From Minneapolis to Budapest and across Alberta, people are banding together to defend democracy and build new institutions. These citizen-powered alternatives draw on longstanding traditions of community organizing to create something new: an emerging collective response to corporate oligarchy and right-wing autocracy. They’re built from the ground up by neighbours and friends to defend their rights, protect one another, and create local economic and democratic alternatives. The 2026 Parkland Conference examines those alternatives and highlights the people who are building them. If institutions are being attacked from above, we need to rebuild democracy from below.