Activism is typically associated with work within charities/NGOs or participation in social movements. This essay highlights activism different from these forms in that it happens without funding or mass mobilisation. Instead, it is powered by the longer-term perspective and day-to-day efforts of ‘activist citizens’. Based on interviews and participant observation in bookshop-cafés and other donor-independent initiatives in Novi Sad, Serbia, the essay argues that such ‘everyday activism’ is significant not only because it supports the development of other, more visible, forms of activism, but also in its own right, as a counter-space contributing to social change.