Skip Navigation
We use cookies to offer you a better browsing experience, provide ads, analyze site traffic, and personalize content. If you continue to use this site, you consent to our use of cookies.
illustrations of different people as changemakers on a dark blue background

Organizing Toolbox Generator

Build Your Own NEA Organizing Toolbox
We have tools that can help you achieve your organizing goals. Build your to-do list and we will create a customized toolbox made just for you!

To-Do List

Let’s get started: Check off the actions you would like to add to your to-do list. Then, scroll down the page for a customized toolbox designed to help you accomplish your organizing goals! 

  • Meet Your Union
  • Become a Union Member
  • Hang a Union Poster
  • Spread the Word Online
  • Talk to My Colleagues About Membership
  • Sign Up for Professional Learning
  • Help My Students Feel Safe and Supported
  • Advocate for Pro-Public Education Policies
  • Negotiate a Fair Contract

Your Custom NEA Organizing Toolkit

Your Custom NEA Organizing Toolbox

Build your to-do list above and click to generate your custom organizing toolbox! We'll pull resources designed to help you achieve your specific goals. If you want to add to your tools, check off new actions and click "rebuild." 

Section with embed

Your NEA Organizing Toolbox


Meet Your Union

The National Education Association is the largest labor union in the country. We are a community of teachers, nurses, paraeducators, counselors, custodians, bus drivers, higher education faculty, parents, and community members—all working together for students and public schools.  

By joining together, we have more power to advocate for: 

  • Better pay and benefits 
  • Better working conditions 
  • Better learning conditions for our students 

Unions and Educator Voice

Add to Your Toolbox: Union Explainers

Being part of a union can be a new experience for many educators. But don't worry, your union family is here to help you get started. 

  1. Key Union Terms and What They Mean
  2. Understanding Your Union Contract
  3. The Union Difference: Fair Pay and Benefits
  4. A Map of Union Wins in Every State
  5. Beginner's Guide to Collective Bargaining

These resources explain key terms, understand union benefits (like pensions, health care, and your union contract), and point you in the right direction to connect at the local level.


Become a Union Member

As part of the largest labor union in the country, with almost three million members, we work together to ensure that educators and public employees have a stronger voice. 

It is legal to join in every state! We regularly meet with school administrators, school boards, and lawmakers from both parties to advocate for higher wages, better benefits, and improved working conditions for educators. 

Become a Member 

Add to Your Toolbox: NEA Membership Types

NEA members fall into six categories, click through the links below to learn more about each one!

NEA members are as diverse as the students we represent, but united in our purpose: championing justice and excellence in public education. We hope you will join us!


Spread the Word Online

Cartoon boy in wheelchair holds sign saying "I'm using my outside voice."

Social media is a key place for educators to learn about and get involved with their union. Your perspective is valuable, both to your colleagues and to policy makers, community members, and thought leaders.

Add to Your Toolbox: Online Organizing Conversation Starters

Looking for a way to start the conversation around membership online? We created the "Let's Talk About" series to provide you talking points, graphics, and sample copy to discuss issues we know educators care about:

In addition to the tools included above, think about sharing a personal message to your feeds that answers one or more of the following questions:

  • What difference has union membership made in your life?
  • Why do you believe educator voices are important?
  • What improvements would you like to see at your school?

These answers can be done in text form, through graphics, or in a quick video. The key is authenticity and a strong call-to-action.


Talk to My Colleagues About Membership

Cartoon woman holds a clipboard while listening through a funnel.

Our Guide to Transformational Organizing Conversations includes a conversation cheat sheet, preparation advice, tips from fellow organizers, talking points, and answers to frequently asked questions. 

Guide to Organizing Conversations

Add to Your Toolbox: Our Year-Round Organizing Framework

NEA's Year-Round Organizing Framework centers around key field strategies that naturally flow through each of the four seasonal components of a typical school year. We've developed tools to help you bring Year-Round Organizing strategies to your school:

One-on-one conversations are the most effective way to share the importance of membership to fellow educators. When members speak about how their local makes a difference in their own work, community, and personal lives, you can be an influential force in building power in the union. 


Sign Up for Professional Learning

Cartoon man holds out hand while holding a board with "my students" on it.

From our podcast series on professional learning to over 175 short, competency-based micro-credentials, NEA experts—our staff, affiliates, and members—have created tools to help educators build on the skills needed to join, stay in, and advance our profession:

More Professional Learning

Add to Your Toolbox: Career Growth Continuums 

At every stage of your career, NEA helps you grow into your passion and be a leader for your students:


Help My Students Feel Safe and Supported

Cartoon man has fist in the air while wearing a shirt saying "listen, learn, do better."

Students of every race, background, and zip code deserve the freedom to learn and pursue their dreams. We are building and growing a community of educators and community members committed to advancing education justice in public education so that every student feels safe and supported.

Education Justice Action Center

Add to Your Toolbox: Making Change in Your School

Change starts with us! NEA’s toolkits are designed to be used by anyone advocating for the rights of students and educators, no matter where you are in your activism journey:


Advocate for Pro-Public Education Policies

Woman holds a checklist while walking toward a capitol building.

When we unite and speak truth to power, we can have an enormous impact. We’ll secure fully-funded public schools. We’ll dismantle unjust systems. We’ll give our students the opportunities they need to succeed. 

Find the latest actions you can take to protect and improve public schools on the national level below.

NEA Action Center

EdVotes for Pro-Public Education

Add to Your Toolbox: Tools for Local Advocacy

In addition to victories on the national level, NEA members are making a difference in our communities and across every state. We have tools to help you get started:

The National Education Association’s Legislative Program encapsulates our priorities for advocating in Congress for federal laws that support public K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions, student learning, and educators.


Negotiate a Fair Contract

Three cartoon figures look at a union contract with a magnifying glass.

Collective bargaining is a process through which the union and employer exchange proposals, share ideas, mutually solve problems, and reach a written agreement. 

Collective Bargaining Basics

Add to Your Toolbox: Ideas for Your Next Negotiation

These tools are designed to help you understand collective bargaining and to inform your strategy for future contract negotiations:

Not sure if your state has collective bargaining rights? Check with our interactive map

If you don't have collective bargaining rights, you can still make a difference for staff, students, and schools! Be like Virginia and advocate to win or expand your collective bargaining rights and/or create change by using your union power to shape pro-public education policy on the school board, state, and national level.

ORGANIZE SIGN UP


Illustration of changemakers in a school breakroom, performing various activities.

Thank you for taking the time to help build a stronger union.

We know that a bigger union gives us a stronger voice—and the ability to protect and transform our profession, our schools, and our communities. Every member can play a role in growing the union, whether or not they have had formal training. Sometimes all it takes is starting a conversation, answering questions, and extending an invitation. 

Wondering where to get started? Take our quiz!

Whether it's your nature to speak up loudly or work behind the scenes quietly, our union is made up of many different types of activists. Take our short quiz to find out what kind of changemaker you are.

Take Our Quiz

Be The First To Know About New Organizing Tools

NEA members and staff experts are constantly creating new tools to support organizers in growing and strengthening our union. Make sure you get the latest and greatest to support your work!

Text ORGANIZE to 48744 and we will text monthly updates with resources to help you organize all year long.

Organizing Resources at Your Fingertips

This toolkit has the resources you need to support your membership drive! Access find videos, graphics, downloadable posters, and more to help you spread the word and recruit new members. Access Organizing
Teacher with elementary school students

Join Us

Becoming a member of the National Education Association connects you with a movement of educators supporting each other. We are a community that will help you advocate for the funding, resources, and support you and your students deserve.
National Education Association

Great public schools for every student

The National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest professional employee organization, is committed to advancing the cause of public education. NEA's 3 million members work at every level of education—from pre-school to university graduate programs. NEA has affiliate organizations in every state and in more than 14,000 communities across the United States.