But all this work enabled us to gather a lot of knowledge on how to change the world and create an equitist society. In fact, thanks to our amazing community of members, in the last few weeks we have managed to draft the strategy that will guide our work in the next few years!
So sit back, relax, and read this email. Then, send us your feedback!
👉 OUR 2022-25 STRATEGY: “STEPPING UP OUR GAME”
(Oh boy… we are so proud of this!)
In a nutshell, Atlas is the global movement mobilizing people across the world to create a more equitable society: one where collective and societal well-being is the absolute priority.
To make this vision possible, our work until 2025 will be focused on:
📚Work to further develop the “Equitist” philosophy and spread it all over the planet
🔬 Become a laboratory for change, to experiment and push for more equity by:
- Enabling people to use our platform to launch advocacy campaigns more easily, in a faster and decentralized manner,
- Building up a global political force for people to champion our vision in electoral races across the planet, and
- Continuing to build an incubator to accelerate ‘proof of concept’ projects: the enablers needed to create an equitist society.
Which in practice means...
DEVELOPING A NEW POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: EQUITISM ⭕
What happened? Starting in the second half of 2021, the members of Atlas started to think that Equitism, a new ideology focused on the value of equity, could become the ideological backbone of the movement. Since then, the founders of Atlas have started developing its official manifesto, providing media content such as a daily newsletter on the philosophy, and are working to publish further work.
What’s new? We will further develop, promote, and spread the equitist philosophy and culture. This workstream will be constantly evolving, improved, and innovated to stay relevant through the test of time. The philosophy is fundamental to the success of Atlas, as the red thread behind all its activities and utopia to be achieved.
How? This effort is already underway and constantly reviewed in online discussions and input from Atlas members (those conversations are organized on a monthly basis). The philosophy will be subject to a vote at the Equitist Convention.
Upcoming activities:
- Organization of first Equitist convention | April 202
- Development of media content, such as newsletters, blogs, and podcasts | ongoing
- Publishing of long content, such as pamphlets and books | starting in April 2022
Why? We realized that we missed a red thread: the philosophy we were advancing. For many, a message of “progressivism” is too vague, too focused on solving short-term issues without a new utopia: it doesn’t really encapsulate their vision (or lack of) of the future. By fighting individual battles, we did not manage to define our philosophy either. Without such a red thread, building a thriving community has also been challenging. People joined for a wide variety of reasons, such as our campaign for human rights or climate, but then did not have that vision to work together beyond those individual topics. That’s why, after long consultations & discussions, we decided to synthesize the values that bind our work and members together and focus some of our capacity on developing the Equitist philosophy.
BECOMING A 🧪 LABORATORY FOR EQUITISM
i. Advocacy ✊
What happened? Since January 2020 the Atlas movement has campaigned all over the planet on several fronts deemed fundamental for its membership. From asking the United Nations Security Council to declare a climate emergency to convincing the World Health Organization to accept the request for health workers to be prioritised in COVID-19 vaccine distribution, the movement has engaged in all the monumental struggles of our times. As this document is written, the movement is invested - among other topics - in supporting the creation of a Hong Kong Government in Exile and banning fossil fuel subsidies in G20 countries.
What’s new? At Atlas, we will continue to carry on advocacy campaigns and actions from local to global levels, in line with the work of the first two years of our existence. However, the way we launch those campaigns and select them will change to enable more testing and faster feedback loops, as to increase the potential for impact.
How?
- At the global level, we will conduct a campaign cycle every month to discuss thematics, vote on a campaign, put together a team, and test it. If it gains traction, we will continue it and put more resources behind it. If not, we will stop it.
- It means that the global full-time team (as well as the core teams in each country) will act as facilitators for those wanting to advocate for change on a particular topic within our values: they will run the cycle, provide a toolbox of methodologies, organize trainings, utilize social media strategies and assets, and provide tech & membership support.
- The decision-makers on campaigns will remain entirely within the membership of Atlas.
- When this new and improved campaign cycle has been tested and adapted, we will launch it at the national level.
Upcoming activities:
- Implementation of the “laboratory for change” platform to launch campaign faster, more democratically | starting in January 2022
- Testing of this methodology at the national level | starting in March 2022
- Create open platform with tools available to campaigners across the planet | by April 2022
Why? Overall, since the beginning, we have been testing, adapting, and trying to find the optimal campaign methodology. As previously mentioned, we created temporary and permanent local and national teams, permanent thematic local or national teams, some focused more on one topic, and doing more direct actions. While we will keep on improving our methodology along the way, there needs to be a core change: we want to enable more campaigns to be launched in a more decentralized way, to enable a higher potential for impact & more learning. We want to become a platform for activists to exponentially impact their surroundings and make the world more equitable.
ii. Politics 🗳️
What happened? Starting in the summer of 2021, we began exploring possibilities to engage in elections across the planet. In our first experiment, we launched a campaign to propose a female, people-backed candidate for the position of United Nations Secretary-General. More than 7,000 people voted in our online primaries, and our candidate was discussed at the UNGA before being dismissed by the Security Council. After this initial success, we set up exploratory teams to run for elections in Italy and Nepal. However, no systematic effort to develop a coherent political force has started yet.
What’s new? Starting in 2022, we plan to start creating a global political force. The goal is one of promoting the same policies and vision in all countries on this planet - in the democratic ones through coordinated electoral participation, and in the undemocratic ones as an underground network.
How? We will implement a transnational community, organizing efforts to bring together people who believe that equity should become a driving principle of governance in their country. We will start opening chapters across the planet and participate in local, regional, national, and transnational elections (like the EU or UN election processes). These operations will be performed with a separate legal entity (and potentially brand) from the advocacy activities:
Upcoming activities:
- Publishing of project proposal online | December 2021
- Full model deployment | April 2022
Why? We always believed that bringing our ideas to electoral politics is needed. A global political platform can be invaluable in bringing people together across the planet. However, because of lack of capacity, we have not been able to start the process so far: we envision that in 2022 it will be a fertile moment to begin this activity.
iii. Incubator 🚀
What happened? During Atlas Freedom Marathon, a 4-day long event we held in London (and online) in September 2021 with freedom fighters from all over the planet, the need for a global democratic governance was brought up several times. Given that this happened before in many other contexts, it became clear that there was a certain interest to develop concepts that governments & policy-makers will not consider for a very long time.
What’s new? At Atlas, we have started a center of innovation tasked with building and spinning off solutions - or enablers as we like to call them - needed to make our societies more equitable. In practice, while advocacy and political campaigns are critical tools to achieving change, they cannot build an equitable world on their own: for this, we need a systemic change, a new governance model.
How? By creating the change we ask for, through special projects that also show their feasibility and attractiveness. Modeled as a start-up incubator, this stream of work aims to bring together capital and top minds to develop cutting-edge concepts. This stream of work will operate under the brand “Atlas Incubator”.
Upcoming activities:
- As a first project, we are starting to build a Digital State to provide the transnational governance needed to curb inequalities and truly make our world equitable. Granted, it will not be a traditional global governance, but the start of a more united planet | ongoing
Why? We realized that we needed to go beyond traditional advocacy & elections: to create a more united world, asking for it or at the beginning electing a few people cannot achieve the goal. A proof of concept is needed. Through the existence of its community, Atlas is the proof that a common consciousness can exist, but not yet of what it can do.
Exciting, right? And the best part is that you can play a role in all of this! If you are interested in helping out…
- Reply to this email with any feedback you might have
- Volunteer with us to make all of this happen: anyone is welcomed, and we will have a great time together
- Donate if you can, as only with your financial support this dream can become reality!
Let’s change the world together.
Andrea & Colombe
On behalf of the Atlas team
