Moving Forwards with Hope – 2025 Year in Review

2025 has been a busy year for Act Build Change. We have expanded our team, expanded our membership, undergone an internal restructure, and delivered more training and support to grassroots organisers in the UK than ever before. 

In a year when it would be easy to give in to fear, we have seen tremendous courage from so many people who are pushing back in the fight for a better future. We begin 2026 with hope at how many people we see stepping up and taking action for migrants’ rights, against poverty, for climate justice. We are proud to be working with our members who choose hope and love over division and despair. The hope we feel and our dedication to this work is spurred on thanks to our community.

Looking back on 2025, we celebrate and learn to focus our work going forwards into the latter half of the 2020s.

Growth 

New team members

This year our team has grown significantly allowing us to meet the increasing demand for our work. We are lucky to now have Ariel Whitson as Director of Organising and Ricky Wong as Director of Design and Technology. Latifa Akay, our Head of Collective Care for four years, has moved into the part-time role of Lead of Learning and Impact, while Kennedy Walker is our new Lead Care Organiser. In March, Jemima Elliott joined the Act Build Change team as freelance Communications Officer. We’re delighted to have had two new colleagues join our team in December and look forward to introducing them to you this year.

Membership

Over 700 new members joined in 2025, bringing our total to over 800, including almost 100 with full membership.

Across the year, over 110 members (plus 160 non-members) signed up to at least one of our events and 220 started at least one of our online courses. We have been developing a new curriculum of workshops and courses which we are excited to share with members for 2026.

We also launched organisational membership, enabling organisations to share membership with their teams. Current organisational members include: Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire, Migrant Democracy Project, Migrants’ Rights Network, Save the Children and Trussell. We look forward to continue working with them and supporting their organising this year.

Alongside membership, we also had 800 new subscribers to our mailing list, taking us to over 2,000 in total.

Sign up to our membership if you'd like to access these benefits and join our mailing list to get updates of our stories, events and opportunities.

We have made the right decision at Migrant Democracy Project to become an organisational member of Act Build Change. We benefit so much from their training sessions which have been such a huge help in upskilling our new and existing members of staff. As a small organisation, we lack the time and resources to train and support our team all in-house so the trainings on coaching, power-mapping, and setting up leadership teams have been amazing for our team to develop. I love every conversation we have as the team provides us with so much care, attention, and tailored support.

Delivery

Membership events

In 2025 we delivered 20 events open to our members and the public including workshops on collective care, rest and recovery, introductions to community organising, and strategy, as well as online organiser meet-ups. 

At the start of the year, we were lucky to host Matt Hildreth as part of a roundtable discussion with 9 UK-based organisers on building relational power in rural communities and countering the narratives driving polarisation. Matt is the Executive Director of Rural Organising and shared lessons from his experience organising with ‘vocal locals’ in small towns and rural communities in America. 

In May we also hosted the UK launch of Marshall Ganz’s latest book, People, Power, Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal. We brought together 100 organisers from across the UK for a day of discussion, learning and singing (and sweating thanks to the summer heat!). You can read more about the day and its main themes in our blog post.

There are not many organisations like Act Build Change. Their team makes us feel at home in the movement, where anyone can contribute and have access. This is quite uncommon. Their currency as an organisation is trust, not performance.

School for Everyday Democracy

Last year, with Involve, we launched the School for Everyday Democracy – a programme that aims to train 100 Everyday Democracy Champions and change the balance of power in the UK's democratic system across all four nations. So far we have worked with 52 changemakers across three cohorts and nine residentials. We’ve also delivered seven coaching pods, and one graduation event.

Our champions are working to deliver change ranging from organising to bring communities together in the face of rising anti-migrant hostility in the north of Ireland, to people tackling social isolation in Glasgow and Birmingham. It has become clear to us through this project that while there is a significant gap between the world that we want to live in and the world that we live in now, there is a groundswell of people up and down this country – and around the world – working collectively to make a difference. From Southampton, to London, Blackpool, Edinburgh, and Derry, our champions are launching projects to slowly transform the world.

The most important or useful thing I have learned so far through the programme is never to underestimate the power of change I can bring about. Why, because the School for Everyday Democracy is like a springboard to help me dream again and see ways I can be the change agent in my community.

Coaching Pod

Over five months, 16 Act Build Change members from across the UK took part in our second Coaching Pod. Led by facilitators Ariel and Shingai, these participants learned essential coaching skills to support one another and bring forward in their organising work. Participants and facilitators all learned a lot from each other. The participants brought much commitment and joy to this course and we look forward to supporting and celebrating them in their future work.

Both Ariel and Shingai nurtured a safe space for us as practitioners to learn, share and grow as a collective. I now feel more confident in my coaching practice.

We Belong

We Belong is a migrant youth-led organisation, campaigning for the rights of young migrants and developing young leaders by providing advice, support and training. Over the summer we held two collective care workshops with We Belong, where we provided frameworks and learning to strengthen their practice of collective care. Together, we worked to strengthen their relationships both with each other and the young people they work with to achieve their important mission.

Ez encouraged and created a very safe space for vulnerability - she also kept us on track when discussions took tangents and brought it back to work/professional context.

Trussell

We ran multiple strategy sessions with Trussell's organising team to refine their theory of change. We also held one-to-ones with the leadership team in between these sessions and trained Trussell organising in coaching. Throughout the year, Act Build Change has provided hands-on support to Trussell's organising team.

Shelter

Our team spent a great day in June training Shelter England’s organising team. In the session, we reviewed, deeply unpacked, and worked on their collective care practice. This work built on a collective care workshop series and coaching programme that we ran with the team in 2024. The team’s commitment to their care practice to strengthen their organising was inspiring. From the North East to Plymouth, and North West to Norwich, Shelter’s organising team are working with local communities across the country to stand up for better housing and affordable homes.

Really appreciate the work you do and the support you give those of us working in a challenging and often quite isolating field of work. Thank you.

Migrant Power Project

In 2025 we started the Migrant Power Project alongside Civic Power Fund, working with 15 groups organising for migrant justice. We began with one-to-ones earlier in the year and started our monthly training sessions in October. Together, we built our community guidelines for the project and focused on relationship-building to strengthen our work together for 2026. 2025 was a vital first step of relationship building and as we step into the new year we’re excited to work alongside the groups to implement community organising practice and build power through coaching, one-to-one and on-the-ground support. 

Immigrant Council of Ireland

Our trainers Kennedy and Shingai kicked off the 2025 Migrant Leadership Academy organised by the Immigrant Council of Ireland with a powerful weekend residential. They trained 16 changemakers from across Ireland on the foundations of transformative community organising: building power, strategy and tactics, and growing stronger teams through collective care practices. Participants all had a range of experiences and knowledge to share with the group, representing not only eight Irish counties but also 13 nationalities: Afghanistan, China, Congo, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Syria, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.

The participatory approach offered an opportunity to share knowledge and expertise from each other and ultimately contributed to collective learning.

Greater London Authority

We rounded up and celebrated the Migration Sector Wellbeing and Resilience Programme, commissioned by the Greater London Authority Migration team. Over 15 months, we worked with 21 migration sector organisations to build caring processes and ways of working, and to develop structures to strengthen wellbeing. The programme took participants on a journey of exploring the possibilities to care for themselves, and their peers and communities, under the urgent and unpredictable conditions of the hostile environment. As part of this we delivered a series of collective care workshops with themes including intersectional care, rest and recovery and building caring processes. We ran peer coaching clinics alongside these sessions as well as a series of therapeutic workshops led by therapist Nina Dearden on the theme of 'The Whole Self in Migration Sector Work'.

Act Build Change are the best - thanks for your dynamism as facilitators, as a neurodivergent person, you really helped me to feel engaged and stimulated throughout which can sometimes be very challenging.

Teaching at Harvard

In 2025, Stephanie, our CEO, rejoined Marshall Ganz's MLD377: Community Organising – People Power Change at Harvard University as Head Teaching Fellow. She transitioned from supporting a small section of 20 students to being responsible for the learning of 58 students across the entire programme. Since returning to the UK, Stephanie has been writing a blog series where shares her experiences and what she learnt teaching organising in Trump’s America.

Stephanie returns to Harvard in January to teach as part of the course MLD 360: Being Human, also led by Marshall Ganz. 

I was living and working during a political climate I have not experienced in my lifetime. Whatever one's opinions about the politics of then and now, my lived experience was of working in two very different worlds – a shift that has fundamentally altered the landscape of North American higher education and democracy at large. There were days when helicopters circled overhead, their purpose unknown for hours whilst fear did its work. Signal chats would light up with ICE alerts, sending staff and students into moments of legitimate terror followed by waves of support and solidarity.

Other partnerships

This year, Act Build Change ran two workshops with Oldham Positive Action Network (OPAN) focusing on movement building, creating strong teams and strategy. We facilitated a workshop with Mothers Climate Action Network (Mothers CAN), reconnecting the participants to the heart of their organising in a vulnerable and open session. We also began working with Bristol Mind, to build their organising capacities together, and look forward to furthering our relationships with these groups in 2026.

Everyone left feeling motivated and supported as part of a wider network of organisers.

Funding

We are grateful to Civic Power Fund who have doubled their contributions to our core funding this year, and to Esmée Fairburn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation for their continued support. 

We are delighted to share that Joseph Rowntree Foundation has granted us £100,000 of core funding per year for the next five years, allowing us to continue our work with a long term vision.

And to our members, for their contributions to keeping this support available and their commitment to us and our shared work – we are thankful to you. 

Learning highlights

Throughout the year, we continued to share stories from our team and our community. Here are some of the highlights:

• Collective Care – Reflections on Safety and Facilitation by Kennedy Walker.
• Resources 10 Resources to Support Your Organising This Summer by Act Build Change.
• Lessons from Harvard blog series by Stephanie Wong.
• This Is Our Town, Don’t Let Us Down – Community Power Against Cuts by Jemima Elliott.
• Understanding Solidarity with LGSM by Jemima Elliott.

We want to share stories of organising and all issues from across the UK and beyond. If you have lessons you want to share about community organising, pitch your story to us. 

Members’ wins

All of our work at Act Build Change is centred on our members. We are proud to work alongside them and support them, cheer them on when they win and bolster them during times of struggle.

Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire

In 2025, Grapevine celebrated 30 years of working for change in Coventry and Warwickshire!

At the beginning of the year, Grapevine successfully organised against proposed council budget cuts to disability support services. You can read more about their campaign on our blog. They have expanded their team and projects this year. These projects have included:

• Coventry Youth Activists, a youth-led disability campaign group supported by Grapevine who believe in young disabled people having a voice, breaking down barriers and ending online discrimination. In 2025 they launched their Let’s Get Voting campaign to make voting more accessible for young disabled people. They also published their Playbook for Organising with Young Disabled People put together by CYA campaigners.
• With Connecting for Good, Grapevine has seen success with their Need The Loo campaign working for improved access to clean and dignified public toilets in Coventry. Coventry Council have added new signs across the city to support people to find toilets, but the campaign continues in 2026!

Migrant Democracy Project

Migrant Democracy Project have made significant progress as part of their Votes for All campaign which demands that all residents, no matter where they come from, have the right to participate in local and general elections in the UK. 

In 2025, MDP attended political party conferences and held a roundtable event at Westminster campaigning for Votes for All. Five councils passed their motion along with 26 MPs signing their Early Day Motion in Parliament. They also doubled the number of Votes for All champions organising in their local communities and four MPower Leaders were selected as candidates in the local elections in 2026. 

Building on the legacy of the Chartists over 200 years ago, Migrant Democracy Project launched a Charter of their own. You can read and sign the Charter here.

Trussell 

In June, Trussell brought over 700 people from across the UK to Westminster for a lobby day where they called on MPs to support an Essentials Guarantee – where the basic rate of Universal Credit covers essential costs of living such as food, household bills and travel, and cannot be pulled below that level. Trussell was also a significant part of the campaign to end the two-child benefit cap, a win which will bring 470,000 children out of severe hardship. Both of these campaigns progress their goal of ending the need for food banks in the UK.

Shelter

All over England last year, Shelter community organisers helped people in communities fight for homes, winning more social housing, better conditions, more rights for renters – making housing more what it should be for the people who need it the most. Shelter were part of a multitude of organisations who worked together to build powerful alliances to outlaw revenge eviction and abolish the ‘no fault’ Section 21 notice this year. This is a huge win and will take effect from May 1st 2026.

The training provided by Act Build Change supported Shelter organisers to build resilience, establish and maintain clear boundaries and gave them the skills needed not only for themselves and their communities, but to build campaigns that not only won but improved people’s own lives and sense of self and self esteem along the way.

Migrants’ Rights Network

In the face of rising hostility towards migrants – both on the streets and at the policy level – Migrants’ Rights Network (MRN) have been a real pillar to the migrant justice movement. To give just a few highlights of their work, in 2025 MRN: 

• Trained a cohort of organisers who have since begun working in their own communities including Kurdish diaspora and queer migrants.
• Convened multiple strategic meetings with the wider Anti-Raids network in London and launched a digital tool tracking immigration raids in the UK.
• Launched the Justice for Sponsored Workers campaign, demanding the end to sponsored slavery. 
• Took action in Birmingham – alongside our friends at Regularise and other organisations – marching to the current Home Secretary’s office to protest hostile UK immigration policies and demand rights for migrant workers.

Looking forward to 2026…

In 2026 we are launching a brand new curriculum, with a series of courses and trainings to support and expand your organising work. You can read more about what’s coming up in our blog post by Ariel, our Director of Organising.

We are looking forward to continuing our long term projects – Migrant Power Project and School for Everyday Democracy – as well welcoming new ones. 

Our team has been working behind the scenes on our theory of change, which we are excited to share with you in 2026.

We will continue building our membership and deepen relationships with our community. We know the late 2020s will require us all to dig deep and work hard, but we believe we can win locally and nationally and are committed to supporting our members in those fights.