Building Your Community:
Welcome to Red Wine & Blue’s TroubleNation!
Connection is at the heart of organizing. Extremists want us to feel isolated and alone — but when we come together, we’re unstoppable. The antidote to division is community building.
This is why Red Wine & Blue launched TroubleNation — our national grassroots organizing program — to supercharge your power to build community locally.
We make it easier than ever to get started. Whether you’re forming a new group or growing an existing one, TroubleNation will help you find other Red Wine & Blue members who live near you and share your frustration with the rise of extremism in their communities. We offer everything you need — exclusive content, training, event opportunities, and connections with grassroots leaders across the country. Best of all, groups remain independent while benefiting from Red Wine & Blue’s support.
Oklahoma TroubleNation group, Good Trouble Tulsa
As of April 2025, Red Wine & Blue has over 700,000 women in our network and over 800 TroubleNation groups in all 50 states (and even a few abroad for American expats who’ve had enough)!
With new members and groups joining every day, our movement is unstoppable. Even if you feel alone where you live, we guarantee you are not!
Why Community Matters
In these chaotic times, group members need a safe gathering space that they can depend on. In the community groups we form, people want to:
- Make friends
- Feel less isolation
- Vent frustrations
- Share ideas
- Learn new things
- Take action in their community
- Build collective power
Take a quick look at what our experts have to say about why community matters so much!
Remember that many people are surrounded by individuals who don’t share their values or perspectives. They might even be living with them! Finding your group can give them a support network that provides hope and encouragement.
How to Build Community
We recommend investing time in building a solid foundation for your group — and that means creating community. Think about this work in three stages: building community, sustaining community, and growing community, keeping in mind that your group will constantly be flowing back and forth between these stages, and can even be in multiple stages at one time.
Starting Your TroubleNation Group
When your group first forms, take some time to get to know each other – never underestimate the power of building relationships, creating connections, and establishing trust. These will be essential in the work to come.
Sustaining Your TroubleNation Group
All relationships require maintenance. A strong community takes time to nurture itself. Identify the things that help your members replenish their energy and feed their spirits. As the saying goes, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.”
Growing Your TroubleNation Group
Make an investment in outreach. Identify opportunities, both online and offline, to engage with people beyond your group and invite them to join you. New members bring fresh perspectives and new ideas.
A Note on Joy and Hope
Keep in mind that sustaining your group means being intentional about self-care — both individually and collectively. Don’t forget to take time to check in with each other and make sure you are all getting the support you need.
Avoid the trap of despair. While it’s easy to feel a sense of gloom and doom about all the things out of our control, we can’t get stuck in that feeling. It might be tempting to throw up our hands and hide under the covers, but remember the people throughout history who have fought to make this country the free, safe, and vibrant place we know it can be.
Be engaged, and let go of what doesn’t help. Stay informed without getting sucked into the cycle of doomscrolling and cable news drama. Think outside of the (news) box by finding trusted sources like Heather Cox Richardson. Subscribe to the newsletters and podcasts of organizations you trust to keep you informed (like ours!). If you find yourself getting frustrated and angry, walk away. Talk to a friend.
Stay hopeful. Authoritarianism needs fear to be successful, so focus on finding hope wherever you can. Celebrate wins, no matter how small. Toast to joy. Turn up the music. Take care of yourselves and each other.
“Hope is not an emotion. Hope is a stubborn commitment to possibility.”