Building Groups on Tricky Ground Guidebook (September 2026)

This is a guidebook produced by the Worker Support Centre, the Workers Observatory and Cat’s Cradle, three organisations with extensive experience of helping people in precarious circumstances to act together.

Some organising methods focus from the outset on taking action to achieve winnable demands. While this approach works in some cases, we wrote this workbook to investigate the problem that in many settings people are struggling to build power with traditional organising tactics.

This guidebook sets out six principles for strong group building that can be used in work in this area:

1. Building trust
2. Building community
3. Building purpose
4. Defining roles
5. Defining steps
6. Defining identity