Activism: stories and resources

An experimental reparations-based fund redistributed over $20,000 to members using cooperative decision-making on Loomio.

• Cooperative fund redistribution
• Democratic proposal voting
• Transparent decision archive
• Member-driven governance

See how the ICCA Consortium uses Loomio to include 240 participants across 70 countries and multiple languages in asynchronous General Assembly decisions.

• General Assembly across 70 countries
• Inclusion across all time zones
• Async consensus around live meetings
• Automatic multilingual translation

The Refugee Buddy Project uses Loomio to coordinate volunteers supporting newly arrived refugees.

• Coordinated buddy-family communication
• Council visibility into community needs
• Daily operational decisions without meetings
• Scaled to three boroughs

Zero Waste France uses Loomio to coordinate local groups and share knowledge across its volunteer movement.

• Coordinated campaigns across local groups
• New volunteers catch up fast
• Structured info for 2,000+ events
• Consistent messaging despite turnover

Economic Democracy Advocates used online discussions to develop a cooperative charter for protecting the earth.

• Collaborative charter drafted over months
• Subgroups for specialist teams
• Clear communication replacing chaos
• Distributed members aligned continuously

Learn how do you measure something as vast as a country's human rights performance — and get diverse experts worldwide to agree on the method?

• Global human rights expert consultation
• Group decisions beyond email limits
• Global team updated centrally
• Strategic polling on key decisions

A small lending society in Cornwall funds grassroots renewable energy projects — but reviewing each loan used to eat up entire meetings.

• Online loan assessment saves hours
• Transparent multi-stage involvement
• Assessment records for easy audit
• Timely community energy funding

Twenty people pool their money every month to invest in local co-ops — but going around the circle to allocate funds used to take an hour.

• Democratic fund allocation via dot voting
• Equal participation despite distance
• Faster decisions than in-person rounds
• Accessible for new investors

When Bath lost its charity support agency, a handful of volunteers built one from scratch — no building, no budget, no government backing.

• Volunteers never miss key decisions
• Majority voice surfaced via polls
• Structured threads replace email chains
• Conversation summaries save reading time

In the middle of a political crisis, a distributed network of Venezuelan citizens needed new tools to organize — fast, safely, and from wherever they were.

• Distributed citizen network coordination
• Tools for activism and participation
• Decisions via polls and checks
• Effective distributed communication

The energy of so many people careening toward Washington D.C. was palpable on January 21st.

Climate Karanga Marlborough uses online collaboration to develop climate action ideas between meetings.

• Rapid prototyping between meetings
• Consensus without in-person meetings
• Every voice heard, meeting-free
• Faster idea-to-action cycle

See how Debt Resistance UK uses Loomio to make decisions between meetings, set clear deadlines and turn group discussion into coordinated action together.

• Between-meeting decisions email can't handle
• Clear deadlines for input
• Agenda items moved off meetings
• Proposals refined before final votes

See how five digital nomads use Loomio to make cooperative decisions across time zones, preserve meeting time and think through choices together online.

• Async decisions across a nomadic team
• Thoughtful choices with objective distance
• Routine decisions without meetings
• Richer meetings via pre-discussion

Hungarian student activists used Loomio to organise a democratic movement against education cuts.

• Nationwide university deliberation
• Student-teacher-academic coordination
• Transparent decisions withstanding media scrutiny
• Reversed government education cuts

The Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) in New York is an annual gathering of people from around the world working towards a free and open internet.

Direct democracy groups used Loomio to launch local citizen decision-making groups across Greece.

• Nationwide citizen political participation
• Accessible to non-technical citizens
• Transparent voting with participation tracking
• Collective pressure on local officials