I remember when the broader field of community organizing began to shift toward doing elections. After years of trying to win the best thing possible within the existing landscape, a generation of organizers decided it was time to change the landscape altogether, including who was in power.
It was an overdue shift, and as happens in such shifts, some good things got lost in the shuffle, including tried and true organizing fundamentals. But the promise has always been the capacity of community organizing to develop leaders, build bonds between people, and run winning issue campaigns, combined with power in the electoral arena to open up more space for what we can achieve.
My friend Tomás Garduño has completed a guidebook designed to help organizers do just that. It’s called Fundamentals of Electoral Organizing and it’s available for purchase here.
The book is filled with hard-earned wisdom from decades of working at the crossroads of community and electoral organizing. In it you’ll find insight and inspiration from sources ranging from Tomás’ father and former Albuquerque City Councilman Reymundo, the World Trade Organization protests, Fred Hampton, The Byrds, and the Chicano and American Indian Movements.
Reading the book feels like sitting down for coffee with someone who has done this for 25 years as they break that experience into bite-sized chunks that make it all feel manageable.
Tomás did not come into electoral organizing full of enthusiasm. In fact, his skepticism of politicians made the mentor who first proposed that Tomás take on the organization’s electoral work certain he would always keep the members and their agenda at the center.
He points out that while there are many differences between issue organizing and electoral organizing, done well, these steps remain the same: identify your supporters, build leaders, make demands, move people to action and win.
Here are a few of my favorite passages from the book:
“Think of electoral strategy as a part of a broader integrated organizing strategy, not as separate from or above or beyond community organizing.”
“Candidates don’t come first. Our long-term political agenda comes first, then our strategy for building power, which leads us to our target districts, which then leaves us with what leaders we have in those districts that are good prospective candidates.”
“Just like in effective community organizing, the goal is not just about a housing campaign or a rate-payer fight. It’s about how each effort builds on the last to create something greater: working-class power!”
You will put the book down (it’s a quick read at 60 pages) knowing what it takes to win, your role as an organizer or campaign manager in delivering that win, what legal structures to choose to move the work, how to write a plan, and what to look for as you recruit working class candidates to run for office and enact the organization’s agenda. All of this while staying true to the principles of good community organizing.
As we head into an election with so much at stake, get your copy of the Fundamentals of Electoral Organizing here.