Build a local Alliance
On March 28, half a million people came together, drawn from every part of the UK. We put on the biggest anti-racist demonstration in British history.
In order to slow, halt and reverse the rise of the far right, we now need to take this solidarity and unity into our communities and workplaces.
That’s why we’re developing local Together Alliances in villages, towns and cities all over the UK.
Across the country, there are many local campaign groups, organisations and trade union branches working hard to change their communities for the better. If you’re reading this, you are likely part of at least one of them! Together’s aim is to connect these groups, help them build and consolidate their impact locally and become a powerful, united voice against division and the politics of hate.
What is a local alliance?
A local Together Alliance will represent a broad range of campaign groups, charities, trade unions and community organisations across a local area or region. The Alliance won’t duplicate what these individual grass roots organisations are already doing - rather it will work together to support, amplify and build community and workplace organising to tackle the far-right wherever it tries to gain a foothold in our local communities.
You can build a Together Alliance in your town, village, city or region. We use the same model locally as has succeeded nationally, working through existing organisations to hold people together and reach the broader community.
What could a local Alliance do?
The aim of a local Alliance is to build solidarity through joint action in your community.
This is about much more than a joint statement or a moment of unity- it’s about organising in our communities and building relationships through collective action.
Working together as a local alliance you could:
The goal is to build a local coalition around joint action, not duplicate meetings or campaign activities for already overstretched local activists.
Who do you need in your alliance?
The strength of Together is not just numbers but in our diversity. Trade unions, charities, environmental campaigners, faith groups, sports, LGBT+, venues and pubs all standing side by side against the rise of the far right.
Each local alliance should reflect that diversity. So the building blocks of that structure on a local level is a range of founding organisations. These should involve the organisations that make up the Together Alliance nationally.
You should have at least five of the following sectors represented in your founding alliance.
How Together will support you
Our national team is available to support local alliances to build your plans. Our funding is limited - but we will provide a framework and as much support, resources and information as we can to help you on your way. We can support you with:
Founding your alliance
Make a list
Working with others in your organisation, make a list of other local campaign or community groups, trade union branches, faith groups, and other organisations in your area that you could approach to establish a local Alliance.. Identify those you already have strong connections with and start to plan your outreach.
Think about the people you want to reach in your community and which organisations will be able to deliver different blocks of support. Make sure you identify any gaps in who you already know so you can ensure the Alliance represents as broadly as possible the organisations active in your local area.
Approach organisations
Plan out which organisations you want, alongside your own, as Founding Alliance Members.
Mark them out on your spreadsheet, identify who would be best to do the outreach - and get started!
You need to recruit organisations into the national alliance before you can form a local alliance with them. Check the list on the and if you don’t see the organisation you wish to invite, make sure to ask them to join.
Launch ideas
You don’t need an exact plan to start building your alliance but it’s good to have some ideas to get people thinking and talking.
In the , you can find more resources and ideas to get you started.
You can use these ideas to build conversations and relationships with your emerging alliance partners.
You don’t need to lock people into a fixed idea too early - test the waters and see how people react. Based on that, you can work out what sort of timeline you might need to launch.
We’d suggest anywhere between 1 and 3 months. Any less and you can miss key relationships or opportunities, and too long and things can start to drift.
Register your Alliance
We’ll be in touch to find out more about what you’ve been building. Once you’re ready, we’ll share graphics and list your alliance on the website.
You don’t need to wait to register your Alliance in order to build a local delegation to the Summits - in fact this can be a great way to build relationships and commitments between local organisations before launching as an Alliance.
Launching your Alliance
As your Alliance comes together, you’ll want to think about how you want to launch. You could put on an event, sign a joint statement, sponsor an advert in your local paper or take out a billboard in your town centre. Remember - the aim is to build solidarity around joint action in your community, not replicate or duplicate events or actions members of your Alliance are already doing!
With the Organise Together Summits coming up, organising a delegation is a great way to kick-start your local Alliance taking action together:
