Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

In contrast with the short-term and insular nature of mainstream activism, base-building is about long-term strategy and organizing the unorganized. Organizers focus on working with ordinary people in a particular “base”. This involves actually talking to people you don’t know and developing strategic campaigns based on what they are actually interested in or need, and organizing with them in the long term. Whether a campaign is strategic depends not on whether it will necessarily win, but whether it will result in more people becoming organizers, and whether the base will expand and deepen.