The Activist for Activists. Author of Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism and The Happy Activist: Journey the 5-Step Activism Path to Focus Your Passion and Change the World. Teacher, Psychologist, Environmental Activist, Animal Lover.
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Last Updated on September 29, 2025
Motivational Resources and Learning Opportunities for Activists
Another challenge for experienced activists is maintaining the right skills and knowledge to make a difference. Learning opportunities for activists is your guide to keeping on the cutting edge of your activism work.
Why Use These Motivational Resources and Learning Opportunities for Activists?
When I started in activism, I found it challenging to navigate the myriad of tools for social change available to me. Sometimes, I found resources that didn’t apply to my cause. Other times, I found academic resources that were hard to apply to my situation. The worst ones were those that sent me on a search that ended with me wondering what I was looking for in the first place.
These resources for experienced activists are different. I’ve curated these motivational resources and learning opportunities for activists that support each step on my easy-to-follow, evidenced-based 5-Step Activism Path.
Take your time. It is perfectly fine to dive into resources that you find helpful. Without good preparation, only a small percentage of people stay active long-term. If they don’t get clear about their passion and skills and find an activism method they love, they end up ineffective and burnt out. So, take your time and remind yourself this is an investment in you and your cause.
Table of Contents
Choose the Right Activism Method
Learning Opportunities for Activists
Motivational Resources for Activists
These motivational resources for activists are based on my 5-Step Activism Path. Following these steps means better motivation and effectiveness.
Focus Your Passion
In this step, you dive into your values, roles, ideal life, and ideal world. This work leads you to the cause closest to your heart. Enjoy these motivational resources for experienced activists.
START HERE >> How to Find the Cause Closest to Your Heart: What is the cause closest to your heart? Find your passion and make a difference. Align your values with action.
How to Create a Vision of a Joyful Life: A joyful life is one in which we experience fulfillment, purpose, and passion. A vision of what that looks like for you points to your passions.
What is Your Life Vision: Being clear about your life vision means you will live your values in all you do, including activism. Get in-depth engagement in your cause.
Other posts you may wish to browse:
- Consider your life roles. What are the five most important roles in your life? How will activism fit in?
- How do activists describe the cause closest to their heart? Activists describe their passions, and you’ll be surprised at the creativity and diversity of their choices.
Additional Resources for Focusing Your Passion
To focus your passion, try these tools for social change:
Read
- Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr. The entire book is excellent, but for visioning, see her chapter about callings.
- Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger & Barbara Barron-Tieger. This book uses MBTI personality types to help you understand your values and motivations. Includes a method for determining your type and specifics on how your type impacts life choices.
Browse
- The podcast On Being with Krista Tippett explores spirituality, science, healing, and poetry conversations.
Use
- Create your Bucket List. Then, apply it to your activism.
- How to draw mind maps includes suggestions for mind-mapping tools. Xmind is the tool I use to mind map and get creative.
- Human Values Project allows you to complete a free questionnaire about how what impacts your behavior based on a research database of the fourteen most common values. Then, learn how you express your values in different situations and where you may want to balance your life. Detailed report provided with suggestions for development.
- Clearer Thinking website provides free tools for improvement.
- World’s Biggest Problems Quiz: Test your knowledge of some of the world’s most pressing problems: global health, animal welfare, and existential risks to humanity.
- Belief Challenger: Our beliefs determine our behaviors and interactions with others. Use this program to refine your beliefs and form more accurate views.
- Uncover Your Guiding Principles: Build a list of your personal principles to help you make better decisions.
- Lifetime Aspirations: A Tool For Pursuing Ambitious Goals– This tool asks questions about your meaning and purpose. Then, you set goals and sub-goals.
- The Intrinsic Values Test: Find out what you value most in the world and compare those to others’ values.
Inventory Your Skills
START HERE >> How to Take Stock of the Gifts You Bring to Activism: Take stock of the gifts you bring to activism. Understand your skills, knowledge, and motivation to find the right activism for you. This post refers you to the Activism Skills and Knowledge Questionnaire.
Other posts you may wish to browse:
More about skills and knowledge and how they relate to performance in What You Can Do and What You Know Can Change the World.
In How Clarifying Your Gifts Helps You Use Your Talents for Good, you learn the story of an activist who learned how important it can be to match your skill to your activism.
Cultural competence is critical in activism. Learn how to improve yours in Things You Should Know Before You Take It to the Streets.
Additional Resources for Inventorying Your Skills
Understanding your skills, knowledge, and motivation is crucial for becoming an effective activist. Here are tools to help you explore your potential.
Read
- What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. This book contains a great exercise designed to help you identify the skills you enjoy using.
- Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger & Barbara Barron-Tieger. This book uses MBTI personality types to help you understand your strengths and motivations.
Browse
- Building the World We Dream About A Unitarian Universalist program that seeks to interrupt the workings of racism.
- It’s Pronounced Metrosexual. Useful information about understanding privilege.
- Peggy McIntosh created the items for the Privilege Inventory that travels the web.
Use
- Activism Skills and Experiences Questionnaire by Randy Schutt
- Check your Privilege: From Buzzfeed.
- The Clifton’s StrengthsFinder, used by millions of people, is a tool for self-awareness to capitalize on talents and apply them to challenges.
- Compare Countries: From Sociologist Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Competency Research
- Anti-Defamation League Personal Self-Assessment of Anti-Bias Behavior
- The Clearer Thinking website provides free tools for improvement.
- Gender Continuum Test: Learn about the relationship between gender and personality.
- Emotional Obstacles to Doing Good: Emotions can help and hinder your progress.
- The Ultimate Personality Test: Find out which of 16 personality types you match best.
Choose the Right Activism Method
START HERE >> How to Find the Best Activism Method: Many opportunities exist for experienced activists. So, take time to make the match between your passion and the best activism method for you.
Other posts you may wish to browse:
Activism in Art and Other Creative Ways To Use Your Talents for Your Cause: Activism in art is one of many creative ways to make a difference in the world. Find the perfect activism method for you.
Get Inspired by Amazing Activists: The Everyday Heroes of Activism: Browse activist profiles to see how they chose their activism method.
Additional Resources on Activism Methods
To find a suitable activism method, browse these tools and examples of changemakers using their distinct activism method.
Mobilization
Mobilization includes practices such as protesting and signing petitions rather than those that require deep engagement.
- Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Round the World. The story of the largest worldwide protest in history. Includes links to activist organizations.
- Change.org– Create a petition or browse those created by others.
Advocacy
Awareness
- Advocate to end extreme poverty. ONE is a global movement campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030.
- Advocacy programs support community members trying to make a difference. An example is the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
Coaching and Mentoring
- Provide financial coaching for the underserved. Cristo Rey Community Center provides financial counseling to the community.
- Inspire girls to pursue STEM careers. Jessica Wade was disappointed with the lack of wikis about female scientists. So, she decided to change that by writing over 1750 biographies. She wants girls to find inspiring examples of successful female scientists.
Lobbying
- Molly Burhons lobbied the Vatican to encourage better land use.
- David Hogg is a survivor of a school mass shooting. He and others created March for Our Lives to advocate for gun control.
Run for Office
- Emily’s List supports pro-choice women candidates.
- Run for office as a member of a party with an anti-cruelty platform. Georgie Purcell is an Australian politician and a member of the Animal Justice Party. She is also a lawyer and advocates for women’s rights and reproductive health.
Training
- Help kids learn how to be environmental activists. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez created Earth Guardians to teach kids to make a difference for the planet.
- Help others recognize human trafficking. Truckers Against Trafficking trains truckers to assist law enforcement in the recognition and reporting of human trafficking.
Art as Activism
Crafting
- Activist Sarah Corbett created The Craftivist Collective to promote craftivism and gentle protest.
- How to be a Craftivist: The art of gentle protest by Sarah Corbett
- The Art and Craft of Activism and Knitting for Good. A Guide to Creating Personal, Social, and Political Change Stitch by Stitch by Betsy Greer
Dance
Drawing and Illustration
- The website Creative Activism offers workshops, resources, and inspiration for using art and creativity for social change.
- Create a comic strip about peace activism. Cartooning for Peace is an international network of cartoonists who use humor to bring awareness to peacebuilding.
Film
- Film a documentary on fast fashion. For example, True Cost is about how our clothes impact the people who make them and the world.
Music
- Bring singers together for your cause. The Appalachian Equality Chorus promotes inclusion and ending hostility toward marginalized people.
Photography
- Create photography that highlights your cause. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Renée Byer’s exhibit ‘Living on a Dollar a Day’ reveals the faces of those living in extreme poverty.
Podcasts
- The Activist Files podcast delves into the strategies and successes of different activist movements worldwide. An example is episode 40: Radical Freedom through Art and Activism with Nadia Ben-Youssef & BK King.
- “Code Switch” is an NPR podcast that explores race and identity in America, featuring stories of activists fighting for social justice. Hosted by journalists of color.
Poetry
- Poets can bring awareness to social justice issues with just a few carefully chosen words. Bobbi-Anjelica Morris is a spoken poetry performer and disability advocate.
Sculpture
- Create a sculpture to highlight immigration. Mohamad Hafez and Ahmed Badr created the sculpture Refugee Baggage to humanize the word “refugee.”
Theater
- The Diggers is a guerrilla theater group from the 1960s.
- Is acting in your blood? Read about activists who use theater for activism.
- Write a play about your cause. Sheltering by Timothy Schmalz highlights homelessness.
Writing
- Start a magazine about your cause. Surge is a Charleston magazine focused on local environmental issues.
- Peace activist George Lakey wrote Dancing with History: A Life for Peace and Justice.
Specialized Skills
Apps and Games
- Create a video game about the LGBTQ+ experience. Portrait of a Texas Family is a video game where the player raises a trans teen in Texas.
Gardening
- Save seeds that preserve a cultural history. Second Generation Seeds keeps Asian heirloom seeds in the food system.
Leadership
- Create a support program for your cause. Veganuary inspires people to try a vegan diet.
- Help disabled people get better access to job opportunities. Keely Cat-Wells represents disabled talent, placing them in jobs in Hollywood.
Legal Support
- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offers legal aid and advocacy on various social justice issues.
- The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) combats hate groups and bigotry through litigation and education.
- Coordinate a pro-bono law student project with a nonprofit to provide legal aid. Grab those law students and give them a way to practice their skills and give back.
News Media Outreach
- MediaJustice fights for communication rights, access, and power for communities harmed by persistent dehumanization, discrimination, and disadvantage.
- Develop news media contacts in your area and provide information on your cause. Making media contacts lets you get your issue in the press, advertise events, and educate journalists.
Research
- The Data Science Institute Data for Good advances data science applications that are used to benefit society.
- Organize large datasets to guide campaign decision-making. Movements need access to good data and a way to organize that data to make decisions. An example is the HEAL Food Alliance, which collects and analyzes data on food insecurity.
Undercover Investigations
- Undercover investigations and whistleblowing can provide critical information about a cause. For example, The Project On Government Oversight is a watchdog investigating governmental waste, corruption, and abuse of power.
- Mercy for Animals sends staff into animal factory farms to document the terrible cruelty of the system.
Movement Support
Administrative Support
- Administrative support is a much-needed skill in activism.
- Offer mindfulness resources for changemakers. Activists must stay motivated over the long haul. People skilled in mindfulness can help them with self-care tools.
Fundraising
- Create a product and donate the profit to your cause. Former NFL player Justin Watson created BLQK Coffee and donates 25% of its profits to Black communities.
- Create a sports group to support your cause. Running to Protest organizes NYC runs to protest racial injustice.
Volunteer Care
- Feed the Resistance: Recipes and Ideas for Getting Involved by Julia Turshen. Read my book review.
- Start a yoga class for veterans. Veterans Yoga Project aims to support recovery and resilience among veterans, military families, and communities.
Social Media
- Act.tv is a media company doing live streaming and digital campaigns.
- Maintain your organization’s website. An excellent social media presence allows nonprofits to build awareness, generate donations, and build a volunteer base.
Make the Most Impact
START HERE >> How to Make an Impact with Your Activism
In How to Craft Your Ideal Activism Opportunity, a budding climate change activist considers her skills, motivation, and desired method to visualize her perfect activism opportunity.
Other posts you may wish to browse:
How to Make Powerful Change in Your Activism provides guidance on maximizing your performance. Activist Jenny sets herself up for success by considering all aspects of her performance.
Sometimes, we get punished for doing things right and rewarded for doing things wrong. Learn more in How to Fix Your Mixed-Up Motivation.
Additional Resources on Making the Most Impact
To maximize your impact, try these tools for social change:
Read
- Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Help Others, Do Work that Matters, and Make Smarter Choices about Giving Back by William MacAskill.
Browse
- 80,000 Hours: You work for 80,000 hours in a lifetime. Make it count.
- Effective Altruism: Use your donations and effort in the most impactful way.
Use
The Clearer Thinking website provides free tools for improvement.
- Clearer Thinking: Find tools to understand how you can make better decisions. One example is What Causes Match Your Values? Find an effective charity that matches your values.
- Activism Finder-Volunteer Match connects you with local volunteer opportunities aligned with your passions.
Set Goals and Stay Motivated
START HERE >> How to Stay Motivated in Your Activism
Learn more about SMART goals at Be SMART: How to Set Activism Goals.
Is Self-Care Important? How Caring for Yourself Helps You and Others reviews how self-care is a social change method.
Other posts you may wish to browse:
In The Most Powerful Self-Care Strategy for Activists, find stress awareness methods and coping strategies that work for you.
Learn from activist Bert, who creates an action plan for his new activism.
Additional Resources for Staying Motivated
Browse these tools focused on goal-setting and staying motivated.
Set Goals
Browse
- SMART Goals: A Guide for writing SMART goals, provided by the University of California
Use
- Savor Your Life: A Tool for Boosting Happiness
- Stress Test
- Start a daily journaling practice, focusing on your emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Pay attention to what triggers strong emotions, both positive and negative. Day One is a Journaling app.
- The Clearer Thinking website provides free tools for improvement.
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- What Makes an Effective Goal?: Use a research-based process to set effective goals.
- Daily Ritual: A Habit Creation System: This tool builds a custom habit-formation strategy to support habit creation.
Stay Motivated
Read
- The Lifelong Activist: How to change the world without losing your way by Hillary Rettig
- In The Tiger’s Mouth: An Empowerment Guide For Social Action by Katrina Shields
- An oldie but a goodie: The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook by Martha Davis, Elizabeth Robbins Eshelman, and Matthew McKay. Now in its 7th edition. This book provides easy step-by-step instructions for the gamut of stress reduction techniques, both mental and physical, and helps you create an action plan.
- Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved, by Julia Turshen. You can read my review at How Chef Helps Activists with Self-Care.
- Pacing Yourself for the Journey: How to Avoid Burnout and Thrive while Working to Change the World Chapter 15 of Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership (1995) by Berit Lakey, George Lakey, Rod Napier, and Janice Robinson.
Browse
- 11 Changemakers Share How They Deal with Activism Fatigue
- Self-Care Resources from New Tactics in Human Rights
Use
- Experienced activists may be vulnerable to compassion fatigue. Read How To Use a Compassion Fatigue Test to Battle Burnout.
- The Burnout Rating Scale. The Change Agency. Originally from In The Tiger’s Mouth: An Empowerment Guide For Social Action by Katrina Shields.
- The Healthy Minds App is free, easy to use, and evidence-based. You can use it while doing other activities. My experience with this has been highly positive.
- Stress Test
- Take a nature bath. Spend time outdoors and reconnect with the natural world. Read more in Eye-Opening Ways Nature’s Sounds, Smells, and Sights Can Heal You.
- The Clearer Thinking website provides free tools for improvement.
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- Replace Unhelpful Coping Strategies: Replace your unhelpful coping mechanisms with strategies that will benefit you.
- Surpass Self-Limiting Beliefs: Our beliefs can hold us back. Learn to overcome them.
- Savor Your Life: A Tool for Boosting Happiness: Learn a positive psychology skill to increase satisfaction and happiness.
- Reframing Negative Emotions: Learn cognitive reframing of difficult situations.
- Make Your Work More Joyful: Determine how to improve your work experience.
- Practice Self-Compassion: How self-compassionate are you? Learn techniques to develop more self-compassion.
- Tactics for Happier Living: Get a personalized plan to support you in adding meaning to your life.
Remember, there will be ups and downs in your motivation. But, by using these resources and cultivating strong self-care practices, you can keep your passion strong and continue to make a difference in the world.
Keeping your motivation strong is important but so is sharpening your activist toolkit. Check out learning opportunities for activists.
Learning Opportunities for Activists
Read
- The Activist’s Toolkit: Updated! Now More Than Ever by Rex Burkholder has a chapter called “Preparing to Lead.”
- The Better Boundaries Workbook: A CBT-Based Program to Help You Set Limits, Express Your Needs, and Create Healthy Relationships by Sharon Martin. Learn more in How a Boundaries Book Can Teach You to Be a Motivated Volunteer.
- How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century by Hahrie Han.
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi provides a framework for dismantling internalized racism and becoming a more effective advocate.
- The Good Good Good Newspaper.
- To understand key terms and concepts related to the movement and social justice, read How to Master Social Change Definitions: Try this Sure-Fire Guide.
- The Activist Handbook is a comprehensive resource for activists, covering a wide range of topics.
- Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change through Unpredictable Means by adrienne maree brown: Offers creative tools and frameworks for cultivating resilience and collective power.
- Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg. Nonviolent communication works on the premise that humans want to satisfy their needs. By recognizing this, we can solve complex problems by ensuring everyone’s needs are met.
Browse
- “Pod For the Cause” from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights: This podcast is about change, restoring democracy, and deep conversation about the issues.
- TED Talks: Find inspiring talks by activists and changemakers.
- Good News Network: Celebrate inspiring acts of kindness and compassion worldwide.
- The Happiness Lab Podcast is based on a popular class at Yale University. ‘Dr. Laurie Santos takes you through the latest scientific research and shares surprising and inspiring stories that will change your thoughts about happiness.’
- The Activist Handbook: The Wikipedia for Activists
- Glossary of Civil Resistance: A Resource for Study and Translation of Key Terms by Hardy Merriman and Nicola Barrach-Yousefi.
- The Youth Activist Toolkit is packed with valuable information for activists of any age.
- Learning for Justice from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
- At Dora McQuaid’s One Woman’s Voice, you can download a list of resources.
- Bread for the World provides useful resources for letters to the editor and meetings with elected representatives.
- The Center for Creative Activism
Use
- Amnesty International Toolbox: Tips for online meetings and activism ideas, like letter-writing parties.
- Evernote is an easy-to-use note-taking app. Grab webpages, narrate notes, and then easily search for what you need.
- Organizing for Social Change (Coursera): Learn essential campaign planning, mobilizing, and communication skills from the University of Washington.
- National Organizing Institute: Resources for organizing skills and leadership development from the AFL-CIO.
- Movement for Black Lives: Provides workshops and leadership development opportunities for building power within the Black community.
- Mentor a new activist: How to Give Back to Your Cause: Tips For Becoming an Effective Mentor.
- Action Network: Action Network tools support relationship building.
The Power of Community
Whether you plan to join up with an existing organization or go solo, connection to others is critical. Find your community, because they are a source of support and learning opportunities for activists.
Attend community meetings, volunteer fairs, or protests to connect with passionate people and explore local needs. Many organizations like the Sierra Club or Amnesty International have local chapters. Social media offers access to your fellow activists worldwide. Tap into the collective power that is the foundation of social movements.
Call to Action
Wherever you are on your activism journey, I hope these motivational and learning resources for activists help you make a difference in the world. Use these learning opportunities for activists to hone your skills and never lose sight of the power you hold to make a difference.
READ NEXT
Although there is some overlap between the lists, you may be interested in resources for new activists.
