Boycotts can be a powerful tool to make companies stop supporting bad things.
Get all your national boycott information here: which boycotts are active (and effective) and what makes boycott works.
Boycotts work best when people know you’re doing it! Let us know if you’re active in one of these boycotts!
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Which boycotts are active now?
Perhaps you’ve seen dozens a boycotts across your social media feed. Look up what boycotts are happening now and who is organizing them rated by our criteria of what makes a boycott effective.
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If you are a boycott organizer, let us know if we’re missing information or need to add your boycott to our list. Email us at boycott@boycottcentral.us
What makes a boycott effective?
Boycotts can work. The United Farm Workers’ grape boycott was an industry-wise boycott against California grapes that forced growers to negotiate in good-faith with farmworkers. It worked after months of carefully planned organizing: groups across the country, national tour by farmworkers, pickets outside grocery stores, and more.
Boycotts in the social media era have generally struggled. People often skip the organizing and just launch it (hence this website). But it can work. But they also require some structure and ways to measure pressure. For example, the infamous Bud Light boycott was highly successful (21% loss in sales).
Boycotts traditionally require a lot of coordination to make them work. They require:
- a target (who is supposed to change behavior)
- a demand (so the target knows what they have to do to get the boycott to stop)
- boycotters (a lot of people who used to be customers refusing to be customers anymore)
- leadership/negotiation committee (people who can show the target they’re hurting their bottomline and negotiate over demands)
- a way to communicate with the boycotters (a structure and massive social reach!).
Real talk: most boycotts launched since Trump took office do not have these. Don’t fret and don’t despair! Boycotts take some time to organize well.
By signing up with us — without any commitment — we’ll let you know when we see effective boycotts being run!
Sign up
We’re scanning for effective boycotts. When we find some, we’ll let you know!
We will not spam you with lots of emails — promise.
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Who are we?
The initial schemers on this project are volunteers Kat (Build the Resistance) and Daniel (Choose Democracy). Many others helped collaborate to make this happen.
We saw tons of people asking us to boycott on various dates. We wanted to make a place where people could look up the boycott — who called it? Is it real? Is it well-organized?
We hope this can inspire better designed boycotts so we waste less energy on boycotts that aren’t well organized. And by signing up, we can alert you to boycotts that we see as effectively organized and thoughtfully executed.
Got questions? Email us at boycott@boycottcentral.us
Images gratefully given by John Hain (Pixabay). This website is hosted by Choose Democracy PAC, PO BOX 15320, WASHINGTON, DC, 20003. It’s a work of love.