Shift the Country

Engage With Everything: A Push for Mass Action To Make Shift Happen

Hold This Country Together, Help Each Other Through, Get People Engaged, & Make Change Along The Way

Shift the Country is a new initiative founded in this moment of great disruption.  We're here to foment mass action.  Mass volunteerism.  Mass engagement.  Mass transformation.  Big shift.

Our 4-part mission, should you choose to join us, is to hold civil society and institutions together, to help people help each other through several crises happening at once, to get people engaged in doing all of that, and to make transformation along the way.

Join us here.  Help fund us here.

Our 4 principles help us survive, and to navigate this time of chaos.  The principles of connection, community, resilience, and problem-solving can also help us shift toward a more equitable, just, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable society.

Change is coming, whether we drive it or not.  We – all of us – can help that change be transformation.

Everything in this initiative is in addition to voting and protests.  Because we need to do more than voting and protesting.  Those action areas are covered by other groups.  Shift the Country addresses risks to the very structures of society, how we can hold those structures and social fabric together, and how we can make change while we’re at it.

Our 4-Part Strategy For A Phenomenon

The Shift the Country approach helps people engage everywhere, grow and leverage power, act at every level, drive the narrative, drive agendas, create spectacle; amplify action, stories, and messages; and to deliberately creating tipping points to expand permeation and reach in social networks in both the real world and online.  The interrelated parts of this strategy are designed to create something like a phenomenon.

1.  ENGAGE WITH EVERYTHING.

Use Tools + Strategy To Do All The Things.

This 4-part strategy right here + 15 tools to help people engage with everything + 10 structural areas for action anywhere can help anyone engage in some way.  Plus, people will have their own ideas for how to engage with everything.  Many already are.  Any person, team, alliance, organization, or business can use any of this for engagement locally, regionally, or nationally.  Shift the Country will put out ideas and examples, and tell the stories.  History demonstrates that an active, engaged majority can absolutely push back tyranny, power grabs, lawlessness, and oligarchy (more here).  Volunteering, helping people one-on-one, and engagement help counter disengagement due to trauma from all the crises in this country.  These flexible tools can help with anything – from civic action for the various crises communities are facing, to taking on structural reform anywhere.

2.  RAISE AN ABSOLUTE RUCKUS.

Drive The Narrative.  Drive The Public Agenda.  Create Spectacle.

People can create pandemic-safe ruckus, spectacle, fuss, attention, and buzz that draws interest and drives the narrative.  People can demand that local, state, and federal governments do the jobs they are supposed to be doing – now.  People can tell the stories of governments, elected officials, and businesses that are hurting them, or hurting their chances at staying alive.  People can create viral content (summary info, and tool on this).  People can share and amplify each other’s stories.  People can get media coverage on all of this ruckus.  We’re creative.  We’ll find ways.  People can demand that business help strengthen democracy, strengthen communities, follow public health measures, take care of their employees, demonstrate civic responsibility, and demonstrate media and science literacy.  People can support businesses that do, and drive positive attention their way.  People can raise a fuss about businesses that don’t; and shine a lot on those businesses funding candidates that aren’t helping us survive, or that are funding media that spreads misinformation.

3.  SPREAD THE RUCKUS FAR & WIDE.

Foster Tipping Points In Social Networks To Reach Further.  Make Shift Go Viral.

All of us can leverage our personal real-world and online social networks for greater permeation and reach through this whole country by deliberately fostering tipping points (plus tool on this).  People can push "viral spread" of our stories, action, engagement, volunteering, problem-solving, messages, ideas, and other content – especially about the shift we are all making happen.  Everywhere.

4.  BUILD POWER THROUGH ALLIANCES & TEAMWORK.

Get Groups Together To Make Shift Happen.

People can build and expand power with teams, teamwork, and alliances everywhere from our small circles to huge national coalitions.  Anyone can get in on this.  We need all the action everywhere.  Groups, organizations, business, business alliances, activist groups, foundations, nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations, institutions, institutes, communities, community groups, regional coalitions, unions, churches… we need it all.  We make shift happen with shared goals and objectives… like surviving, making it through, and thriving on the other side.  We ramp that shift up by raising a ruckus.  Coalitions can help.

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How We Get Shift To Happen

The Shift the Country framework is spelled out in an 11-page white paper (in PDF).  The same information that's in the white paper is on this page right here for mobile reading, and in this set of links:

If you're looking for more depth or insight about where all of this came from and why other than what's in the sections above or the white paper (the same things), check out Back Stories: This Disruption Was Not Unexpected.

Where We're Making Shift Happen

As funding allows, we will be ramping up our social media activity, broadcasts, webinars, workshops, storytelling, and community-building.  We go outward from here:

What's Next?

Now that we've got this here website information up about what we're doing, we need to start getting more information out about the tools and how to use them. 

To get that shift going, we're kicking off fundraising on GoFundMe to get us launched for the first six months - and ready to ramp up like NOW.  Aiming for six months of funding gets us through the election and the Biden Administration's initial transition.  That's some positive thinking right there.

Then we get started on how to use each one of the 15 tools to help people engage with everything... 

  • We're imagining that there will be different kinds of information for each of the 15 tools - like a basic quick "how to" page, and then videos, podcastss, examples, and stories of people actually using the tools.
  • Plus, you can combine the tools with any of the 10 structural areas for action anywhere.  We'll put out videos, examples, and stories of people doing that, too.
  • We'll do videos, workshops, webinars, podcasts, blog posts, and other stuff to help people make shift happen in general - for the mission.  For helping people through, for getting voters engaged, for holding society together, and for making change along the way.
  • Holler when you've got stories to tell and examples of stuff we can share.  That's all part of the creating a phenomenon here - spiraling up, and fostering tipping points.  Amplifying.  Getting the word out.  Sharing each other's progress.  Then we spread it further, and keep right on going.

More Money Makes More Shift Happen

We're super-brand-new as of July 2020.  We're at the very very very very very beginning of fundraising.  And we're totally crowdfunded.  Every bit of help helps us make more shift happen.

The funding we have so far for real is what's shown on GoFundMe:

Money is an amplifier.  It's not the only one.  You can use the tools, tell your stories, help support the shift, talk to people about what we're doing, share it, & sign up for team work.

Shift the Country is a newly formed left-leaning 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization created to promote social welfare.  Contributions are not deductible for federal income tax purposes as charitable contributions.

We Can Make This Shift Happen

We – Americans – can help build coalitions.  We can help each other survive a deadly pandemic.  We can help the US hold a successful and fair election.  We can help hold this country together during the pandemic and a potentially tumultuous presidential administration transition.  We can help institutions help us survive, while we also work on transforming them to serve all Americans in more equitable, just, and sustainable ways.  We can help shift this country so that we can partner with other countries for a global transformation to address the urgency that is climate change.

“We believe that COVID-19 will be one of the biggest economic, political, and cultural turning points of our lifetime, and how we respond will shape our future.” – New Media Ventures website

People are already fighting for each other; fighting for this country; fighting for public health action to save lives.  They are working to help keep other people alive in hospitals and nursing homes; to keep grocery stores and other critical services operating; to help feed people; to help reform police departments and spending in communities everywhere.

We – together – can do even more.  It’s going to take millions of us doing all the things.  Shift the Country is bringing more of the things, as are so many others.  Together we can help organize, catalyze, and amplify action and transformation at a scale never before seen in this country.

Shift the Country can help you and anyone else take it to the next level.  We’re here to make serious shift happen.  We’re here to help us all survive, stay alive, and thrive.  There are ways.  We find them together.


Thank you for your interest, action, support and time.  In everything you are doing in this moment.

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other." - Douglas Everett

We will absolutely find ways through.  There is an other side.  We help each other get there.  We make it worth getting to. 

That's how we get it done.


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I'm In! Sign Me Up
How Can I Support All This Shift?
Printable Shift the Country Framework
15 Tools to Help People Engage With Everything
10 Structural Areas For Action Anywhere
Videos & Broadcasts
Workshops & Scheduled Livestreams
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Services
The Blog
The Focus Areas - For Navigating Disruption
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Shift the Country as it is now organized grew out of the Proposal to Shift the Country, completed April 24, 2019 and pitched to various organizations and campaigns.  The initiative has evolved and iterated since that time into its current organization as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit.