AFSC's first Beyond the March gathering, fall 2025 Shabnam Bashiri/AFSC
Across the country right now, people are stepping forward in ways that feel both familiar and new. Some have been organizing for years. Others are showing up for the first time because what they are seeing and experiencing tells them the stakes have shifted. You can see it in living rooms, in community centers, in small-town meeting halls, in messages being passed between neighbors who never used to talk politics.
People understand that the country is sliding into authoritarianism: tighter control over public life, limits on dissent, cruel and militarized immigration and policing and a disregard for the rule of law. And people aren’t watching it happen quietly.
What you see instead is a rising—not just a moment on the streets, but the beginning of something deeper: communities trying to reclaim their own power.
Movements that have resisted authoritarianism and fascism before show us that rising alone isn’t enough. A powerful moment can open a door, but what happens next depends on whether people have the skills and grounding to build something that lasts. It depends on whether people know how to organize across differences, how to map the forces shaping their lives, how to plan campaigns that move power instead of simply expressing frustration, and how to make decisions together in ways that reflect real democratic values.
This is the purpose of Beyond the March—to create spaces where people can step back from the noise long enough to learn, to practice, and to root their efforts in something steadier than the day-to-day chaos and churn.
Our first Beyond the March gathering in Georgia in the fall of 2025 offered a glimpse of what this can look like. People came together not to hear speeches, but to sit shoulder to shoulder to work through the kinds of challenges communities are facing everywhere. Participants practiced building campaign plans from the ground up by identifying who holds influence, who can be moved, what stories need to be told, and how to escalate in ways that grow capacity rather than burn it out.
It was simple work in one sense—people in a room thinking deeply together. But the impact became clear afterward: people kept showing up for one another. They checked in across organizations, shared tools, backed each other’s ideas, and began to act with a little more alignment than before. The work didn’t become easier, but it became less lonely and more strategic.
That experience confirmed something many already sensed: that there is a real need for places where people can learn to organize in a deeper way. Places where people of different backgrounds can practice making decisions together. Places where political education helps make sense of the moment instead of leaving people overwhelmed by it. Places where trust, the kind that movements depend on, can actually grow.
That is what the next Beyond the March gathering is meant to offer: a chance to pause, to learn, to plan, and to connect in a way that isn’t possible in the middle of constant crisis. AFSC will hold the next retreat in late April after the spring No Kings mobilization, because this is where many find themselves drawn, and we welcome all that feel called in this moment.
Beyond the March participants will work together inside a shared scenario, something rooted in the realities people are facing right now. They’ll map power, sketch out the beginnings of campaign plans, practice narrative work, and think together about how to bring more people into the fold. They’ll have time to ask the harder questions, too: How do we build across differences? How do we handle conflict in ways that strengthen rather than fracture us? What does democratic practice look like inside our own groups?
No single training can solve the challenges we’re facing. But trainings can help people feel steadier and more capable. They can help a scattered set of individuals begin to see themselves as a community. And they can help turn the rising we’re seeing across the country into something with roots—something that lasts.
If you’re feeling the urgency of this moment, if you’ve been trying to figure out what stronger, steadier engagement might look like, or if you’re simply looking for others who want to build rather than react, Beyond the March is being shaped with you in mind. Learn more and apply using the link below:
Beyond the March
Community Organizing for Change Training Retreat
April 24-26, 2026
Camp Gravatt, Aiken, SC
We also want to make sure cost is never a barrier to participation. Scholarships are available, and we encourage those who can support our scholarship fund so more people can join this experience.
Learn more about AFSC's Atlanta Economic Justice program and sign up for updates.