Summary
Block-Bridge-Build is a framework for coordinating civil society’s response to authoritarianism through three kinds of work: resisting harm (block), building relationships across divides (bridge) and creating alternatives (build). Julia Roig, founder of the Horizons Project, set it out in Nonprofit Quarterly in May 2025. It adds ‘bridge’ to Convergence Magazine’s ‘Block and Build’ and builds on the work of john a. powell.
The three pull against each other, and Roig doesn’t try to settle that. Groups can move between them or keep to one, provided they stay in relationship: “not everyone has to do everything within an ecosystem of change-making”. Each has failure modes; bridging can stop at dialogue.
Rationale
We interviewed Julia for this inquiry. Her ‘build’ examples, citizens’ assemblies and mutual aid among them, are ones Part 2 reads for a second effect: what they do to deep dispositions.