Center for Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies

Centre for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies - "or CANVAS represents an International network of trainers and consultants, established in 2003."

"One of CANVAS’s major funders is Muneer Satter, a former Goldman Sachs executive who stepped down from that position in June 2012and now owns Satter Investment Management LLC. Stratfor CEO Shea Morenz worked for ten years at Goldman Sachs as well, where he served as Managing Director in the Investment Management Division and Region Head for Private Wealth Management for the Southwest Region... A powerful individual who lobbied the U.S. government to give money to CANVAS early on was Michael McFaul, the current U.S. Ambassador to Russia for the State Department and someone who “worked closely with” Popovic while serving as a Senior Fellow at theright-wing Hoover Institution at Stanford University." 


 * Founder, Srdja Popovic
 * Staff Member, Nini Gogiberidze

Staff (listed March 2010)
Accessed March 2010:


 * Srđa Popović
 * Slobodan Đinovic
 * Stephen Zunes
 * Zivorad Anđelkovic
 * John A. Gould
 * Kurt Schock

Training Manual

 * Srdja Popovic, Slobodan Djinovic, Andrej Milivojevic, Hardy Merriman, and Ivan Marovic, CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle, Belgrade, Serbia: Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), 2007. ("comments given by Robert L. Helvey" p.292) "Special thanks to our friend, Robert Helvey, for sharing his deep knowleedge and insight about strategic nonviolent struggle and for instilling in us a commitment to transferring knowledge about it ." (p.289

Course
"CANVAS started a joint graduate program at Faculty of Political Science at Belgrade University in January 2008. Until December 2009. course had two generation of students. Name of this course is Strategies and Methods of Nonviolent Social Change and is the first certified course dedicated to Strategic Nonviolent struggle based on CANVAS Core Curriculum.

"Presenters: Courses was taught by CANVAS representatives Slobodan Djinovic, Srdja Popovic, Zivorad Andjelkovic, as well as by PhD Cedomir Cupic, PhD Zoran Stoiljkovic, PhD Slavisa Orlovic and PhD Vukasin Pavlovic from the Faculty of Political Science. Aditional presenters in these two years were John A. Gould, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Colorado College, Dr. Stephen Zunes, a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, Kurt Schock, Associate Professor of Global Affairs, Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, Janet Cherry Senior Lecturer/Research Associate, Development Studies Department, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and some formal activists from nonviolent struggles form Philippines and Georgia...

"This course has become one of the most popular courses at Faculty of Political Science as average number of studnets at other courses is 15 and at Strategies and Methods of Nonviolent Social Change is 25 students.

"Some of our studnets from the first year of studies, who hade best scores are now working in CANVAS on one of our projects, „Online library“ www.canvasopedia.org, as reserachers and web administrators. Abrage age of students is 28 and they come from verious fields (media, political parties, NGO sector, public institutions, goverment...)

"From year 2012 this course is becoming Master degree program and course has just been acredeted at Belgrade University. It is planed to start with the program in October 2012 and below you can find the list of subjects and breef description of subjects taught by CANVAS representatives." 

Other Courses
"Starting in year 2007 and continuing presently CANVAS representatives give the “Advantages of Nonviolent Struggle” presentation at the Colorado Air Force Academy. It is attended by 14 students from their department of strategic policy. As interest for this kind of presentation rises, CANVAS is negotiating to hold a presentation for an even wider audience at the AFA, which may lead to common educational activities with neighboring Colorado College...

"Starting September 2011 in cooperation with Professor Denis J. Sullivan, CANVAS established cooperation with this Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Besides lectures held by Srdja Popovic every 6 months for more than 250 students, every semester CANVAS welcomes students from Northeastern to do an internship program in their office in Belgrade. As part of the Northeastern summer study program CANVAS trainers give students a 2.5 day workshop on nonviolent methods and tactics." 

Criticism

 * Michael Barker, "Mother Jones And The Defence Of Liberal Elites", Swans Commentary, April 19, 2010.
 * Michael Barker, "CANVASing for the Nonviolent Propaganda Offensive: Propaganda in the Service of Imperial Projects" (pdf), Countercurrents, March 26, 2011.
 * Carl Gibson and Steve Horn, "How Defending Private Intelligence Firm Collaborators Screws Grassroots Activists", Occupy, December 5, 2013.

Related Sourcewatch

 * International Conference on Civil Resistance and Power Politics
 * Amado M. Mendoza, Jr.
 * Janet Cherry
 * Stratfor