Let's keep imagining!
It can feel like the world is falling apart at the seams. Rising sea levels threaten entire communities, and the 1% get richer while the rest of us struggle more and more just to get by. Donald Trump has all but sewn up a Presidential nomination, riding a wave of racism and anti-immigrant hatred. It seems like nothing can stop the world from collapsing around us. But there is another world rising up in the place of the old one. It’s this new world that the Center for Story-Based Strategy (CSS) helps others to imagine every day.
Because we know that if we can imagine the world we want, we can create it. And the converse is also true: If we can’t imagine it, we can’t create it. That’s why we need spaces like our Advanced Training (AT). Imagining this new world and how we can wage visionary campaigns to build it is what happens during this unique training. Can you give $25 or more today to pay it forward for this year’s AT?
Spaces like the AT are crucial for organizers to recharge for the long haul. Alumni like you have told us how much they needed time to be dream up a new world, network with other organizers, and pick up key skills. As one 2015 alum said, “I’ve been pretty disillusioned with the work so it was important to have space to imagine without limitations.”
Since 2011, over 159 people have completed the AT and have gone on to lead some of the biggest game-changing campaigns and movements in recent decades.
“We were engaged in a space of play and creativity, where fun was essential. The world is angry and that’s not enough to move people. You have to give people the positive vision of the future so that there is something to reach for and hold onto,” says Reuben Hayslett, an AT 2015 alum.
This year’s AT will take place in June in the Pacific Northwest, bringing together 40 organizers who will learn to use story-based strategy to create the new world we all need.
