Chatty January: practical organizing (the activisty kind)

[frayadjacent]

luzula's prompt: what is the most important lesson you've learned about practical organizing during the years you've been active?

In a word (or, uh, two): replace yourself.

The fundamental idea behind this is that activism and political organizing is not about organizing events or campaigns, it's about organizing people.  It's about supporting people to develop the kind of skills and habits and motivation to organize themselves and each other.

And the big thing about this is that it takes more work, more time, and more effort to develop new members of a group than it does to just do stuff yourself. 

Let's say you're a part of a group that supports tenants who are organizing to fight for better conditions in their apartment building.  So you've knocked on doors, you've met a few people in the building who are pissed off about the mold and the deposit theft and want to fight the landlord.  One of the first things you all might want to know is information about the landlord.  Where are their other properties?  Do they have other business connections?  Where do they live? 

If you've done this type of organizing in the past, you might know exactly what websites and library resources and government offices you can use to get this information.  But the point isn't just to get the information, it's to support the new people you've met who want to develop their skills and be better organizers. 

So you work with them.  This might mean sitting with them in a coffee shop and looking up relevant information together.  It probably means inviting them -- and strongly encouraging them to come -- to future door-knocking.  It means role-playing with them so they can practice talking with their neighbors about issues affecting them. 

Even if they have previous organizing experience, most new people are not going to be as emotionally invested in a project as you are, just because they haven't been involved in it very long.  So it still means reaching out, calling them to ask what they think of the last rally or the latest decision the group made. 

If your group has open meetings, it means taking time to talk to new people who show up.  It also means reviewing how meetings work, how decisions are made, and so forth, at the beginning of meetings so that new people can follow what's happening and plug in.

This kind of work can build the overall capacity of an organization by focusing on developing *people*. 

I'm still taking prompts for future posts.

Comments

[luzula]

*nodnod*

I totally agree about how important this is.

Coming at it from a slightly different angle, I really feel that interacting with other people and working with others for a common goal is the kind of thing that motivates ME better as well. Sure, I can sit alone in my room and do whatever useful stuff that I know how to do on my own, but if I don't do things with others and get feedback on what I'm doing, then I'm likely to lose my motivation.

[frayadjacent]

Absolutely -- I wasn't thinking about it as I wrote this, but I agree for sure. Well, OK, there are times when my introverted self would rather just look something up or make the flyer myself rather than call someone and ask how they're doing with the research or leaflet design. But that's only in the immediate term. Long term and overall, it is the social nature of organizing that keeps me involved.

(Though I'm not involved in anything in Australia, I should say.)