Most AFC members were relatively free countries that apparently got taken over (illegally or improperly) either by another country or from within. In most cases, our strategy will be a two-pronged approach. Most free country efforts we've found use either one of two main strategies. We intend to use both.
The first, simpler, and faster prong (the "new free country from scratch" approach) will be for the people interested to simply exercise their rights to create a new government that protects their freedom instead of destroying it. Since we support a virtual country approach as an interim measure, it's not necessary to abolish the existing governments of the occupying de facto regimes; just declare independence from them and create the new free countries as virtual countries within the same area, consisting of those people who want to be free. The new free countries, as AFC members, would be required to include the common AFC Bill of Rights in their Constitutions. This is of course easiest to do when creating new free countries from scratch.
The second prong (the "restore old free country" approach) would be to research, identify, and reactivate the original legitimate governments of those formerly free countries (by electing new people to replace the effectively vacated offices), picking up where they left off just before they went astray, incorporate the few good (pro-freedom) things the occupation governments have done since then, and avoid doing any of the bad (anti-freedom) things. Then amend their Constitutions to match those developed by the first prong that created new free countries from scratch, or merge both versions into suitable Constitutions that still include the AFC Bill of Rights. Then each government recognizes the other as part of the complete united free country, and a new combined government is elected and/or appointed per the requirements of the merged Constitution.
The resulting free country then derives its legitimacy from both prongs - the common law right of the people to secede and form a new government, and the historical acceptance of the original free country. Every reasonable person should then be able to recognize and support at least one approach or the other, although the historical approach will need sufficient credible research to be convincing. Those least likely to agree will be those dedicated to the statist quo, and those who have been duped by the statists since they learned all about the government in schools owned and operated by the government. Remember, history is usually written by the conquerors, not the victims.
Sometimes a country has several historical events which each caused a significant loss of freedom and/or was technically invalid or illegal but apparently was done anyway or was recorded erroneously (or completely falsified). American examples might include the adoption of the Constitution when the Articles of Confederation were still in effect, the North's reaction to Southern secession (starting the Civil War), the North's conquest and recapture of the South by force, the alleged deletion and/or passage of several of the Constitutional amendments after the 12th, the Federal Reserve, and repudiating the gold standard. Texan examples might include its alleged annexation by the US in 1845, the Compromise of 1850 which cost Texas 1/3 of its land, and the re-conquest and re-annexation of Texas by the US at the end of the Civil War. In this situation, it may be difficult to select which point to go back to in order to try to pick up where the legitimate country left off. To further strengthen the legitimacy of the ultimately resulting free country, it may be worth it to split the second prong into several efforts, each selecting one of the historical turning points to fix.
Anyway, once the combined government (new + historical) has been (re)created, conventional techniques of advertising and publicity should help recruit new citizens, even though many will be dual citizens. The new country must of course treat its members very well in order to keep them. It could facilitate the creation of volunteer organizations to help members with specific problems such as finding work, where recruiting corporate supporters could be really helpful. Some careful lobbying of the occupation government could create incremental reforms, which would encourage more people to join. Naturally, the new free country and its citizens should treat outsiders well (e.g. following NAP) to avoid bringing the wrath of the de facto occupation government upon it. If the politicians can see that the free country's people are responsible and don't cause problems, their concerns may be relaxed and they would have less objection to accomodating the new country in ways that don't infringe upon their own people. This is not to say that the outer country will suddenly stop violating the rights of the free country's people, of course (if they always followed NAP, there would be no need to secede in the first place), and they could even get worse, but overall, if the new free country takes a low-key approach and keeps a low profile (except as appropriate), the problems should be minimized. And as more people are won over to the idea that maybe the new free country really is legitimate, is harmless, and deserves its chance to exist, and those who want it should be allowed to have it, then the politicians will learn that they need to take a more moderate stance or risk alienating their voters. Eventually, the free country may even have a majority of citizens in certain precincts, towns, counties, or districts, and these can then be liberated on a higher level, officially and more efficiently, and still without violating the rights of any of the outer country's own people.
Ultimately, of course, we want our member nations to grow to the point where they have their own separate territories and populations and are no longer occupied by the countries they secede from; then they will be truly free. But by allowing for the intermediate step of being "virtual countries" within their "host" countries while starting out, we help them gain at least part of their freedom sooner than otherwise possible, and facilitate a smoother and more peaceful and orderly transition.
Indeed, it would be a good idea to further develop this "virtual country" idea along the lines of the "virtual cantons" idea proposed on and off over the years. This allows citizens a choice of many overlapping yet peacefully competing local governments defined not by geography but voluntary membership, with an overall but very minimal federal government to provide the common law throughout the country to protect everyone's rights under NAP. Citizens can voluntarily join zero or more virtual cantons which provide customized governments along different lines - people can have as much government as they want, as long as they can leave any time and each canton leaves nonmembers alone. This system could easily accomodate various parties, factions, or special interest groups which have a common vision of government along lines other than total freedom and responsibility. Disputes between different cantons or members of different cantons would be handled at the overall level.