Freedom Trainers

Noncooperation Library

All of our public materials in one place.

78 resources

Election Defense Slide deck – key slides for a grassroots Election Defense training. Includes slides for the People’s Election Playbook, election scenario role-plays, and explanation of the model Fight, Prove, Win, Enforce.

Hope PV – Responding to Political Violence
120-minute training

Hope PV – Responding to Political Violence
120-minute training

The HOPE guide is designed to help people across the United States counter political violence. It aims to empower individuals and strengthen communities to make political violence backfire against those who incite, threaten, and enact it.
Community responses to political violence can both support victims and impose costs on those who incite and engage in abuse. We need to stand up to those who want to silence our voices, who try to deny us our rights, and who aim to bully their way into political influence through intimidation and violence.
Get updated versions at: Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence

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The People’s Election Playbook — a 6-step plan to help defend the election. These are the must-do moves to stop them from wrongfully seizing power through manipulated elections.

GroundControl – A website for individuals who want to find election volunteer opportunities near them (e.g. be a poll worker, text voters)

Sense-making and Vision: how did we get here?
120-minute training

Sense-making and Vision: how did we get here?
120-minute training

Goals:
* preparing people emotionally to be ready to fight back (emotional triage),
* girding people for the long fights ahead by making people feel part of a large resistance community (how to organize under the new threat),
* orienting towards our next steps (you can adapt this to your design — here we’re introducing the “Block and Build” strategy).

This design requires some adaptations for your group, including your specific plans next and some chances for leadership to openly reflect on what they’re taking away from this moment. (People will want to hear from you!)

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The real reason Musk retreated: Elon Musk’s departure from DOGE was a massive, unplanned retreat by the richest person on the planet due to relentless noncooperation.

Online recording of 101 noncooperation webinar – a 2 hour virtual training on civil resistance and noncooperation. We cover the authoritarian threat and how to defeat it. We focus on countering the all-out assault on our elections and concrete steps for taking action.

Strategy Memo: The 89 Million – This memo by Ash-Lee Henderson describes 3 core reasons people don’t vote. While focused on Black voters, it examines strategies to activate the 89 million that did not vote in the latest election.

Election Risk Heat Map by Voting Rights Lab — breaking down where the most likely bad actors and systemic weaknesses collide to increase risk.

Hands Off Our Vote – the narrative guide to understand how to talk about “election theft” in this current authoritarian context

History and Practice of Noncooperation

Political scientist Erica Chenoweth unpacks what makes a successful movement against authoritarianism, and how nonviolent resistance can be used to uphold democracy.

Understanding Pillars of Support

One powerful approach that can help make sense of this complexity is the “pillars of support” framework: summarized by a simple image of a roof held up by several pillars.

Many of these resources are produced or hosted by other organizations and is shared here for educational purposes. Inclusion of any example or tactic does not constitute an endorsement or instruction to act similarly. Freedom Trainers is a 501(c)(3) educational organization committed to lawful, nonviolent action. Nothing here is legal advice. Individuals are solely responsible for their own decisions and conduct.