Challenge:
When coordinating a large team at an action via mobile text chat, there may be hundreds of messages per hour — but it is hard to focus on both a smartphone screen and the surrounding action, and team members on the ground are likely too busy to read all of the messages, and important messages can be overlooked.
Therefore:
Station a couple of team members off-site, in a comfortable location with full-size devices and reliable network access, and give them access to all of the relevant communications channels. These folks can answer questions, route messages to relevant people or channels, and post announcements that need to be seen widely.
History:
We stumbled onto this tactic in 2025 while working on Good Trouble and No Kings, but it’s been independently explored by others; for example, a number of BLM actions used off-site comms in 2020–21.
Discussion:
To increase information flow between the off-site comms team and the action leads, they can be on a live voice call during the course of the action. This allows the on-site action leads to keep their phones in their pockets, while still ensuring they’re kept informed of relevant chat activity, and allowing them to request the posting of announcements at the appropriate moments.
The off-site comms role is described above as a part of large actions with dozens or hundreds of team members, but it can also be useful in small but potentially-intense actions, such as ICE watch or rapid response. In such cases, the off-site comms person may be idle for most or all of an action, but is available to act as a bridge to call for backup from local or regional chats if things suddenly escalate.
The off-site comms team doesn’t need to be located near the action — they could be a thousand miles away — but they do need to understand the geography of the area so that when people mention locations or landmarks, they have a clear picture of where things are happening. Studying a map might be sufficient, but actual time on those streets is better.
It helps if the off-site comms team has a written description of the action — either informal notes or a detailed action plan — including locations and schedules. (In practice, the action might well diverge from the plan, but it’s still a useful reference.)
In some areas of New York City, the off-site comms team can use the city’s public traffic cameras to observe crowds and traffic at key intersections.
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