Why.

What matters to you? What matters to the people who matter to you? Do you want to draw attention to these matters, and share them with a wider audience? Do you want to inspire your fellow Commoners to action?

We have so much in common, and we’re all in this together. Commonfare is about supporting each other, and here we want to give you the tools to help bring attention to what goes on around us that demands action.

How.

You can make use of a story to write about your cause, which will appear in the Commoners Voices part of commonfare.net. While keeping your call to action concise is generally wise, it’s important to help your audience understand the context of the situation. Commonfare is being used across Europe, and the experiences and challenges people face will vary. We recommend using the first paragraphs of your story to talk about the situation in its broader context. You can also make it personal – let others know why this is important to you. A picture to illustrate the situation will also help.

The next step is to give some direction to those you wish to engage – what can be done? How can Commoners help or provide solidarity to help the situation? Your story on commonfare.net can serve to prompt for responses and action among others locally and globally. You can also promote discussion in the comments of your call to action, encourage response stories via Commoners Voices, start a group, start private conversations, and/or exchange information and services through the Commonplace.

One option you have to try and deal with serious issues – if it’s appropriate – could be to consider encouraging humour or satire. If you want to suggest certain types of action that can be taken, link people to the tools that will help them participate, be they on commonfare.net, elsewhere on the internet, or physically accessible outside.

Help connect your cause or interest with other support mechanisms and communities. If, for example, you wanted to call Commoners to report on corruption you would have to consider the risks reporting would involve, and so, it would be good to provide connections to other communities, websites, forums, or support mechanisms (such as linking to the sites where you can report human rights and labour abuses, and report on hate crimes/speech).

Become a Commoner and get started with your story today!

An example on Commonfare

Attending the Santarcangelo Festival with the support of Commonfare – A call to action to write a story as part of a competition to attend a festival and connect with people with similar values.

Outside of Commonfare

Neighborland – based in the USA, provides a space to raise issues relevant to a local community, typically focused fostering participation in urban planning.

Hollaback – calls for women to share their stories and experiences of street harassment, to raise awareness and promote solidarity and action to improve the situation and environment.

Finally, you can find copious other examples of calls to action with a simple online search, but be aware that many of the results frame their calls-to-action in terms of commercial marketing rather than addressing social issues.