Read on Twitter
Here’s a stab.
“Organizing” is creating connective tissue between otherwise-atomized individuals who share the same needs but are unable to act collectively until they are connected to each other & build a shared sense of belonging to a community or org they have a stake in. https://twitter.com/armank925/status/1302716472213602306
“Organizing” is creating connective tissue between otherwise-atomized individuals who share the same needs but are unable to act collectively until they are connected to each other & build a shared sense of belonging to a community or org they have a stake in. https://twitter.com/armank925/status/1302716472213602306
It’s about developing the structures that create the CAPACITY for groups of to produce political outputs like go on strike, or focus volunteer energy on a particular campaign, or take to the streets or the internet for a mass protest.
Too often, people refer to the OUTPUTS of a capital-O Organized group of people as “organizing.”
Marches, phone banking, etc.
This is pernicious because it makes people skip the critical step of capacity-building, & jump straight to TACTICS they want to use.
Marches, phone banking, etc.
This is pernicious because it makes people skip the critical step of capacity-building, & jump straight to TACTICS they want to use.
You frequently get a kind of magical thinking where “if we just plant a flag in the ground and righteously call for a strike/a mass-protest/whatever, the people will be inspired to rise up & join us & do it.”
Except, it almost never works that way.
Except, it almost never works that way.
There’s certainly a feedback-loop between taking action, and that drawing out new people who share the goals of the people who took action and want to get involved in the next one.
But without a focus on Organizing you get lots of one-off flashes in the pan, & high member churn.
But without a focus on Organizing you get lots of one-off flashes in the pan, & high member churn.
Organizing is the only thing that consistently enables a movement to get people to do relatively “costly” actions.
It’s easy to get lots of people to vote, or sign a petition, or tweet. It’s harder to get them to strike from work, or risk arrest. It’s hard to sustain engagement.
It’s easy to get lots of people to vote, or sign a petition, or tweet. It’s harder to get them to strike from work, or risk arrest. It’s hard to sustain engagement.
Organizing is:
-Making people conscious of their shared goals with other adjacent people
-Convening those people with shared goals, & creating relationships of trust, accountability, & commitment between them
-Developing buy-in on a theory of change, not treating them as minions
-Making people conscious of their shared goals with other adjacent people
-Convening those people with shared goals, & creating relationships of trust, accountability, & commitment between them
-Developing buy-in on a theory of change, not treating them as minions
The relationships of mutual accountability are what keep people in the fight.
The consciousness of shared interests is what forms the glue keeping the person in those relationships.
Both have to be intentionally built. The job of the organizer is to build them.
The consciousness of shared interests is what forms the glue keeping the person in those relationships.
Both have to be intentionally built. The job of the organizer is to build them.
This is also why it is deceptive when “Organizing” is applied to electoral campaigns, where a candidate just needs lots and lots of people power to do simple things like make phone calls for a finite period of time, and then the campaign is over (win or lose) & they all go away.
The Political establishment generally doesn’t like Organizing. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to benefit from the volunteer labor/$$$ of lots of atomized individuals for the short period of time to get them elected, & then have us all go back to sleep.
Prof @hahriehan told our members recently that the key factor that makes an organization successful in politics is that it has genuine accountability to an “independent and flexible base.”
A base can only be independent and flexible to change if it is Organized.
A base can only be independent and flexible to change if it is Organized.
If you are a nonprofit that is dependent on the funding spigot of donors in order to have the capacity to mobilize your members, your members are not an independent base, they are an extension of the power of your patrons.
I used to complain that the Democratic Party is missing an opportunity by not organizing Veterans, but I’ve come to realize that the Party doesn’t WANT Veterans to be organized, because it would create a base of power with its own agenda, not just a Rolodex of props for TV ads.
A lot of people in electoral politics also just don’t seem to understand what an organized constituency would actually look like. Or at least, they see the current LEVEL of organization of a given community as static and innate, not a changeable condition.
The fact that an organized constituency will inherently have its own demands independent of the patronage of the people in power is why political parties have had a push-pull relationship with Organized Labor. A Union isn’t just an email list controlled by some dude in a WeWork.
Political donors (both large and small) & nonprofit philanthropy foundations are too focused on short-term outputs than long-term capacity building, ie Organizing.
Relentless market forces therefore push “organizations” towards a rapid-response model, away from Organizing.
Relentless market forces therefore push “organizations” towards a rapid-response model, away from Organizing.
Because Organizing is inherently relational (it’s about building relationships between former strangers!), it’s inherently messy, and inherently is labor-intensive (& therefore expensive).
More efficient to just crank out viral videos, raise money from the clicks, & run TV ads!
More efficient to just crank out viral videos, raise money from the clicks, & run TV ads!
But while paid media and earned media are both critical pieces of winning elections, when the election is over & the media moves on your movement isn’t left off any more powerful than when you started. That money & those RTs didn’t create new, lasting Organization among people.
One other point: we often say “center impacted people” but rarely talk about why. It isn’t just about morality, it’s a strategic imperative.
The directly impacted people are the ones who are going to continue to be committed even when the cause is out of vogue/hits obstacles.
The directly impacted people are the ones who are going to continue to be committed even when the cause is out of vogue/hits obstacles.
If it’s the Coal Miners with Black Lung or whatever sitting at the negotiating table, they’re going to be the last people to throw Coal Miners with Black Lung under the bus in a “compromise” “deal.”
If they live with Black Lung every day, they won’t get distracted/pulled away.
If they live with Black Lung every day, they won’t get distracted/pulled away.
Too often we see a kind of patriarchal, savior-y “Advocacy” approach, where people who are not impacted are the ones actually making the decisions or choosing the strategy, even if the impacted people are the tokenized public face.
That’s a outcome that structural forces relentlessly pull orgs towards, UNLESS they are constantly and consciously doing real Organizing to meaningfully convene, build relationships between, and empower those directly-impacted people within an “independent & flexible base.”
Last point: you can do Organizing without having a formal (eg dues-paying, member-referendum votes, etc) membership structure.
But far too many orgs that claim to have “800,000 members” or whatever actually don’t have organized members at all, just people getting a newsletter.
But far too many orgs that claim to have “800,000 members” or whatever actually don’t have organized members at all, just people getting a newsletter.
