Realizing a global movement 📣 Colombe Cahen-Salvador, Andrea Venzon & Laura Giani, NOW!
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Episode at a glance:
GUEST: Colombe Cahen-Salvador, Andrea Venzon & Laura Giani
COMMUNITY: NOW!
HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh
“When you create a team, a group of people that actually want to take action, you are halfway to success.” — Andrea Venzon
Show Notes
In 2016, Colombe, Laura, and Andrea were devastated by the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Colombe is French, and Andrea and Laura are Italian. For them, the E.U. is a symbol of a more open and global society.
In response, the team completely changed their lives to organize. Colombe and Andrea started by creating Volt, a pan-European political party. They were the first to attempt and succeed in building a continent-wide political party.
But in doing so they realized the biggest issues of our time weren’t just European issues, they were global issues–climate change, big tech, and the rise of fascism. Action would be meaningless unless the world bands together.
Colombe, Andrea, and Laura have been working over the last year on a global campaign movement called NOW! to unite and solve shared global challenges. We talk with them about how they are developing leaders around the world and taking action together.
In our book, “Get Together: How to build community with your people,” we share a framework to spark, stoke, and scale community.
Here’s The NOW! team on first step of building a community, sparking the flame.
A watering hole that bridges gaps.
Colombe and Andrea had the early instinct that, “you can’t solve global issues at a European level.” They shifted their efforts and forged a plan to bridge gaps across borders.
The first step they took was creating a space for people to unite, communicate, and work together. Because their global community had varying access to social platforms from WhatsApp to Facebook, NOW! invested in the development of their own platform. To fund this development, Colombe and Andrea asked people to buy a membership upfront. They shared across social platforms and made direct contact with people involved in Volt. On the first day, 2,000 people registered.
The space grew over the first ten months into organized forum discussions, interest, and advocacy groups. They now have represented more than a hundred countries.
Activism shared activities that are purposeful, participatory, and repeatable.
NOW! hosts weekly Community Chats which allow volunteers to tap into the community’s purpose: to learn more about global issues. This shared activity connects volunteers globally and manifests a sense of unity in a way that is untraditional from the party system and movements in the US.
NOW! set strong guidelines that allow people to share and respect different viewpoints. “Agreeing to disagree during community chats is one of the most important things,” Laura told us.
The Community Chats have grown with a number of energetic volunteers. Discussions have birthed campaigns on topics ranging from women’s rights in Tunisia, LGBTQ rights, and tech’s impact on democracy.
Photos from outside the Chinese embassy in London as part of the pro-democracy campaign.
An origin story that challenges corporate politics.
NOW! is pursuing a bold vision. They have set out to unite people in a global movement. If they choose to make their statement in that way, it would be easy for people to be skeptical or confused.
Where NOW! has found traction in communicating their message is in real-world terms. “We don’t spend our time thinking up big concepts and then talking about them with very complicated words,” Colombe shares. When Colombe, Andrea, and Laura have an idea they share it and talk to people about it. They found that, “if you stop someone on the streets and ask them what are the biggest issues they are facing, you will realize that it’s the same across borders.”
Messaging is then built with their constituents’ help, not from a distance.
Photo from a Community Chat.
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