The following has been extracted from a talk given at the FSF40 celebration. Original slides are linked here.

Beyond40 is a group that sets out to accomplish very ambitious things. Besides the general vision presented on our about page, we want to:

• Help rebuild a base of power in the US to take on Silicon Valley
• Revive a spirit of open debate in the movement
• Serve as a testing grounds for new strategies and ideas
• Provide a pipeline to help convert free-software enthusiasts into free-software activists
• Support, connect, and lobby existing organizations in the FOSS space

We are not looking to:

• Simply act as a network of LUGs or free-software/Linux hobbyist groups. There’s already plenty of those.
• Act as an “evangelization team” for free software. There’s many needs and skills other than marketing that have been underserved in the FOSS landscape.

What we are is a big-tent group of free-software activists who want to repair infrastructure across the movement as a whole via direct-action and other low-overhead tactics. We borrow playbooks used by various other grassroots political associations to accomplish this.

• We start by forming, local in-person chapters across the country, linking up organizers via Signal
  • This supports social infrastructure: organizers share information, establish connections, and coordinate with each other to take larger action.
• These chapters in turn then hold regular discussions focused on various topics, issues, and ideas in the space
  • This supports ideological infrastructure: members are educated, ideas are tested and built on, and strategies are developed.
• As time goes on, chapters begin organizing to take action both in their local communities and to support others in the space
  • This supports technical infrastructure: training developers, contributing to projects, hosting services, assisting migrations

That’s the bird’s-eye-view but here’s what it looks like broken down into a stage-by-stage roadmap:

1. Seed Communities
2. Take Action
3. Establish Credibility
4. Wield Influence

Stage 1: Seed Communities

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1. Locate and reach out to local organizers across the country
2. Assist them with finding 3-4 “core” founding members to start a chapter
3. Begin regularly meeting, break the ice
4. Set the culture, introduce ideas, and encourage discussion!

Stage 2: Take Action

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1. Get members’ feet wet with taking initiative and contributing to group
2. Pivot discussions from ideas to strategy, start identifying areas of “outsized opportunity”
3. Work with local organizations and assist smaller actors in the FOSS space

Stage 3: Establish Credibility

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1. Start experimenting with cross-chapter collaboration
2. Retain and foster connections from previous outreach efforts, work to bridge different actors and groups in the space
3. Slowly work our way up to more and more ambitious projects, making sure publicize our efforts

Stage 4: Wield Influence

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1. This is where we all aspire to be!
2. Having built some base of leverage, we become far more capable of long-term planning, partnerships, and coordination

Past these general tentpoles, we’ll have to improvise as we go and continually revise with experience. Obviously, everything isn’t covered here but hopefully this at least orients you in the right direction in terms of understanding what we’re trying to do!