What follows is a set of action ideas that emerged from intense small group work at the conference. The first set of ideas were the ones selected by the small groups to contribute to the final plenary.

• Work with, or help start, a Students for Nuclear Disarmament group in your area. Get help from Back from the Brink.
• A new book called “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobsen was optioned by a Hollywood producer within a couple of weeks of appearing in print. If/when a movie is made based on the book, organize local events around it when it comes out. Meanwhile, organize around the book. The film “TV Event,” based on the making of “The Day After,” is currently available to rent and is being shown on selected PBS stations. Organize showings and discussions around it.
• The nuclear weapons industry and its products need to be ridiculed and satirized, especially the plan to replace the land-based leg of the nuclear triad with the Sentinel Missile.
• Use the Nuclear Ban US database of abolition organizations, what they do and how to contact them at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DXyG4oYFnM1ynmbeVFtnhMiLMbfggJNWp32c7EavpBs/edit#gid=0.)
• Unify our message – make it simple.
• Stickers are appealing to young people and are cost-effective. (Here is one.)
• Organize a new (global) Nuclear Freeze Movement.
• Demand the world return to (the global) ABM Treaty.

Ideas from the small groups

• Engage celebrities in the project of educating and organizing a wider public. These can be famous people at any level and in many walks of life, but entertainers are probably most influential.
• Find ways to link nuclear weapons to the wider threat of militarism, and especially the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
• Learn to use Tik Tok, Instagram and other social media skillfully in order to communicate more effectively to younger audiences.
• Back from the Brink has a good plan that is working and needs to be used more widely.
• Ask your group: what is our theory of change? I.e. how does a change like nuclear abolition come about?
• Business leaders are an influential group that has not been effectively engaged lately. Find a way to engage them.
• We can’t allow our movement to be branded as “progressive” only or it will not succeed. Reach out to people in other parts of the political spectrum.
• Find new ways to demonstrate to people that deterrence is a myth.
• Find ways to demonstrate to people that nuclear weapons contribute to strategic instability rather than the opposite, as its backers claim.
• In countries that have signed the TPNW, pressure governments to meet the obligations they undertook.
• Force institutions to divest from investing in nuclear weapons producers.
• Target military leaders with arguments against nuclear weapons, especially focusing on their unusability.
• Point out that nuclear weapons are inherently undemocratic and that only a very few individuals and companies have any say in their creation or their use. The possible use of AI to control them only makes this worse. The rest of us – even though we may think of ourselves as nuclear “haves,” because our country has nuclear weapons – we have no control over whether our taxes are used to build them or whether they are used, so we are really “nuclear have nots.”
• Our position is a 3-legged stool:
  • Prohibit nuclear weapons and abolish them
  • Establish common security with other nations
  • Redeploy economic resources
• For every action that we try, define “performance measures” that allow us to judge honestly whether the action was a success; whether it helped build the movement.
• Promote the view that nuclear weapons are old-fashioned, obsolete and unusable. They are 80 years old and are “over the hill.” Nukes in a wheelchair?
• Organize a cruise on a cruise ship line from San Francisco to Hawaii to Japan, to study nuclear disarmament.
• Combine organizing on climate change with organizing to abolish nuclear weapons as the Warheads to Windmills project has been doing.
• Set up cultural exchanges with Russia and China.
• Persuade a wealthy person to fund a nuclear disarmament think tank.
• Attend protests on college campuses to make contact with students.
• Rename schools, streets etc. after well-known abolitionists like Daniel Ellsberg.
• Organize movie screenings and associate them with other events.
• Organize “peace runs” as both publicity stunt and fundraiser.
• Get local officials to pass Back from the Brink-type resolutions.
• Thank countries which have signed TPNW by taking certificates to their consulates.
• Persuade Taylor Swift and other celebrities to endorse nuclear disarmament.
• Create a database of abolition actions.
• Promote common security.
• Answer people’s questions about nuclear weapons and abolition.
• Education about environmental effects of nuclear testing and bomb production.
• Devise fun challenges like ICAN’s contest to see which country can get 100 cities to back the TPNW first.
• Organize door to door canvassing.
• Publicize the movement’s successes, like having abolished 85% of the nuclear weapons from the world.
• Demonstrate clearly that nuclear weapons are lousy weapons – they can’t be used and they are very expensive.
• Faith communities, unions, environmental groups, high school and university students can all be allies.  Use moral, safety, ecologic and economic arguments for persuasion.
• Developing divestment/boycotts is a winning, long term strategy. 
• Engage students in not just war profiteering but nuclear manufacturing/deployment campaigns.
• Formulate small, achievable goals.
• Work to stop recruitment fairs.
• Create Nuclear Free Zones, allowing no nuclear weapons contracts, by using the initiative process, such as in Massachusetts.
• Disrupt sports events.
• Creative, artistic actions can be very good at outreaching to media and general public in order to build our movement. Some examples offered were:
  • Collection of baby teeth to demonstrate the radioactive fallout from nuclear testing;
  • Count the Nuclear Weapons Money action, where $1 trillion in 1 million notes each of $1million value were taken from a model nuclear missile, counted and re-allocated to baskets representing Sustainable Development Goals;
  • 3D Nuke Missile, a public, inter-active art piece which alerts people to the continued existence of nuclear weapons and how to be active in preventing nuclear war.
• A good way to reach people is to emphasize the impact of the nuclear arms raceon their lives – including the fact that the colossal nuclear weapons budget saps money that could go to addressing hunger, health, jobs etc. A graphic depiction of this is at https://nuclearweaponsmoney.org/opportunity-costs/.
• Movies are good ways to reach people with facts, stories and human connection. One example is Silent Fallout by Hideaaki Ito (2023).
• Build cooperation with organizations in other countries, especially in other nuclear-armed and allied countries.
• Unilateral nuclear disarmament is unlikely to occur. Always emphasize bilateral agreements.
• Elevate alternatives to nuclear deterrence for achieving security, such as diplomacy, common security, application of international law and the use of international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
• Engage religious and faith-based communities. A good resource for this is  Nuclear Disarmament Resource Guide for Religious Leaders and Communities.  Also published in Arabic, French, German, Japanese and Spanish).
• Connect the climate change and nuclear disarmament movements as these are the two main existential threats to humanity.
• The International Court of Justice 1996 ruling against the threat or use of nuclear weapons and the G20 Bali statement on the ‘inadmissibility of the threat or use of nuclear weapons’ provide openings to promote the taboo against nuclear weapons use and a freeze on any more production of nuclear weapons.
• Support the Invest in Cures Before Missiles (ICBM) Act.
• Action on ICBMs is a theme for Daniel Ellsberg Week, June 10-16, 2024.
• Got Nukes: A joint action depicting the exorbitant amounts of money spent on nuclear weapons and what they could instead be spent on. This could also include promotion of nuclear weapons divestment.

These are the Best Practices that groups have found effective:

• Attend meetings of new disarmament organizations.
• Local social justice organizations met twice-monthly to exchange news and actions.
• Join coalitions.
• Food and party atmosphere at events.
• Organize different kinds of activities (for organizers, for artists, …)
• Keep your group visible (for example, via letters to editor)
• Advocacy and outreach to foreign consulates
• Put special emphasis on having lots of fun.
• Pasting funny stickers and fliers at comedy clubs has drawn new people in.
• Merchants of Death campaign has developed a cohesive group of activists working together in community. They have identified Lockheed, Boing, RTX/Raytheon and General Dynamics as targets.
• A Quaker community in Mass spent 2 years identifying ways to align with the TPNW.  Moved their bank account to another bank without investments in nuclear weapons companies, agreed not to buy Honeywell thermostats in the building, got discussion going with VP of Raytheon, and celebrated their victories.
• A group in Oregon used the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF) as a vehicle to raise awareness and funds. They conducted a successful silent auction at the film showings and offered allied organizations the opportunity to staff information tables at their event. A Marshallese woman who has been speaking out about illnesses caused by atomic testing in the 50s staffed one table.  She watched the 2 films, Atomic Dome and Anointed, and was moved to declare that she is going to start speaking to groups about nuclear dangers.
• A small group in Davis, CA is going to Farmers’ Markets to offer education about the TPNW.
• A small medical student group in Kampala, Uganda is working with Rotary, and other service clubs. They are speaking about women’s issues, including HIV and nuclear dangers, and citing Hiroshima/Nagasaki’s aftereffects which are affecting subsequent generations long after the initial use of the bombs.
• The Warheads to Windmills book hasraised consciousness and improves our ability to dialogue with people not yet convinced. Another book that was mentioned was Amitav Gosh, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis,
• Student encampments at Columbia and other schools have shown a model of connecting war to environmental issues (survival of humanity), racism, university system failure, divestment demands, international solidarity, and youth movements.
• International Solidarity is a strength. The parliament in Uganda is considering Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, thanks to the Rotary Club lobbying.  They are using the argument that there should be NO budget for nuclear facility development.

These are Movement-Wide Needs that were identified:

• We have been successful when there has been alignment among movement organizations about a plan and action steps (like the Nuclear FREEZE).
• We need good communication across – and within – the movement and we need a bigger movement where everyone is pulling in the same direction.
• We need a rapid response to unwelcome events. When they happen, we have to be ready with op-eds, comments to media, and a strategy for people at the grassroots to respond. We need, as a movement, to have a playbook that keeps our voices aligned when important events happen.
• We need the ability to send something out to everyone.
• We need a “435 strategy” that takes into account every one of the 435 congressional districts and every state.
• We need the ability to send something out to everyone.
• We need consistent messaging.
• We must protect people who voice our message.
• We need a simple and compelling Call to Action, like the FREEZE had.
• Our messaging has to decide if we’re for Abolition or Reductions. “No-nukes” is much more powerful than “some nukes.”
• Spread hope and solutions, not just fear.
• Global action for Sep 26: Request the UN High Representative to convene a global meeting of peace and disarmament organizations in order to build cooperation for joint actions on September 26, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. One of those actions could be a joint global statement/appeal that affirms the taboo against any use of nuclear weapons and calls for end to any production of new nuclear weapons. The statement could be presented to the UN at the UN High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament, which is attended by Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Defense Minister from around the world. Another action could be a joint global online event on Sep 26 that includes music and art as well as high-level speakers.