NOI Turnover

Big news about which I have no insider knowledge. Very sad. I have a lot of love for NOI's work and many of the people associated with it. You can read about it here.

Theories of Change and the Practice of Organizing

Welcome guest blogger, Adam Briskin-Limehouse is an organizer, thinker, and returned Peace Corps volunteer who has worked on 9 campaigns. He’s originally from a small town outside of Charleston, SC. Recently, he was the Field Director for the winning Marylanders for Marriage Equality campaign. He can be found on LinkedIn or by e-mail: ALimehouse@gmail.com.


First things first - I have to send a shout out to Hope Wood and entire coaching team that New Organizing Institute assembled for an amazing three-day training. Thank you. Much of the following is synopsising a portion of theirs and Marshall Ganz’s work on Theories of Change. Any screw ups are mine and don’t reflect on them.

A little bit more context on the training - NOI and range of organizers from 25+ year veterans of the union movement to first time organizers spent three days talking about how you build a campaign to scale from the first meetings of the senior staff all the way out to winning an election or accomplishing your goal. We started with a talk about Story of Us and Story of Now and then got into the nitty-gritty of strategy, tactics and timing.

Theory of Change fits into the the strategy of campaigning and serves as the germ of its Public Narrative (Story of Self, Us, and Now).

Why do we all do what we do?

Why do we work the crazy hours on issues and campaigns that most people tell us don’t matter? I can’t tell you why you do it. But I know why I do it: I do the work of organizing because I want to change our nation - taking it towards being a more just, more egalitarian place. So, what is the relationship between desiring change, working for it through organizing, and achieving that change? Power. The changes we all work towards take power to happen. But, power isn’t a thing that you can touch. It’s a relationship.

Marshall Ganz, Harvard Kennedy School professor, and the trainers at NOI teach that power comes in two flavors: Power Over and Power With. Power Over is a relationship where someone holds power over the decisions or resources that we need in order to create change in our lives. If they have power over us it means they thing they don’t need us or our resources to get what they want. So, the work of organizing is figuring out how to grow our own resources, or shrink theirs, so that we have equal need of each other and can negotiate change together. Power With is a relationship where we can create the change we need just by organizing our resources with others. For example, we might pool our resources to create a cooperative daycare or a community credit union.

Ok, so power is a relationship. So What?

Understanding this insight can empower us and, more importantly, the people we work with to draft effective Theories of Change. Your theory of change is the basic, fundamental statement of your campaign’s strategy. There are five general theories of change:

the Information Theory: if we educate decision makers, we’ll get the change we desire;
the Legal Theory: if we successfully sue the Decision Makers, then we will get the change we desire;
the Market Theory: if we boycott the Decision Maker’s products, then we will get the change we desire;
the Culture Theory: if we change the societies norms or how they are represented by Decision Makers, then we’ll get the change we desire.
the Organizing Theory: if we challenge and confront the power of the Decision Makers, then we will get the change we desire.

Most of the electoral work we do is based on some combination of the Information and Organizing Theories of Change - the decision makers in question being the voters. Issue work can be any or all of the five and can and does target decision makers from voters to CEOs and Senators. Earlier I said that your theory of change is your the basic statement of your strategy but what do I mean by strategy? Strategy can be defined as turning the resources you have into the power that you need to achieve the change that you want. A good Theory of Change tells your donors and your volunteers who you will be organizing, how organizing them will affect the change you want and what that change means, i.e. what your goal is.

Two examples of Theories of Change:

Let’s say that you are working for a City Council candidate who needs to win 50% + 1 of 135,000 voters. You’re Theory of Change would go something like this: “If we recruit enough volunteers to identify, persuade, and GOTV 25,000 voters in addition to our known base of 45,000 voters, then our candidate wins and will be able to enact the change that we want.” You’re organizing volunteers in order to talk to voters to persuade them to vote for the candidate you want.

A non-electoral example - Let us say that you want Amazon.com to improve how it treats its fulfulment employees: better pay, better hours, and better working conditions. You’re Theory of Change might go something like this: “If we persuade a majority of Amazon.com’s stockholders to support a vote at the company’s annual investor meeting on forcing Amazon.com to improve worker conditions at fulfulment warehouses, then ensure that we win the vote, then the policy we want will be enacted and the company will have to change its behavior.” In this case, you’re organizing Amazon.com’s shareholders in order to get them to directly change the company’s behavior - thus obtaining the change you desire. (Note: easier said than done - also, I’m not sure if Amazon.com’s corporate charter allows investors to vote on specific policy changes from the floor during shareholder meetings.)

Getting to the Point

As you sit down with your campaign teams, think about these questions to develop an effective theory of change or to refine the theory you’ve already been using:

Power Over Power With
1) What change do we want? 1) What change do we want?
2) Who has the resources to 2) Who has the resources to
create that change? create that change?
3) What do they want? 3) If ‘us,’ why is it not happening?
4) What do we have that they want? 4) How will you mobilize resources
in new ways to make it happen?

All Theories of Change adapt as you work towards your final goal - your understanding of who has the resources to create the change you desire can change and so can your understanding of what they want. The point is to think clearly about the work that we’re doing so that we end up being the protagonists of our own story rather than characters in the stories of those who already have power.

One last thing: if your theory of change doesn’t make sense in the context of the questions above or hasn’t been accomplishing what you want, go back to the beginning and redraft it. Don’t get so tied to a single theory that you waste the resources the people your organizing have.

Rootscamp 2012!

First off, I am so bummed that I haven't be able to post a lot lately, that is what happens when you straight up leave graduate school for three weeks. The good news is, I'll see lots of you at Rootscamp this weekend! I will be leading two sessions; one special insiders' edition of my volunteer recruitment and one about women on campaigns and my very fascinating graduate work. You should totally come! (Click here to buy your ticket) But WHAT IS ROOTSCAMP you ask. Well! I know of just the interview for you to find out!

So...who are you?

I’m Jamie McGonnigal and I’m the Director of RootsCamp. [That's him, above.] I’m a bunch of other things too, but I suppose for the purposes of this interview, that’s what I do.

What is Rootscamp?

RootsCamp is the largest national progressive debrief in the country. Our National RootsCamp happens in DC generally around the end of any election. While the schedule exists based on our country’s elections, the organizing and sharing of best practices that happens at RootsCamp moves far outside our electoral cycles.

RootsCamp is a place where organizers come to talk about the challenges and successes they’ve had in the past year and figure out specifically what their next steps are. At the New Organizing Institute, we are big fans of what we refer to as “Engagement Organizing.” It’s taking organizing to a new level by encouraging people to stay involved and build movements even when there isn’t a vote to worry about. The first step in engagement organizing is debriefing. If we don’t learn from the work that we do, it’s difficult to move forward and innovate for the future.

The way it works is that when you come in, you’ll see a mostly blank agenda we call “The Wall.” During the opening events, you fill out a card for a session you’d like to present, turn it in to our Wall creators and head to the first pre-seeded session. By the time you get out, the Wall will be filled with cards from as many people as we can fit.

Why an UNConference?

An UN-conference is a place where people come together and the hierarchy is removed. We believe that everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. So if you want to present on a new technology, or have a discussion about innovations in field organizing you’ve encountered, you can. This is about executive directors of national organizations learning from canvassers or brand new organizers discussing strategy with people who’ve been in the field for 50 years.

We set it up this way because it puts everyone on the same level from the moment they walk in the door. There are plenty of places in the world where we already have to deal with being separated in our work. RootsCamp isn’t one of those places.

What should I bring?

Probably a coat and scarf. It’s been chilly around here. Also bring a notebook, some resumés, and a winning smile. Well…the winning smile is optional I suppose, but I felt the need to say something cheesy.

Can Rootscamp help me get a job?

Funny you should ask! Yes! On Saturday from 12-3pm, in association with NOI’s new Work Forward program and sponsored by AFL-CIO, we’ll be hosting our career fair. There will be anywhere between 50-100 employers looking for the brightest organizing talent they can find. So bring a couple resumés and maybe a little something nice to wear. Happily we can claim literally hundreds of organizers have found jobs through our RootsCamp Career Fair.

What are some sessions you found surprising/exciting last year?

Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to attend many sessions last time as I was running things – and this year will undoubtedly not be very different. But the few that I did stop in on briefly were sessions on how to stay healthy on the campaign trail, an excellent session on Pinterest (of all things), a Troy Davis case study and a debrief of the marriage equality win in New York.

What are you most looking forward to this year?

We have some awesome sessions already proposed and some of our partner sessions are going to be incredible. Upworthy is going to be doing their “How to win the internetz” session which I saw at Netroots and am very excited about. Also there’s a great volunteer recruitment inside edition session being done by some hot lady. There’s actually a huge variety at this point from Veterans organizers to WalMart to LGBT to Women to African American and Immigration…sooo many things will be talked about!

Why is your Twitter handle McBenefit and what's up with you and Pokemon?

I lived in New York for about 13 years and during that time I produced about 200 Broadway concerts and events. Most of which were benefits for different charities. My friends Max von Essen and Scott Nevins coined the nickname “Jamie McBenefit” and it stuck. I figured you could be nicknamed far worse things.

And as for Pokémon, I’ve been a voice actor for the past 14 years and I’ve been doing voices for Pokémon for the past 10 roughly. I’ve spent the past 6 years or so playing Ash’s main rivals, Barry and now Trip. I’ve also worked on Yu-Gi-Oh!, Viva Pinata, One Piece and a bunch of other anime and video games. It’s one of those fun things I get to talk about when we’re done debriefing at RootsCamp!

Seriously. Click here to buy your ticket to the fun!

Tips for Writing a Campaign Resume

A number of readers have written in asking how to put campaign experience down on a resume. When applying for campaign jobs (which are the only resumes I’ve reviewed and hired from) the rules are very similar to those we are taught in college, yet so often ignored that they’re worth going over again. In addition, I have included an excerpt from when I was a baby organizer, which has been edited by my mentors over the years, to give you and idea of how an organizer resume might look.

Keep it to one page- If you are in a position where you are seeking my advice on what to put in your resume, there is no reason why you need a resume that is more than a page long (that said, it also should not be much shorter than a page). Use your cover letter to expound on what you learned and in your resume stick to what you did.

Use a professional email address- When I get an application from cutenickname@aol.com, I have an immediate bias against the applicant before I’ve even opened the attachment. It’s unprofessional to use anything other than your name or the name of your company (plus numbers or initials as necessary) in a business email and doing so shows you are out of touch with professional etiquette, even as such exists on a campaign. A school address or gmail is fine, but generally--and I know this may sound shallow-- aol, hotmail, and yahoo are looked down upon.

Tell the truth- We’re all taught to exaggerate on our resumes and by all means put your best foot forward, but remember that campaigns are a very small world. Your future boss will check up on your former employment so it better be legit. I once got a resume from a former paid canvasser on a campaign I had run, claiming that she had been an organizer on that campaign. Needless to say she did not get an interview.

Focus on your accomplishments- No one is going to hold you responsible for a loss (nor credit you for a win) if you were an organizer on a large race. Although of course it helps to be part of a race that has a reputation for a stellar field operation. But you can talk about your own personal accomplishments like building and training a volunteer base, running voter contact operations in your turf, or organizing a large event.

Use real numbers- Campaign people love real numbers! On a resume, they help cut through bullshit and highlight the value of the work you’ve done. “Organized event with Bill Clinton” is good “Organized 3,000 person event with Former President Clinton in under 3 days” is better.

Use Action words- Managed, Led, Created, Recruited, Designed, Built. Every bullet on your resume should start with an action word.

I’ve included an example from my own resume a couple of years ago. Because of blogspot limitations bullets run over and formatting looks incorrect, but on your resume most bullets should not go over one line and bullets should not be asterisks.

Lead Field Organizer, March 2007- January 2008, John Edwards for President, Iowa City, IA
*Built and supervised grassroots leadership teams and established campaign presence in four counties
*Coordinated voter contact program in most heavily Democratic county in Iowa
*Supervised five student interns and led student outreach program at Iowa’s largest university
*Organized and staffed 40+ community events and town hall forums with Senator Edwards and surrogates, including a 850+ person concert and rally
*Directed Get-Out-The-Caucus effort for 5 staging locations and 250+ volunteer shifts over 6 days

For more great tips check out this piece from FOCS, Evan Sutton at NOI.

Happy Hunting!

Nancy Leeds

Ask An Election Nerd: What's Next?

A tumblr follower asks, "What exactly do people on campaigns do after the election is over? After all, in most states (VA, MS, NJ excepted) you have about six months to a year before the next cycle starts to take shape."
_____________________________________________________________________________________

I've been getting this question A LOT lately. I'm gonna start off by asking "What is wrong with you people?!?!" When I was on campaigns I never thought about what I would do afterwards because I was so focused on election day. So my first piece of advice is "Don't worry about it!" You have enough stressing you out now that you don't need to worry about the (stressful) job search after.

I was also able to relax because when EMILY's List placed me on my first campaign in 2006, they promised me that I would have access to their network and that they would help me find a job post-election. One of my absolute favorite things about the progressive campaign community is that more so than in any other field I know, we go out of our way to support each other. I am a huge proponent of mentorship and sponsorship and I have found that if you do good work campaign people will bend over backwards to help you because they know what you've been through and they appreciate the kind of work ethic that it takes. Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere and I, as I bet your boss and her boss and her boss are, am committed to helping hard working campaign folk find gainful employment.

I would challenge your assessment of campaign opportunities in the off year. There are certainly fewer jobs available than during a Presidential campaign, but fewer people are interested in taking them. There will be recounts, issue based campaigns, special elections and all of manner of things to keep us campaign nerds occupied.

There are also a myriad of opportunities in related fields. Many former operatives go off to seek their fortunes on the legislative side of government (shudder) either in DC or locally. Others go to work for non-profits that focus on the issues that got them involved in campaigns in the first place. A fair number, like yours truly, eventually go back to school. This is not to say you cannot do something else completely. Being an organizer, finance assistance or other campaign worker trains you in time management, marketing, customer service, crisis control and occasionally as a copy machine repair person. If you do want to go into a field where your employer will likely be unfamiliar with the skills built on the campaign trail, be sure you have a clear vision of what you want to do and are able to articulate how your experiences will make you an asset.

If you do want to remain in the professional progressive community, on campaigns or otherwise, I encourage you to network through your campaign contacts. You'd be surprised what a small world we travel in and how much a recommendation from a mutual broworker can open doors. Here are some other resources for you to consider:

EMILY's List Job Bank
Democratic Gain (Which is already advertising that it will help with post-campaign employment)
Tom Manatos (Especially good for, but not limited to, searching for jobs on the Hill.)
JobsthatAreLeft
Idealist.org (Non-Profit Jobs)

My Jobserve

I also want to encourage you to take some time off if you're able. Unlike certain Presidential candidates, I realize that not everybody has the luxury of going home to their parents' house and vegging out for a month or so, but if you do I highly recommend it.

I hope I've assuaged your apprehension. Now stop worrying about this and get back on the phones! We have an election to win!

-Nancy

Win Number Calculator

This is a pretty cool tool from NOI's Candidate Project. And I love me some numbers. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for primaries, but I still thought it was worth sharing.


(PS. If you miss longer posts, please stayed tuned!)

Trick or Treating for Organizers

I'm actively upset that I didn't come up with this.