A popular word today used to describe activist groups is the word "agenda." An agenda is the goal or purpose of an organization usually as it seeks to shape the political and social forces of its culture. Communism, for example, has an agenda of redistributing the wealth of nations through revolution. The Gay Rights movement has the agenda of changing attitudes towards sodomy so that it will become accepted as an alternate and normal lifestyle by the American people.

Sometimes groups which claim one goal actually have another one which is called a "hidden agenda." The National Education Association (NEA), which claims to be interested only in the education of our children, actually has a hidden agenda of promoting the religion of Humanism and putting all education under the the control of the state.