Training Series to Launch in July: Working Class Campaigns

Every organizer should experience the feeling of a growing base, leaders developing in ways they had never imagined, and the joy of winning on issues chosen by people in the community.

In April a fellow organizer and I piloted an organizing training on how to build campaigns that engaged working-class people who are not progressive. This was inspired by conversations I had last year with organizers under 35. Many shared that they had not been taught to listen for issues, turn an unwieldy issue into a clear and actionable demand, develop a power analysis, and so on.

They had been hired to do electoral work, be a cog in a larger issue campaign, or were running very complicated issue campaigns, but with little training. They all wondered why they were struggling to build a base, but clearly had a hunger to.

So we designed a training that mixes the best of the fundamentals of organizing, with common sense language, and simple frameworks that make the complicated simple, or at least simpler. Based on the response to the pilot we ran in April, it seems we are onto something, so we are running this series again in July and then September.

For those who are interested, here’s the scoop.

Every organizer should experience the feeling of a growing base, leaders developing in ways they had never imagined, and the joy of winning on issues chosen by people in the community. This kind of organizing builds organizations that go into the next, bigger fight, with more confidence, skills, relationships, and power. It is exactly what we teach in our Working Class Campaigns Training.  

The five-part series includes:

• Issues That Have Heat. Nothing beats organizing a campaign on issues that people in the community chose themselves. We show you how to find the ones that will inspire lots of new people to join the fight. 

• Cutting An Issue to Win: A forgotten secret sauce of organizing is building campaigns to win as a way to defeat cynicism and build confidence in organizing. We show you how to rack up wins along the way to taking on larger and more structural fights. 

• Down & Dirty Power Analysis: Your strategy is never better than your power analysis. We’ll teach you how to run one and do it with members of your organization, including a unique wrinkle you are unlikely to find anywhere else. 

• Simplified Campaign Strategy: Campaign plans don’t have to be complicated, but you do need one. We provide a simple framework for developing campaign strategy, and turning that strategy into a plan to win. 

• Building a Base, Developing Leaders: One of the most essential of the soft arts is helping people develop into leaders. Everyone says “go develop leaders,” but we are rarely taught how. This session helps you figure out where you are stuck and what you can shift in your organizing to help people develop into leaders. 

If you learn and apply these fundamentals you will build a base, win things, and develop the trust and relationships needed to help members make new meaning on the issues used by the right to divide working class people.

The next round of this training runs Monday - Friday, July 17-21, 2023.

This is a five-day training, on Zoom, with one 90-minute session each day. Training sessions will run from 11am - 12:30pm Central Time each day.  Optional coaching sessions will be available on an as needed basis.

If you are interested, but these dates are not good for you, we will be running the next round in September. Details forthcoming.

• Organizers who are organizing working class people who are not already progressive on all things.

• People hungry for the hard skills designed to build a working class base of leaders, find the issues they most want to organize on, and build campaigns to win on those issues. 

• This series is not for organizers who want to debate ideology or are seeking ideological or political education-style conversation or training. We believe this kind of conversation and training is essential, but this is not that. 

• To the greatest extent possible, we will not use the language of the non-profit progressive sector. This grows from a belief that to organize more people we need to detach much of the organizing field from professional non-profit bubble and academic language that makes organizers less relatable to more people by the day. 

If you are interested in participating in the next series, please complete the linked application by June 7, 7pm CT. Please note that there are a limited number of slots for this training.

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