What we do How we work

What we do: Our collective members provide press outreach, tactical planning, public relations, and training in organizing and outreach to grassroots projects fighting for economic and social justice. The project is run – as it was from the day it was created – as a pro bono effort, although we have on the rare occasion allowed a project to kick us a couple of bucks. Our individual collective members also work on contract to spec on a variety of projects.

The HammerHard collective's philosophy is simple: help get the word out about stories that have to be told – and empower the people whose lives drive those stories to change the root conditions that thwart justice today. That philosophy is imbued with a couple of key concepts:

►First, media strategies must be embedded in a larger strategic organizing approach, so that core organizing goals always drive the messaging – and safeguard the integrity of the organizing effort.

►Second, movement-building is intrinsically bound to community- building, and wherever possible our work is designed to connect groups and people across shared lines of concern and common points of unity.

►Third, our collective strength is built on the struggles and accumulated wisdom of the people and projects who’ve broken ground before us. It is our right and our responsibility to pass these strengths along, free from the constraints of the commercial ‘imperatives’ that commonly undercut social and economic justice.

How we work: We run this volunteer effort collectively, and are always open to sharing our resources, collaborating with people and projects that share our goals, and working with groups to allow them to take control of their own media work and broader organizing. We are also committed to tapping into the burgeoning environments of new media, technology and information-sharing that have evolved in recent years as alternatives to traditional modes of media and organizing work. That said, we recognize that some traditional approaches – including people-to-people outreach and a renewed interest in approaches that are rooted in direct democracy – continue to have enormous value in our work. While we’re happy to manage media messaging and tactical planning for our partners, we are also deeply committed to sharing the skills and resources that allow grassroots projects to seize control of their own messaging and strengthen their organizing efforts.