It always puzzles me when I see students trying to raise money for various causes with bake sales. The amount of time, human effort and money that goes into baking cupcakes usually only ends up raising $50-200 after expenses.  This is just one of the many mistakes that student activists repeatedly make, misplacing scarce time and resources behind actions that are either doomed to fail or simply aren't worth the effort.

Why do activists, especially younger ones, keep repeating the same mistakes. After participating in often futile campaigns and initiatives myself as a young person, I began to question which activities and approaches had I participated in worked and why.  About two years ago I came across an article that echoed and articulated many of the same thoughts and conclusions that I came to.  That article, Activism in the Fast Lane: Social Movements and the Neglect of Time by Kamilla Pietrzyk, argues for the need for reflexivity and institutional memory amongst activists.

Modern society ("fast capitalism") has us so rushed, that we fail to examine, to discuss, or to assess what strategies and tactics work and how.  She states:

As an activist, we see a problem and attempt to think of a remedy or solution within our context.  An undergraduate student only has their experiences to draw from, and bake sales are a common form of fundraising done at the high schools they come from.  We are too often quick to action, rather than seeking guidance from others who may have walked down our path before. Quick, both because it is the easier thing to do and it doesn't require us to do the often difficult work of reflection.  Pietrzyk says:

"There is thus a tension at work here: on the one hand, self-reflexivity can undermine whatever confidence activists bring to their work. On the other, reflexive capacities are needed to recognize and possibly counteract the biases that are potentially influencing goals and strategies in deleterious ways."

The easiest way is to talk to others about our goals and the problems we face as an activist, as searching for information on our own can quickly lead us to feel overwhelmed and confused if we don't know what precisely to look for.  Further, few of us dare to look beyond our insular circles for ideas from others.

Where else we look might be geographical.  In the Province of Quebec, student co-ops are common on almost every university and college campus, operating everything from bookstores, to the entire food service operations of some campuses.  We may look to another field.  Business school student organizations, such as Net Impact and Enactus, have consistently demonstrated sustained and widespread impact across their chapters. That said, business schools have an unequal advantage in accessing resources from willing corporate donors hoping to access new talent. The Enactus chapter at Memorial University has been particularly impressive, operating a dozen different social enterprises.  We can learn from them how to win the support of and resources of the corporate world, and use that support, if appropriate, for our cause.  We can also look at the approaches taken by varies ideologies.  Many ideas that originated from anarchist circles, such as non-hierarchical and participatory organizational structures, free store, DIY bike centres and vegan soup kitchens, are becoming more common on university campuses. Context is important. For example, the practice of squatting unused buildings to turn them over for community uses and affordable housing only works when the municipal council are left-leaning politically.

Our second challenge is sharing and preserving our knowledge, of what worked, what failed, and why, and sharing the knowledge of new innovations and approaches.  Educating new and younger activists when they join an organization is critically important. This can be achieved through orientations, mentorship and documenting and preserving institutional memory.  Existing members should be provided with opportunities for skills building and knowledge exchange.  While organizations may have limited capacity within their organization, solidarity networks can strengthen our collective abilities and resources.  A great example of this is the Toronto-based Tools for Change, a collective that provides training for activists.  Knowledge databases, central repositories for useful information, are another great tool that should be added to our arsenal.  The Homeless Hub, a database of research, data and reports on the subject of homeless, is a great resource and example of a successful knowledge database.  These are just a couple of examples of what can be done to improve our preservation, sharing and dissemination of activist knowledge.

Reflexivity, continual learning and educating others will help make your activism and the activism of your colleagues all the more effective.

Consider the types of impact you wish to achieve:

• Policy/procedural change (e.g. new laws/regulations, increased funding, new government services)
• Recognition from government (e.g. access to power, legal status, consulted by government, access to the negotiation table)
• Resource and service gains
  • Establishing new programs/social enterprises/co-ops
  • Income Generation
• Organizational impact
  • Long-term sustainability of organization/movement
  • Establishing new systems
  • Sustained or increased capacity
  • Ability to stay relevant
• Cultural impact
  • Greater awareness
  • Public opinion shifts
  • Mass mobilization