What is Transformative Organizing?

Transformative (community) organizing begins with concrete, everyday problems - like rising rents, falling wages, or dehumanizing migration policies. Organizing brings together the people who are directly affected by these issues: tenants, workers, migrants. We are the core of the group and the movement. Together, we build trust, agency and power.

The goal is not only to solve the immediate problems, but also to challenge and change the deeper structural causes and power dynamics - such as unjust class and gender relations and systemic racism. In this process, we change ourselves and our society, step by step, moving toward greater social and ecological justice.

Transformative organizing impacts the individuals involved, their communities, institutions and society as a whole. Examples in Germany include tenant initiatives like Kotti & Co and Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen, union renewal movements such as the Hospital Movement and Wir fahren zusammen and anti-racist organizing efforts like International Women’s Space or the Ferhat Unvar Educational Initiative.

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