Assemblies—gatherings where large numbers of people come together to deliberate and make collective decisions—are a powerful tool of governance. In 2025, the U.S. and countries around the world struggle to meet people’s material needs, reduce extreme concentrations of wealth and defeat right-wing racist and xenophobic authoritarian threats, assemblies and other models of collaborative governance hold potential to help reverse this tide and build more just, equitable, democratic societies. Assemblies can operate within social movements as power-building tools, within governments as official parts of the policy process and in a hybrid form spanning movements and governments that we call governing-power assemblies.

In this report, we look at all multiple forms of assemblies including civic assemblies, people’s movement assemblies and governing power assemblies. We discuss the potential and limitations of each model, explore how assemblies across the board have struggled to achieve impact and durability, and discuss ways that an “equitable power-building approach” can strengthen assemblies’ impact and durability over time.

Along with the report, we share eleven exciting case studies of assemblies in California, Mississippi, New York (also featured on our blog), Washington, Wisconsin, Belgium, Brazil and Spain. We also share a table summarizing different forms of assemblies, offer two tools to help assembly planners initiate community-government collaboration and design and run their assemblies and provide a list of excellent assembly guides, tools and case studies from other organizations.

Featured speakers:

• Kesi Foster, Co-Executive Director, Partners for Dignity & Rights (moderator)
• Evan Casper–Futterman, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
• Katherine Mella, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
• Esther Min, Front and Centered
• Lindsay Morgan Tracy, Washington Economic Justice Alliance, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
• Ben Palmquist, Partners for Dignity & Right, Program Director, New Social Contract