14/08/2026
There's a stage in successful social movements where activists feel like they're failing, burn out, and quit.
And that can be part of the life cycle of a movement.
Many of our team and our supporters have lived experience of persecution, oppression, exile, poverty, and hunger. Many of our team and our supporters have been involved in struggles to end the conditions that force those experiences on people around the world. We've seen it in our own movements and among comrades and friends, the loss of drive and the hopelessness that creeps in.
This feeling of failure is Stage Five of an eight stage framework called the Movement Action Plan, developed by organiser Bill Moyer, who spent about four decades in nonviolent movements. At Stage Five, numbers drop and media attention fades, but the big goals haven't been won yet. Activists lose hope, burn out, and quit, feeling like nothing has been achieved. But this stage often shows up right after the movement has just succeeded at Stage Four of the framework.
So what does this mean for us?
If you're chipping away at the many systems of oppression and feeling exhausted, know that this feeling is not a sign of failure. If you've been watching activists you admire start to fade, sound exhausted, or go quiet, it might mean we're right in the middle of Stage Five.
A caveat with this framework: it's a helpful way of thinking about movements, not a fixed rule that every struggle will follow, and of course not a guarantee of success for every movement. Nor is it a justification for treating burnout and dropping out of activism as an acceptable success or collateral damage.
Building healthy movements means attending to our relationships and protecting each other, and making sure some people aren't left carrying the hardest parts or the extra work. If you're feeling burnt out, allow yourself to take a break and resource yourself with nourishing community.
Please share this with your community. Let them know this is all part of the process, not a sign they've failed.
System change is an absolute ultramarathon.
All at WMG x
References:
Moyer, B., McAllister, J., Finley, M.L., and Soifer, S. "Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements." New Society Publishers, 2001.
More on the Movement Action Plan: historyisaweapon.com
