Le Next Level is a France-based non-profit whose purpose is to support those fighting for inclusive societies in their collective power building process, and those in positions of power in their inclusive leadership development.
Le Next Level’s core activity is to support collective and people-powered initiatives that foster respect for everyone’s rights and dignity. These initiatives are carried by those who experience inequalities and structural injustice head on. With community organising as its method and work culture of reference, Le Next Level blends local, national and international expertise, experiences and interdisciplinary skills to unearth thought-out answers to what hinders the inclusion and respect of each and everyone of us.
In recent years, Le Next Level has worked with a large number of grassroots and minority-led organisations, such as:
- Lallab (a feminist antiracist organisation led by Muslim women)
- Balance Ton Boss (an organisation fighting discrimination in the workplace)
- Féministes contre le cyberharcèlement (an organisation that fights cyber-violence targeting women at the intersection of multiple discrimination)
- Tant que je serai noire (a podcast on reproductive justice issues facing Black women in particular)
- Rêv’ELLE toi (an organisation of women from working-class neighbourhoods operating locally in the Paris suburb of Grigny)
- Alintersection (a podcast that tackles the issue of intersectionality from immigration-descent stance living in France)
- Bissai Media (a digital medium that aims to change the narrative surrounding people of immigrant descent in France).
In Le Next Level’s community, everyone trains everyone: from the employees to the special guests from abroad, including the professional partners, the members of the groups and other partners, everyone shares their knowledge, their experience, their skills and their resources for the service of the group.
Their work can be broken down into 3 axes:
- Developing an inclusive culture based on courage and empathy
- Aligning strategy with values and ambitions
- Building collective power
From these 3 strategic axes of intervention, 2 formats emerge:
- The strategic support and training of nonprofits, collectives, companies, institutions, as well as foundations
- The development and organising of a value-based, cross-sector community that shares a common vision, common references. A community of peers who share a vision, values, norms and reference tools that allow them to better take action together.
Innovating to better serve their community
Le Next Level’s activities cover a variety of interventions, including consulting and training to community organising methods, allowing people to build genuine, healthy and productive relationships with their peers, as well as with operational, media or financial partners.
In 2022, Le Next Level fleshed out its offer with new workshops on storytelling. These aimed at developing a more intentional, powerful and transformative public communication strategy. Thus, the structures with which Le Next Level works were able to complete their strategic support with a specific module on narrative and media strategy.
The Art of Staging a Cool Political Event
In March 2023, Le Next Level invited Lumumba Bandele – a community organiser from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the co-founder of the Black August Hip Hop Festival and Community Organizing professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) – for a series of conversations about the intersection of community organising, arts, culture, public influence, philanthropy and entrepreneurship.
Lumumba Bandele shared the lessons he had learned over the past 25 years to help us independently build long-lasting movements, from the local to the national scale.
He tackled the opportunities, risks and dilemmas that one can be faced with when exposed to violence against women in the activism field, talked about the fight for incarcerated people’s rights with the #ShutDownAttica campaign, and the copwatching methods MXGM has used, showed us how the Black August Hip Hop festival contributed to making the plight of criminalised political activists such as Assata Shakur known worldwide…. These sessions, which were organised with and for their community members, sparked deep conversations about the issues that run through organisations in France. It was also a way to kickstart new collaborations.
Anti oppression work has been severely cracked down on for the past few years in France, which has accelerated the disaggregation of many grassroots and/or antiracist movements. Resources are scarce and attacks are led both by the far right and by the government, particularly when it comes to matters of race or Islam, and intra-movement violence has weakened people’s trust in movements themselves.
The project’s purpose was to spark cross-sector and intergenerational conversations around the interdependence of educational work, organising, business and the arts to advance social and racial justice in France. Le Next Level felt the post (multiple-)election period provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the learnings of past initiatives, and from experienced movement members, artists and organisers from other cultural, historical, and political contexts.
The aim of this microfestival was to:
- give hope, and start to rebuild relationships that have withered between those who in fact share similar values and ethos.
- spark and/or reinforce the commitment of artists, producers and entrepreneurs towards anti oppression work.
- spark and/or reinforce the relationship between our movement people, entrepreneurs and artists as well as cultural institutions.
- help the community of movement people redesign foundations that are consistent with their values for their movements.
- spark more collaboration between people who come from service and movement work, public narrative & the arts, business and politics.
- encourage the community to structure and organize people and money to have a stronger impact together (our vibe also!)
The results were stunning. A crash course in staging a good, vibey political event can be found if you dip into their report. The way momentum is built around a well-known speaker and approaching the issue from numerous intersecting perspectives. Playing with formats, ensures engagement, and a wider vision of developing deeper solidarity via greater intimacy and entanglement across movements is what creates necessary relational foundations that make movements resilient and wise. The intergenerational focus further bolsters this, as does the emphasis on learning together and from each other, offering a significant reminder that when power (in the form of knowledge here) is shared, everyone involved wins. Distilling essential know-how and takeaway testimonials into a fun, easy-access report (aforementioned) further demonstrates the benefit of good documentation and post-processing to deliver just the right amount of content, share info with the non-attendees and give a digestible overview of what went down, and opens stellar topics that each of us can pick up and organise locally in our hoods with our own flavours of culture and lived experience.
Moving forward with the building of “La Hmm….” and making Le Next Level’s methodology more accessible
The next step for Le Next Level is to nurture and structure these relationships through mutual assistance, solidarity and expertise interdependence through discussions with their community members and collectives, so as to better make an inventory of their needs and requests. That will help them define what their collective, for now called “La Hmm….” is exactly, its governance and the kind of structure that matches their needs.
Furthermore, Le Next Level is planning on making its community organising methodology widely accessible through a published manual, and a website sharing the stories of their community members who have used it in their work throughout the years. In doing so, it hopes to inspire others who are fighting for racial and social justice to get further acquainted with community organising, explore building power differently, and join the community.
