The social change that an organization seeks to effect—racial justice and equality or ending a war and transforming conflict into sustainable peace—typically takes a long time. While engaging with pertinent issues and engaging in daily battles, also maintain focus on the long-term goal (or, bigger picture). Activists with decades of experience with coalition-building in Northern Ireland share that their efforts of building up change saw organizations and coalitions form and then fail, one after the other, but each time creating a stronger version than the one before and building upon key principles. Scaling up, then, may feel like moving two steps forward, one step back, but each step builds upon lessons learned and strengthens the key principles and shared vision of activists involved in building organizations and forming coalitions.

In Northern Ireland, Avila Kilmurray talks about this in the context of focusing on the “end-game” and “time-frame” of slow building peace movements. She suggests that activists for peace, 

be less concerned if the coalition collapses, in fact the collapse might be a good thing if just by the nature of the political process if the coalition is pushing a particular issue, that issue is inevitably going to be politicized, so your interest in peace is going to be bigger than any one issue. [...] Peace movements have a preference for this flexibility.

In the US context, a Black Lives Matter activist similarly suggests the slow nature of change and how this links to flexibility and shifts in framing, citing the way movements for black liberation have evolved:

We see people’s identity by overlapping groups. For example: #BLM#girlsrock or QPoC- Queer People of Color. I am interested in the history of activism and this is exactly like the 1970s when there were different affinity groups and that tried to coalition build and it failed with Reagan. And here we are with Trump. The backlash is faster now. The 1970s was slow, the 80s belonged to queer orgs. That was their moment, but everybody else was silenced or disappeared because of the political clampdown for those that identified or revealed themselves. Black Lives Matter identified itself, a movement that is now a target. In response,  we see people scatter and regroup- so we change our name, but we can still talk and connect on social media.

Although people might “scatter and regroup” with different names or areas of emphasis, this activists notes, “We still focus on black liberation.”  In other words, overarching goals often remain the same. 

Challenges you may encounter using this tool

• Resilience is necessary to maintain focus on long-term goals for scaling up. Even though organizations may sometimes need to be revamped or reinitiated in the face of changes in the environment or emerging events, these shifts can make the movement and future organizations stronger. It’s important for activists to “fail forward,” by learning from and building off of challenges.

• Retaining a belief in social change as a process is key. Ultimately, change happens over the long term, even if short-term change is not in the cards. Leadership commitment must continue even when things are difficult.