---
title: Coalition of Everyone
type: advocacy
status: inactive
country: AU
website: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://coalitionofeveryone.com/
logo: /assets/org-logos/coalition-of-everyone.ico
summary: An Australian organisation that ran participatory and deliberative democracy
  processes in communities — aimed at repairing and building democracy into everyday
  life. Wound up after six years of operation.
concepts:
- citizens-assembly
- deliberative-democracy
- consensus-mapping
- direct-democracy
events:
- date: '2019-01-01'
  title: Co-founded by Willow Berzin, Suse Porter and Dr Sonia Randhawa, inspired
    by Extinction Rebellion Melbourne's first meeting
  url: https://www.dumbofeather.com/articles/building-a-coalition-of-everyone/
  quote: I met my two other co-founders Suse Porter and Dr Sonia Randhawa early last
    year, and have been working closely with them since.
  proof_level: high
  url_checked: '2026-08-13'
  notable: true
- date: '2020-02-04'
  title: Ran four mock Citizens' Assemblies at Melbourne's Sustainable Living Festival
  url: https://web.archive.org/web/20201025045936/https://www.coalitionofeveryone.com/post/citizens-assembly
  quote: Through the Sustainable Living Festival, the Coalition of Everyone held four
    mock Citizens’ Assemblies on the topics of; fashion, fire, regenerative agriculture
    and water.
  proof_level: high
  url_checked: '2026-08-13'
  notable: false
---

The Coalition of Everyone (CoE) was founded by Willow Berzin with the aim of making participatory and deliberative democracy part of everyday civic life — not just formal government processes. It ran citizens' assemblies, participatory workshops, and community engagement processes across Australia.

Their stated vision: a world where people are welcomed to engage actively with political and economic systems, from small-scale community budgeting to large-scale randomly selected assemblies setting policy.

## Key people

- **Willow Berzin** — founder. Built CoE over six years as a grassroots deliberative democracy practice before winding it up intentionally. Subsequently founded the Bioregional Institute, continuing related work on regenerative community governance. Appeared at a [DOD meetup in 2022](../../blog/posts/2022-02-24-podcast.md).[^coe]

After six years of operation, CoE held a final AGM and wound up — "composted" in their language.

## Significance

CoE represented an attempt to operationalise deliberative democracy at the grassroots level — outside the formal government commissioning model used by organisations like [MosaicLab](mosaiclab.md) and [newDemocracy](newdemocracy.md). Its winding-up is itself a data point: the sustainability challenge of doing this work without a reliable institutional client base.

## See also

- [Citizens' Assembly](../concepts/citizens-assembly.md)
- [Consensus Mapping](../concepts/consensus-mapping.md)
- [Direct Democracy](../concepts/direct-democracy.md)
- [Designing Open Democracy 2020 Primer](../../blog/posts/2022-02-24-podcast.md) — Willow Berzin from CoE appeared at this DOD meetup

[^coe]: "Renewing democratic culture for citizen, community, and policy-led change." Coalition of Everyone, archived at [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/20201025042342/https://www.coalitionofeveryone.com/).