The basic idea

We would close down the existing PNL for at least one fallow year. We would recruit a group of at least half a dozen young people (under 30) committed to nonviolence and to the peace movement. We would support them in dreaming up a new PNL project that was focused on the needs of young activists.

1) What are the main things we would do, if we chose this option?

We would offer a group of young people around £3.5k each for six months’ work, developing proposals for a new PN project. We would offer them facilitation and other forms of support. If one project emerged with the enthusiastic support of the majority of the six, this would be adopted by the PNL Board. If more than one proposal had the enthusiastic support of a majority of the six, the PNL Board would choose between them.

2) What are the main needs the project is serving?

• The needs of young people.
• The project would create space for young peace activists to take ownership of a major peace movement project.
• The project would create an opportunity for an ageing peace movement to take its lead from a group of young people.

3) What is the hole that this project is filling? (Are we sure somebody else isn’t already doing this? How much would we be adding?)

There is a demographic hole in the peace movement that this project could be filling. There doesn’t seem to be another mainstream peace movement project prioritising the needs and wishes of young people, apart from dEducation/Demilitarise Education and Youth & Student CND, which are university-focused.

4) How would we define the ‘success’ of this project?

If the group of young people who were recruited managed to develop a coherent proposal that they found satisfying, that would be the mark of success.

If the new version of PN, the new project, drew significant numbers of young people into connection with it, for a period of, say, five years, that would be another mark of success.

5) What are some of the main pros and cons of adopting this option?

PRO:

• This would focus on the insights, ideas and needs of a group (young people) who are underserved by the traditional peace movement and by the current version of Peace News, and who may not be very connected to peace issues currently

• This project might well end up connecting PN to social media in new ways, bringing the message of (radical) nonviolence to a younger audience

• This new focus might be appealing to funders, at least for a trial period

CON:

• This could well feel like abandonment to the existing PN audience, both in closing down the paper without any guarantee that a radical media project would emerge from the process, and in switching focus from them (an older age group connected to past generations of activism) to a completely different cohort with very different communication preferences and (possibly) value systems.

• This might lead to a substantial drop in financial and political support from our existing sustainer base, leading to a greater dependency on grant funding.

• It is not clear what appeal radical nonviolence has among young peace activists right now, so the message of PN might change considerably through this process, depending on who was recruited and the induction process, both for the six participants and for the project eventually chosen.

6) How does what is happening in the world, right now and over the next five years or so, support or work against the success of this project?

This is not clear.

7) Which kind(s) of people is the project focused on/prioritising?

Young peace activists.

8) Which organised group(s) could we partner with to help deliver this project?

• Demilitarise Education
• Youth & Student CND
• CAAT Universities Network
• Possibly:
• Leap Confronting Conflict (Quakers)
• May also be helpful:
• People & Planet
• Woodcraft Folk
• Possible facilitators: Navigate; Resist + Renew

9) What skills/qualities/experience will be needed to deliver this project?

Good facilitation. Humility from members of the PN family aged 30+.

10) What seems to you to be the minimum budget needed to deliver this project?

The minimum budget would be near-zero, if all recruiting/organising was done online, there were no face-to-face meetings, and both the recruitment/facilitation/admin work supporting the project and the work of the young people was entirely voluntary.

A reasonable budget for this Option might be £31k, on the basis of the budget below. My recommendation would be to offer both young participants and facilitators lump sums rather than a per-hour/per-session wage/fee, but I’ve broken down some of the hours to show why I reach the figures below. Some young participants might want to commit less than ‘one-day-a-week-for-six-months’ because of other educational, family and/or work commitments. They could opt for a smaller lump sum.

If we supported half a dozen young activists to work part-time on this for six months, at £17.11 an hour (the uprated PN wage, taking into account inflation in the last few years), the wage bill could look like this:

6 folk x 1 day/week x 6 months = 6 x (8 x £17.11) x 26 = ~ £21.5k (or ~£3.5k lump sum each)

If we paid two facilitators to support them throughout the process:

2 facilitators x 3 weekend sessions (including prep & post-session conversations) x £350 per session per facilitator = £4.2k

If we organised three in-person meetings, costs could be:

Travel (3 meetings x 8 people x £100) + Venue (3 meetings x £500) = £3.9k

Travel and other costs of recruiting the core group (including paid PN Zoom account) = £1k

Annual cost = £30.6k (£21.5k + £4.2k + £3.9k + £1k)

Let’s round this up to £31k.