Skip to main content

Workshop

Grow Commitment through Relationships – Community Organising Foundations

One-to-ones build relationships based on shared values, not transactions. Learn to create accountability and build critical mass for change.

Act Build Change | 16 Jun 2026 | Online

An illustration of a large balancing scale with one person on each side. The person on the left is in a wheelchair holding a large sphere, their side of the scale already has a pyramid and cube stacked on it. The person standing on the right is reaching up to put a pyramid on top of their side of the scale, which has a sphere and cube stacked on it.

One-to-ones are a crucial element of community organising and building power. They’re how we share stories, build relationships, and understand our shared resources – behind every win is a history of one-to-ones.

This training explores what makes a good one-to-one and why they are important in organising. Through practical exercises, you'll explore how to get the most out of your one-to-ones by finding shared values, interests and resources, and asking people to make commitments. We will also cover scaling your one-to-ones and navigating challenges and opportunities that might arise. After this training, you will leave with a clear sense of how to use one-to-ones to build collective power and develop leadership.

Outcomes:

  • Understand what a one-to-one is and its strategic purpose. 
  • Practise how to do one-to-ones and overcome potential challenges. 
  • Reflect on how you can apply these principles to your own work.

This training is part of our foundations series, designed for both new and experienced organisers who are ready to develop practical organising skills. We recommend taking the introduction training first to understand the core concepts of transformative community organising.

Meet the facilitators

Ariel Whitson has over a decade of experience as a community organiser focused on social justice issues, primarily with environmental and land justice. Before joining Act Build Change, she was the Senior Director of Community Organising and Education at TreePeople, a leading Los Angeles-based NGO, where she led a team of 40 organisers and educators supporting communities impacted by climate change and environmental injustice. Prior to TreePeople, she ran major advocacy campaigns at Ten Strands, securing significant legislative and funding victories for climate literacy. Ariel is passionate about healing the violent separation of land and people through organising.

Emma Batrick is passionate about social mobility, social justice and the drivers of poverty and deprivation – to the point of obsession with housing and class issues. As Community Organiser at Act Build Change, Emma brings over ten years of community organising experience, having campaigned on housing, community assets, local democracy and policy issues. She has also worked with groups to create communication tools to empower others to help themselves to prevent crisis, while working within Trussell's Organising and Local Mobilisation programme. Emma also has twenty years of youth work experience, and currently leads a club for young carers. 

Combining her interests in social justice, writing and music, Emma is author of When Sam Tried to Close the Foodbank, has contributed to working class poetry anthology Inheritance with Late Britain Press, and has written for The Pavement Magazine, GigWise and Superjam.

Cost

  • Free for Full Members (those with a paid membership) using the discount code below.
  • £15 for everyone else.

If you would like to become a Full Member (and get access to lots of other great events, trainings and more), visit our membership page to get started.

Access

This event will be held online using Zoom. The link will be shared with registered attendees before the start of the event.

To avoid difficulties accessing the workshop, please ensure that you register for the event with the same email address that you intend to use on Zoom.

Please get in touch if there is anything we can do to support your participation in this session. This includes, but is not limited to, language, comfort, and access (physical, emotional, technological) needs.

Member Discount

XXXXXXXX

Sign in or register for Full Membership to access this code.

Book online
Book online