How to start a movement

Last month I co-organized a €100k event with speakers from all over the world and 550 participants without paying anyone a salary or a speakers fee. In this post I will show how you can start a movement from scratch. 

(Video courtesy of Drugreporter, who filmed during our event)

We started 9 years ago, 4 students with great intentions, but no money, no supporters and no idea how to approach it. All we knew is that we were motivated by our ideals: to learn as much as possible about psychedelics through scientific inquiry, most notably in the Netherlands, because that's where we are from. We wanted to show how psychedelics can be beneficial, how they can alter people's minds and lives for the better. In the summer of '07 the OPEN Foundation was born. 

Step 1. Find the others.

Passion is the fuel for any movement. Finding the others is arguably the most important thing to do when you are running a non-profit, but also when you are building a start-up. In our case, we looked around on the internet to find other organizations that aligned with our goals. We found a few, most notably MAPS & the Heffter Research Institute in the US and the Beckley Foundation in the UK. We wrote them, asking for advice and showcasing our dedication to the cause. Similarly, when starting a movement, you'd have to find the communities and organizations already working in the area. You need others. Even when there is competition between the two, you will only make each other better and start a discourse around the subject. When Samsung and Apple are fighting, they both need to innovate as much as possible, which will benefit everybody in the long run (except maybe the factory workers). 

Step 2. Bring your own perspective.

So instead of doing exactly the same as the other organizations, find your own space in which growth is possible. You don't want to be a small fish in a certain sector, because then when there is funding, it will always go to the bigger players. Diversify. We have a lot in common with MAPS, but ultimately they want to develop psychedelics as medicines, while we don't necessarily want to keep it within the field of doctors and therapists, even though this shows a lot of promise. Instead, what we want to do is show the general public, through science, that within certain parameters, psychedelics can be safe and beneficial, and hoping that this will bring about societal change. There is of course overlap, but the angles are completely different. Likewise, when starting a movement, you have to find your own voice and make it heard, so that those who think along the same lines start flocking towards you. 

(Rick Doblin of MAPS giving his speech, photo courtesy of Jeroen Stapper)

Step 3. Empower the community of followers. 

Once you get an audience, you can start building your community. We made a lot of mistakes in this regard. We were too strict about what message we wanted to put out, as we didn't want to muddy the message with those claiming things about psychedelics that weren't supported by science. But at the same time, these people were probably the most enthusiastic about our message. You have to find a way in which you can empower the community of followers that you are building. This can be, like we did, through social activities and meetups, as well as through organizing events like the big one I mentioned before. But it can also be like steemit, where you find some way to reward those people who follow you most closely in some way (it doesn't have to be monetarily). By empowering the community, they will become productive (again, like on steemit), and you are likely the beneficiary of their creative output. Our volunteers all come from this community, and they are all highly skilled individuals who dedicate a lot of their free time to the cause. 

Step 4. Grow steadily.

Steady growth has the benefit of people not losing their voice in a multitude. If you grow too quickly on the other hand, the message gets diluted proportionately and other voices can take over. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, as in a start-up that pivots towards a use for their product that noone thought of before millions of users started to use it in that way, but for idealistic movements it can be. Putting your name out there through big events is helpful to attract the best (and the worst), but to only retain the best as your core group, you will have to make a selection somehow. We are now working with top journalists, photographers and marketing strategists to make our organization grow. We have yet to pay anyone a salary, but we have built a name for ourselves in the world of psychedelics. The fruits of our labour are increased scientific research into the subject, along with increased media attention for psychedelics. Now, it is just a matter of time before people will see the effects within society at large. 

If you want to see some lectures from the conference, you can check our youtube channel.

The kicker? Steemit does all of these things really well.