A win is not a win….until the story is told

Telling our story of winning is as much about base-building as communications.

In organizing, winning is hard. Depending on our demands and the political context, we sometimes go years between significant wins. That is why when we do win, we want to tell our story early and often.

The 2022 midterm election is jam-packed with victories made possible through organizing. Take organizing off the table and narrow wins become losses, and the mood among progressives would be gloom-city.

We tell our story in part to advance a worldview. In this election it might be that organizing works, that bold and working-class candidates win, that investing in base-building groups and a ground-game makes all the difference. We should tell this story through the end of the year and beyond, because if this election affirmed anything it is that working-class organizing and candidates make all the difference.

Telling the story of our wins is not simply a function of communications, but of base-building. Our current base and our could-be base have unlimited options of how to spend their time. That is why the people we organize and want to organize have to be a primary audience for the story of how we won.

First, there are your core members. There’s a good chance they are in the know because they helped power the win, but they too need to hear about it over and over, and have lots of chances to celebrate. Moving on too quick from a victory means we’ve kissed goodbye an opportunity to fully absorb what we’ve accomplished, to think of ourselves as impactful, and build a culture of basking in our progress, versus obsessing over the imperfections. When we win, we should celebrate, a lot.

Then there are our less-engaged members, people who come to one or two things a year, are on lists, maybe pay dues, but are not in deep. These people, as much as anyone, need to hear the story, because news of the win confirms for them that the organization is one they should continue to belong to. And for some, it might be the sign that they should put more of their time, talent, and treasure into the organization.

Then there are the “could-be” members. People who are not in the organization, and maybe have never heard of it, but are the exact kind of people you are hoping to recruit. If there was ever a time to introduce them to the organization it is through a victory. This is a chance to show this is not just some organization that likes to kick up dust. We are people that get it done. We are an organization fresh off the big win to get the credit union or grocery store opened in the neighborhood, or who sent the crooked Mayor into retirement.

When I came onto the National People’s Action (NPA) staff, it was hard not to notice just how often the organization told the story of winning the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a groundbreaking piece of legislation to combat bank redlining.

They passed the law in 1977. Two decades later, when I joined the team, they told the story of winning the CRA all the damn time. There were parties on the anniversary of passing it and story of the win was in every fundraising proposal, brochure, or press release the organization put out. In doing so, they credentialed the organization with new members, allies, and adversaries. If you were hearing about the organization for the first time, you quickly learned that this organization wins big things. If you were a bank CEO, and heard NPA was protesting your office, you knew the organization spearheaded passage of CRA, and thought, “oh, shit, these are the people who wrote (and passed) the damn bill. I have to take them seriously.”

Coming up, when I was on the doors in Indiana, St. Louis, or Chicago, we were taught to take one hell of a victory lap after we won. Didn’t matter if we got an abandoned building knocked down, new trash cans put in, or got the Deputy Director of Rodent Control to agree to a meeting. When we won, we would flyer the neighborhood, and put signs up on the corner. We knocked on doors to share the story and had backyard parties to celebrate the win. We were taught to never squander an opportunity to tell the story of how organizing and the organization delivered, no matter how small that win might be.

There is a lot of false urgency in organizing these days, with a panicked sense that we have to react to everything. It makes sense, these are chaotic times, and with digital tools and social media at our fingertips, we have some ability to respond to all the crises. I’d like us to bring that same energy to responding to our own wins. We do that in part by getting the story out quickly. Do that, and then pause, regroup, and think through: How can we weave lots of celebration in over the next six weeks. How might we use that celebration to introduce the organization to potential new members. Are we speaking to our priority audiences? What creative and new ways can we tell our story?

Build a plan to tell your story to the broader world to advance the case, but especially to your current and could-be members to grow the base. With wins as big as the ones that have come in over the last week, we have weeks, if not years in which to tell the story.