Welcome to our fourth installment of REWIRE Democracy, a newsletter for civil society leaders, activists, and anyone passionate about strengthening democracy.
We believe that meaningful change happens when people from different countries, disciplines, and lived experiences come together to share ideas, challenge assumptions, and build something new.
Cross-border collaboration isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the foundation for innovation, solidarity, and resilience in civil society.
Inside this edition, you’ll find:
💡 5 powerful lessons from a decade of cross-border collaboration
📖 How civil society can borrow tactics from authoritarian leaders… for good!
🧠 Reminders that hope, innovation, and collaboration are necessary to strengthen democratic values, shift narratives, and turn big ideas into action.
📝 The Learning Curve
Cross-border collaboration with heart: 5 lessons from the ‘brand manager of freedom’
By Boryana Atanassova, Senior Communications Manager, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom for East and Southeast Europe
As someone who has been called the ‘brand manager of freedom’ (a title I now use with pride), I’ve spent nearly a decade working at the intersection of civil society, communications, and democratic innovation at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) - regional office for East and Southeast Europe.
Our regional office connects headquarters in Germany with seven key subregions: Bulgaria and North Macedonia, Romania and Moldova, the Western Balkans, Ukraine, South Caucasus, Russia in Exile, and Türkiye. In this role, I strive to reach hearts and minds, and shift values and behaviors through strategic communication and creative civic education.
Some of the projects I’m most proud of include The Future of Ukraine, an artistic exhibition of open-access, creative commons license artworks in collaboration with Fine Acts, and Think Freedom, a series of personal video portraits spotlighting courageous freedom ambassadors across the region. These communications outputs are not just campaigns; they are emotional, visual narratives that break through the bubble and touch people across borders.
Here are five key lessons I’ve learned through a decade of cross-border collaboration in FNF:
Lesson 1: Cross-border collaboration needs responsible citizens
Democracy only works when people participate in it.
At FNF, we strive to empower critically thinking, politically active individuals who engage with the world around them. Only when individuals take part in the political process and assume responsibility—when they get involved and express their opinions—does a liberal society flourish.
Cross-border collaboration can be fruitful when stakeholders contribute in a pro-active, responsible, constructive, and mutually beneficial way. When people assume responsibility, the results are powerful.
Lesson 2: Shared challenges need shared solutions
Authoritarianism and democratic backsliding don’t respect national borders, so why should civil society?
The severe backsliding of democracy we see in many countries, the Russian war in Ukraine, and the global rise of populism have shown us how fragile freedom can be. Rulers across Europe and beyond are following a playbook to establish and reinforce populist and authoritarian regimes. Not only democracy, but all of our human rights and wellbeing are at stake.
These moments remind us that cross-sectoral collaboration of the liberal, reformist, progressive, pro-democracy forces is not optional, it’s essential. We can’t afford to work in silos. To protect liberal values, changemakers across civil society, politics, law, media, education and business must unite across borders to share knowledge, resist authoritarianism, and rebuild trust.
Lesson 3: Communities and networks are the best investment
Workshops and one-off events have their place in civil society, but long-term networks create real impact.
That’s why FNF runs flagship regional programs like the Alliance of Her Academy for East and Southeast Europe (a leadership program for women in politics and decision-making roles, and a community of over 200 women and allies in Europe) and the Liberal Communicators Network: Non-Profit Academy (a program in its 5th year which empowers non-profit communicators to tailor cutting edge communications strategies for the mission-driven sector, which I founded).
Communities like these foster exchange, empower changemakers, and create lasting ripple effects far beyond national borders.
Lesson 4: Facilitation matters more than you think
Outdated, top-down lectures rarely work in adult education. What does? Facilitated learning that prioritizes co-creation, exchange, and safe spaces for mistakes.
At FNF, we work hard to provide transformative learning journeys crafted by world-class facilitators and trainers specialized in civic and political adult education. Each session offers a space for learning and development, inspiration and empowerment, co-creation and brainstorming, peer-to-peer learning and networking, best practice exchanges and the open sharing of mistakes.
With the right facilitators (professionals who have international experience), interactive formats, and modern, innovative, and creative methodologies, we can navigate cultural differences, prevent conflict, and create genuine learning journeys that fuel collaboration.
Lesson 5: Listening, empathy, and hope break down borders
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that cross-border collaboration starts with people. It’s not only a strategy, it’s about the human connection.
When you invest in building authentic emotional connection, you open the door to real transformation. When I see tears in the eyes of participants when they graduate a seminar, or the sparkle in their eyes as they reconnect across the world years down the line, I know that we’ve achieved the most important thing: touching the hearts of people.
From both my professional and personal experience, what has helped me most in cross-border, multicultural settings is communication based on shared values, empathy, personal connection, active listening, and hope.
I draw on tools like Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment, which helps to create optimal conditions for people’s thinking to flourish, and to structure conversations where everyone feels heard, respected, and mentally energized. I have also been able to explore the Hope-Based Communications framework recently, thanks to participating in the REWIRE Incubator, which uses messages around possibilities, solutions, and collective agency to inspire confidence and motivation.
As civil society leaders and activists, we need to do more listening, feeling, empathizing, connecting, and hoping. This will help us to open borders to deep relationships, collaborate in more meaningful ways, and co-create democracies that we want to live in.
If you want to work across borders, start with humanity, and the rest will follow.
Want to learn more about hope-based communication? Check out this new series that Boryana has worked on with Thomas Coombes, founder of Hope-based Communications and trainer at the Liberal Communicators Network:
⚒️ Toolbox for Change
How to use the 'Authoritarian Playbook' for good
By Elliott Goat, co-founder of Unhack Democracy
Authoritarians are risk-taking, fast, and crucially, willing to learn from each other. They are competitors in the democracy space with a good sales strategy but a bad product. They sell a fake vision of the past to create a sense of belonging.
Civil society, by contrast, is too often playing catch-up, focusing on protesting rather than demonstrating. We are slow adapt to new challenges because we are siloed, overstretched, demotivated, and constantly under attack.
What we need, in essence, is to an authoritarian playbook but for good, based on the principles of cross-border and cross-sector cooperation.
Here are five things civil society can do to flip the authoritarian playbook on its head:
1. Tell a better story.
Populists and authoritarians are masters of narrative and staying laser-focused on the key messages that have been proven to resonate.
We need to tell a different story, and do it better. Whether it is on immigration or rule of law, this has to be driven by a positive inclusive vision (this is where all the ‘hope stuff’ comes in). Only then will civil society be able to sell democracy better.
Read more: Changing the narrative on democracy
2. Coordinate and collaborate.
The past decade has seen the emergence of a whole ‘illiberal’ knowledge-sharing ecosystem. Made up of formal and informal groups and networks, these allow ideologically-aligned leaders and movements to share tactics and reinforce each other's objectives.
This is also what the REWIRE Democracy Substack is trying to do: to become a living guidebook to showcase civil society leaders, activists, and changemakers worldwide working together and share lessons that we can all learn from - to strengthen democracy, shift narratives, and drive social impact.
Want a real-world example of this in action? 👀
The UK Democracy Network is bringing together over 100 organisations to connect, share knowledge, and grow collective influence across the democracy sector. It’s a powerful reminder that collaboration beats competition when it comes to systemic change!
3. Don’t be afraid to steal.
As Pablo Picasso said: "good artists copy, great artists steal." Authoritarians and populists draw inspiration—in tactics, messaging, etc.—from anywhere and everywhere, even if it does not align with them ideologically, as long as it works.
Civil society must not be afraid to do the same! That is why Unhack Democracy works to educate and empower civil society and citizens with actionable lessons from successful shifts driven by democracy, business, and art. Because we believe that you have to see it first to be it!
Watch our latest webinar (here) to learn how civil society, architects and technologists are working together to strengthen democracy and rethink institutions in Ukraine.
4. Stay focused on the big picture.
It is often said that “the right looks for converts, while the left looks for traitors”.
We need to avoid falling into a “divide and distract” trap set for us, which prevents us from concentrating on real solutions. This requires finding like-minded partners and being open to working together towards a set of agreed common goals.
See the success of this approach in our latest Spotlight on… looking at lessons for civil society from Serbia’s youth-led protest movement that has snowballed over the last 6 months into the biggest challenge to President Aleksandar Vučić increasingly-autocratic decade-long rule.
5. Build bridges and belonging.
In their book The Invisible Doctrine, George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison argue the antithesis to the authoritarian bonding network, which brings together people from a homogenous group, is a bridging network; one that brings together people from different groups:
“Only through building sufficiently rich and vibrant bridging communities can we hope to thwart people’s urge to burrow into the security of a bonding community, defending themselves against the other”. — The Invisible Doctrine
Populists thrive on “us vs. them” rhetoric. This “othering” strategy pits groups against one another, making us believe it’s impossible to come together to push for change.
Civil society can counter this by prioritising connection and trust-building not only with people who agree, but also those who do not. To this end, the REWIRE programme has incubated three pioneering prototypes that aim to build bridges, foster communities and open up institutions, all underpinned by the power of creativity, entrepreneurship, and neuroscience.
Stay tuned for upcoming editions of the REWIRE Democracy Substack where we will deep dive into each of these projects, showing how—through crowdsourcing a collective vision or using art therapy to navigate tough conversations in a polarised world—you can rewire the system by rewiring the brain.
Ready to connect across borders and build something new?
Cross-border collaboration helps civil society to step outside our silos, see new patterns, gain fresh insights, and strengthen the collective force behind democracy.
Whether it’s borrowing tactics from unexpected places, like the authoritarian playbook (for good), or learning from changemakers like Boryana and the Serbian student protest movement, one thing is clear: the challenges we face are global… and so can the solutions be.
As REWIRE Democracy continues to unfold, we invite you to stay curious, stay hopeful, and stay connected across borders.
💬 Let us know: What’s one thing you’ll take into your own work from this issue?
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