Goodbye from all of us here at Campaign Bootcamp
In the coming weeks, Campaign Bootcamp will officially close after nine years of working to equip those most affected by injustice with the skills, confidence and community to run powerful campaigns.
We announced our upcoming closure at the end of 2021, and since then have been working hard to ensure that we close in a way which honours our staff, the community, and the legacy of the organisation.
Last month, the majority of staff finished their work with the organisation to embark on new chapters, and in the following weeks, a skeleton team will be working to prepare the organisation for liquidation. This will be the last blog I write before switching off my laptop and starting my own new journey.
Although the organisation is closing down, Campaign Bootcamp’s mission, vision, values and impact will live on through our community of campaigners, activists and organisers. We wanted to take this chance to reflect on the journey of the organisation giving people the skills, confidence, and community to run powerful campaigns.
Giving people the skills, confidence and community to run powerful campaigns
Campaign Bootcamp was founded in 2013, by a collection of campaigners who were concerned that a lot of high profile campaigning was being led by people who had little to no experience of injustice and inequality. In the UK, spaces and funding to develop campaigning skills and knowledge was heavily dominated by privileged, predominantly white, able-bodied people. Campaign Bootcamp was founded to disrupt that, and we are proud to have done just that.
Our first residential Bootcamp cohort happened in 2013, with participants from across the UK. Over the past decade, we’ve trained over 1,000 individuals, run 17 Bootcamp residentials, developed 6 distinct programmes, and worked with people in every part of the UK, as well as in Germany, India, and other countries across the globe.
Communities of Resistance – a network that stretches across the UK and beyond
It’s impossible to speak to what the Campaign Bootcamp Community have achieved over the past decade.
For staff, facilitators, colleagues – past and present – and other community members and funders, news of our closure has been met with deep sadness. Many of us poured our heart and souls into the work, and had a commitment to the vision and mission which had come about from our own lived experience. The past couple of months have been immensely challenging time for all of us, as we prepare ourselves for new chapters.
What’s next?
Over the past few weeks our Training Team have been working hard to gather together an archive of training materials and resources, in order to capture the legacy of Campaign Bootcamp. These legacy pieces will be accessible on our website, here, for the next five years.
A Facebook group for campaigners who went through our training will remain, now moderated by volunteer alumni. After our last Communities of Resistance, a group of alumni and ex staff also connected to talk about ways in which they might collectively move forward and ensure the impact of what we did is not lost, and continues to grow.
Our sincere thanks
It’s been an honour to work with our community of graduates, their communities, past and present staff, brilliant trainers and facilitators, funders, donors, and a number of desperately-needed movements across the UK and beyond. If you are reading this as a part of one or more of those groups, thank you for your valued contribution to our community.
