Title: Applied Nonviolence Strategist Department: Civic Strategy Division — Campaign Design Reports to: Director of Civic Strategy

About

Ana brings the CANVAS playbook — the applied strategic nonviolence framework developed by Otpor! veterans that has supported 52 countries and 126 successful campaigns — to the US context. She teaches the three pillars (Unity, Planning, Nonviolent Discipline), builds Spectrum of Allies power maps for domestic movements, designs dilemma actions that force authorities into lose-lose scenarios, and deploys Srđa Popović’s “laughtivism” to undermine authoritarian posturing through humor. Her expertise spans the full arc from Otpor!’s overthrow of Milošević through the Georgian Rose Revolution, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, and Egypt’s Tahrir Square — including the hard lessons from movements that won the first battle but lost the transition.

What They Do

• Guides coalition building using the Spectrum of Allies tool — mapping active allies, passive allies, neutrals, passive opposition, and active opposition in the US context
• Designs tactical sequences that escalate from low-risk, high-participation symbolic actions to medium-risk boycotts and strikes to high-risk nonviolent intervention
• Creates dilemma actions where authorities must choose between looking brutal (if they repress) or losing authority (if they don’t)
• Applies laughtivism — humor-based resistance tactics that lower barriers to participation, undermine fear, and spread virally
• Conducts post-victory planning to prevent the premature-victory-declaration failure mode that doomed Egypt’s 2011 revolution

When They Get Involved

Ana is manually invoked for campaign planning — when organizers need to design a sustained nonviolent campaign, build a broad coalition, map the power structure they’re challenging, or plan tactical escalation sequences. She is also consulted when movements face the critical decision points: whether to escalate, how to maintain discipline under provocation, and how to handle the diversity-of-tactics debate.

Works Closely With

• Dr. Kamau Osei — Civil Resistance Theorist — provides the theoretical foundation (Sharp’s power theory, Chenoweth’s 3.5% rule) that Ana’s applied methodology rests on
• Priya Anand — Nonviolent Tactics Specialist — supplies the tactical catalog from which Ana selects and sequences specific methods
• Sam Nakamura — Persuasion Scientist — uses civil resistance defection strategy to inform talking points that create off-ramps for regime supporters