Getting Started with the
PARTICIPANT TOOLKIT

1. HOW TO FORM YOUR MICRO-COMMUNITY

Your Power is in Your Group – Gather 2 to 4 people to form your own democracy action team. Your team can be friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, or even an online group.

STEPS TO GET STARTED:

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒Step 1: Find 1-3 other people who share your commitment to democracy and create a Micro-Community of up to 4 people. (Why groups of only up to 4? Four person chat groups are easily manageable and more intimate. Large group chats can sometimes get too overwhelming, and overwhelm creates inaction. However, if you really want a larger group or no group at all, then who are we to stop you?)

📲Step 2: Connect via a group text message or an encrypted text messaging app like Signal, and name your micro-community! (e.g., Democracy Defenders, The Justice Crew, The Change Makers)

👍Step 3: You and your group Subscribe to receive a weekly list of action prompts.

▶️Step 4: Agree to complete one or more suggested actions per week—together or individually.

💥Now let's start taking some action! If you are new here you can go over to the ACTION PROMPTS page and begin with week 1 prompts.

2. HOW TO TAKE WEEKLY ACTION LIKE A BOSS

WHY: We use economic activism to shift power—through Divestment, Buycotts, Boycotts, and shifting our spending to more ethical companies. In both the corporate and political worlds, money equals power. When millions of people make even small changes in how they spend, the economic impact is significant enough to force companies and policymakers to take notice. In this way, we hold the power—not them. By making conscious choices about where we invest and spend, we take control and influence the decisions of those who impact our lives.

METHODS:
🔴 Boycott/Buycott/Divest: Refuse to support corporations that fund anti-democratic policies or exploit workers. (We'll suggest the worst offenders in order to make the quickest impact.)
🔵 Donate: Support a cause that upholds democracy. This can be another organization (ACLU, PBS, Indivisible), a candidate, or something of your choosing. We'll provide some suggestions in the weekly prompts.
🟢 Support: Replace those old corporations, services, and apps with alternatives that uphold democracy, workers' rights, and ethical practices. (We'll provide Alternative suggestions.)

SUGGESTED APPS: Goods Unite Us (see which companies fund red or blue candidates) andr Buycott (an app that let's you choose a cause and shows you which companies support or oppose your cause).

DIRECTIONS:

🚩 Once you've created your Micro Group and given it a kick-ass name, you can dive into action.

💥Step 1: Go to the ACTIONS PAGE to start completing your Economic Protest Actions by week.

👍Step 2: Your team commits to following one or more of the actions each week.

🚛Step 3: Check the Resources Section at the bottom of this page. There are some wonderful apps, sites, and other sources that will help you transition to more ethical solutions along the way.

📲Step 4: Stay connected! Use group chats, emails, or video calls to discuss weekly actions, check in, and support one another. Ask yourself (and your group) how you feel after taking an action. Keep each other psyched up! Follow us on Bluesky, Instagram, & FaceBook @4foralldemocracy and let us know how your group is doing. Join our groups on Discord to connect with other micro groups and share your progress, discoveries, and stories.

💡Helpful Mental Health Tips During These Tumultuous Times:

☑️ Take at least one day where you are not looking at the news or thinking about the situation at hand. This will serve as a rest and reset day so that you do not become burnt out with fear and exhaustion. Fear/Exhaustion/Burnout will lead to inaction. Taking care of your physical and mental health is extremely important during these times.

☑️Lighten it up with laughter. Anxiety can be a real mood crusher, and laughter is a really anxiety buster. Lighten things up with jokes and laughter. Or funny cat videos. Whatever makes you laugh.

☑️Support your micro group members. If you are feeling overwhelmed, reach out to your group. You group should let you know that they are here for you. Support your micro community. Lean on one another. This is how we survive and thrive during this time.

☑️Live from the inside out (not the outside in). It's so easy to turn on the news and have a meltdown, daily. Fear is a tactic used to exert power over people. Mass fear causes people to freeze and descend into chaos. Fear keeps us from being in action, and that's exactly what they want. Download a free meditation app like Plum Village to help you in times of anxiety and fear. Learn to ground and calm yourself. 5 minutes of meditation a day can really change your state of mind.

3. AMPLIFY THE MOVEMENT

Your voice spreads the movement! The sky is the limit! Here’s how you can help expand our collective power:

WAYS TO AMPLIFY THE MOVEMENT:

📢 Social Media Action

• Share your team’s progress using #4ForAllDemocracy #BuycottOligarchy

• Post updates on your weekly actions and invite others to join in each week.

• Use our ready-made social media graphics (available with each week's prompts), or create your own using something like the free version of Canva.

📧 Email & Word of Mouth: Invite others to form their own micro-communities

• Does the barista at the coffee shop complain about the current chaos? Invite her to take action.

• Send a link of the toolkit to family and friends, or anyone who is worried and doesn't know what to do.

💌 Creative Outreach

• Host a Zoom call to discuss actions with others

• Create a challenge: Who can recruit the most new micro-communities?

• Write letters to local businesses asking them to support democracy-friendly policies

4. STAY INFORMED & ENGAGED

Follow Us on Social Media for updates: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram @4foralldemocracy

HOW TO STAY INFORMED & ENGAGED

🚗 Follow us on Social Media

• Bluesky/Facebook/Instagram: @4foralldemocracy

👨‍👧‍👦Join our Discord Group (Coming Soon... As An Alternative to Facebook Groups)

📰 Subscribe to Independent News Sources & Fact Checking

• The Guardian doesn't have big corporate sponsors and relies on their own private Trust along with subscriber donations.

• PBS News Hour gets funding from viewers like you

• More Perfect Union is an independent group of investigative journalists

• ProPublica is independent, non-profit investigating public interests

• Snopes & FactCheck.org are fact checking sites

BEGINNER TOOLS & SITES:

• BUYCOTT APP: This app shows which corporations are for or against the causes you care about. Download, create your free account, pick the causes you care about, and start scanning items you're buying. Buycott will tell you if the products are in support or against your causes and then give you some alternative choices. https://www.buycott.com/

• GOODS UNITE US APP: Is your favorite company red or blue? Does is fund Trump and the Broligarchy? For example, AAA is 99% Republican in their campaign donations. Download the app to learn where your money goes. https://www.goodsuniteus.com/app/

• YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPS: Be in touch with your Congressional Representatives easily by going to https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member, type in your address, and your house and senate reps names and contact information will appear.

• LIBRARY OR CONGRESS: If you want to stay informed about what's going on in the legislative branch of the government then go to the Library of Congress, scroll down to the Laws and Legislation section and subscribe to “Bills being sent to the President,” “On the House Floor Today,” “On the Senate Floor Today”.... etc. loc.gov/subscribe

• INDIVISIBLE: Find a protest or virtual event near you at https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/

• INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCES: Here is a list of independent news sources that are more reliable than the big corporate players that pander to the government corporatocracy. The Guardian and ProPublica are two well known independent media outlets, but you can find dozens more ate https://www.trustworthymedia.org/list-of-independent-media/

• RESIST BOT: A robot that texts you updates about upcoming elections in your area and more up to date items and actions. It will even help you write your reps. Text RESIST to 50409 to get started.

• REGISTER VOTERS: Want to help register people to vote? Go to https://www.rockthevote.org/get-involved/help-register-voters/ to sign up.

• ETHICAL ALTERNATIVES: Ethical.net is a platform promoting open-source (non-centralized like big tech) ethical technology choices, and offering resources to help users select privacy-focused, sustainable, and socially responsible digital tools and services. Even swapping out 1-2 big tech apps for an open source app will make a big difference. EA offers replacements for microsoft office, google search, browsers, cloud storage, streaming services, domain hosting and much more. Try a new free app every month to start curbing your usage of big tech.

• PBS APP: Unlike big streaming platforms - Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, HBO- PBS in a non-proft company that isn't beholden to shareholders because it gets funding from people just like you. Public Broadcasting is a free and important source for news, children's educational shows, local tv programming, and wonderful movies. Stream 4,000+ PBS and local shows free on the PBS App from anywhere. Upgrade to the $5 per month Passport and you get access to stream even more films and shows. Plus you are supporting public broadcasting. You can download the app to your smart tv and phone and start streaming immediately. PBS Recommendations: PBS News Hour, Masterpiece Theatre, NOVA, Sesame Street.

• ADGUARD: Stop google and big tech from making all that money from ads. AdGuard is a browser extension that blocks adds on most sites including youtube. If you still need to use youtube then you can at least block the ads. Install it on your desktop browser and it will block ads on your computer browser and your phone browser (if you are using the same browser and signed in on both). Download the app for your mobile device and follow THESE simple instructions to block ads on the youtube app on your phone as well.

• MAPQUEST: Some of you probably haven't used Mapquest since 2003 and thought it was long gone. It's still around and gets the job done just fine. It works with carplay, doesn't track or save your user data, hasn't changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico (yet), and isn't Google or Apple Maps. You can use the free version or do a one time payment upgrade.

• OPEN SECRETS: Open Secrets is a website managed by the Center for Responsive Politics. It provides nonpartisan, in-depth data on money in U.S. politics. The website tracks political contributions, lobbying activities, and spending, giving the public access to comprehensive information on how money influences political decisions, elections, and legislation.

• ETHICAL BULK FOOD SUPPLIERS: This list links you to bulk staple food suppliers that ship to you (Azure ships to rural areas) and are ethical. This saves you money, and keeps you from spending money with big food supply corporations who in turn use it to lobby our government.

• AMAZON ALTERNATIVES: This list of Amazon alternatives by country will help you divest and redirect some (or all) of your money from Amazon.

This beginner list of tools, apps, sites and alternatives will help you get started on your journey.

Downloadable Social Media Images

Download instructions:
💻Computer: Click on an image, right click, and choose to 'Save Image'.
📱On mobile device: Click image, when it enlarges press and hold until you get the download function.

Contact Us for Action

Join us in reclaiming democracy through collective action. Have ideas or other suggestions? We'd like to hear about them. Message us.

Engage

info@fourforalldemocracy.com