Hot Off the Press: Fundamentals of Community Organizing
Organizing is a craft. Like with any craft, there are fundamental skills & concepts you need to know to do 'the thing'. In this small book I spell out the fundamentals that have been essential for me.
Today we are releasing Fundamentals of Community Organizing. Last week we opened pre-orders and have all but sold out of the first printing. That so many of you trusted, sight unseen, that this little book might have some wisdom to offer means a lot. Thank you!
If you’d like to get one of the last copies in stock, or get your order in for the next printing (happening now), please do so today.
This book (it’s 50 pages) is broken into sections: Why the Fundamentals, Getting Started, Approach, Campaigns, Action, Developing People, The Organizer, and a Closing. Within these sections are a few dozen fundamentals of organizing (spelled out), bits about why these fundamentals are so essential, and a closing love letter to organizers.
To give you a taste, here are a few of the fundamentals featured:
Start Where People Are At
Starting where people are is the most essential organizer super-power. Still, it is not in our nature to do this. We tend to start where we are—with what we want and what we believe. When we instead meet people where they are, new openings emerge, expanding who we can organize and make meaning with.
It’s comfortable to be in rooms where we already agree. But organizing is powerful because we assemble people who don’t agree on all things, but on enough things, and who under the right circumstances can come together on more. The fact that we don’t yet see eye to eye is good. We are finally in a room together. Now, the work can begin.
“Starting where people are” applies not only to where people stand on issues, but where they stand on themselves. Many people believe they will never be a leader. We arrive, not to tell them they are wrong, but to understand why. Then, with a relationship, we help them make the jump from where they are to where they could be.
We start where people are, but it’s where they end up that matters. Organizing creates a path toward waking, and we are all still waking. Each of us had a set of experiences that shaped us. We meet people where they are out of respect for those experiences, and then create new ones that reshape how people see themselves and the systems around them—just as someone did for us.
Power Analysis First, Strategy Second
Your strategy is never better than your power analysis. Even with a good power analysis, it is hard to win. Without one, it’s impossible.
There are all kinds of things you can run a power analysis on. You can run it on your organization, the community or workplace you’re organizing in, your state at-large, or your state legislature specifically. Start by working through one individual decision-maker and then move to more complicated bodies.
The strategy to win sits inside the answer to these questions about the people you need to move: what do they have power over, who has power over them, what do they most want, and what do they most fear?
Once you have the answers, you have all you need to determine what they can move, and who and what will motivate them to do it. This is the foundation of your strategy.
Finally, if they are an adversarial person with power and you will be coming for them, know they will be coming for you. You need to understand what power they have over the organization and its members. This doesn’t mean don’t take them on, but it is a reminder to be fully prepared for the backlash that is likely to come.
Agitation as an Act of Love
Don’t overthink agitation. It is simply the act of creating tension that inspires people to act and act differently.
We humans can become comfortable in our discomfort. Unable to see a path toward change, we settle and adapt, often at great cost. Organizers are here to create a new discomfort. We have come to call the question about the systems and stories that rule our lives. This is among the most liberating acts we, as organizers, perform.
We all have limiting beliefs about ourselves. “I am not a person who rocks the boat.” “I am not a leader.” “I am not someone who speaks to crowds.”
These limiting beliefs extend to what we believe our community is capable of. For instance: “People here don’t want to come together.” “Our community will always be this way.” “We will never have power.”
That people believe these things is no accident; it’s by design. These myths maintain the status quo, serving only those who abuse power. Our job is to expose all of it—the gap between how things are and how they should be; where each of us is now and where we could be.
Done right, agitation is an act of love, in service of new possibilities. Done wrong, agitation is clumsy and aggressive. Be sure you know the difference.
In the coming weeks we’ll post conversations with organizers about their fundamentals of organizing. Which ones are the most essential to them? How is their list of fundamentals alike and different from the one in the book? How do they train and invest in the formation of organizers and members in their organization?
I hope you’ll get a copy of the book and join the conversation.
George: Glad to pay for it, but do you also have a digital version? Thanks. Deepak