubator. It is also the name of an organizing framework that aims to synthesize the best of two major organizing traditions - “mass protest” and “structure-based” organizing.

As you can learn more about on the Momentum community’s site, Momentum trainings “give grassroots organizers the tools to build massive, decentralized social movements that aim to shift the terrain under policymakers’ feet.”

For more information about what momentum-driven organizing looks like, check outDoing the work: cycles of Momentum.

More on the history of Momentum, from the Momentum training participant guide:

“The Momentum Team came together out of a shared desire to start a new tradition of organizing in the US. Each of us had spent time immersed in movements that had incredible moments of success, but lacked a plan and method for organizing at a scale necessary to win.

Paul Engler spent time with the global justice movement experiencing "moments of the whirlwind" around summit mobilizations, only to see the movement collapse after 9/11. He followed his brothers into the labor movement, joining Unite HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles and learning hardcore structure-based organizing on campaigns for workers rights. As a student of social movements, he started learning about the Serbian student revolutionaries Otpor (Serbian for "Resistance"), who had a hybrid model that integrated his experiences of mass protest and structure-based organizing.

Paul tried out the Serbian method of organizing with a coalition of immigrant rights groups in 2006 to mobilize over 1.2 million people in one of the biggest protests in U.S. history. In 2006, he brought Ivan Marovic, a leader of Otpor, to a training with immigrant rights leaders, including a young Carlos Saavedra. Since then, Paul has spent years studying and refining this method, looking for ways to bring the integrated hybrid model to the U.S.

Meanwhile, the rest of Momentum’s founding team was taking part in movements that grew to epic proportions but lost steam in the journey to achieve their aims. Carlos was a key leader in the immigrant rights battle, building a national organization and winning important reforms that nonetheless fell short of winning citizenship for undocumented Americans. Max Berger was part of Occupy Wall Street, which mobilized millions across the globe, but fell apart in a few short months. Belinda Rodriguez was a part of the climate justice movement, which galvanized divestment movements across the country, but is struggling to deliver the needed reforms to halt global warming.

Since 2013, we have been searching for ways to understand this theory more deeply and to share it with the movements that need it most. We have been working tirelessly to systematize the theory, and prepare to train the best leaders in the country on how to use it. Every time we hold a training, interest seems to grow exponentially. We are now working to prepare new trainers who can bring the material to their local contexts and meet the demand for Momentum across the country.”

Learn more about Momentum or find an upcoming training at www.momentumcommunity.org.