Community Organizing 1/?: 12 Keys to a Good Organizer.
Good leaders leaders lead from the front. Great leaders let others take the stage.
In our 5 Steps article, we laid out 12 points to community organizing and I think those both could and should be expanded upon. At least a little bit for those that are’’t terrible clear or self-evident. So for today let’s walk through the 12 Keys of Good Organizing and and provide some practical examples of how to apply them in your community:
1. Make others feel safe to speak up and share their ideas/feelings/concerns.
When you are reaching out to people to work with on any given project it only makes sense that you be a proper collaborator. Nobody wants to work with someone who is either a creepy sex pest, misogynist, racist, or just a general asshole who talks down to everyone because they believe themselves to always be the smartest person in the room. Instead, good leadership and organizers listen to the people in their circle or org and look for the expertise that comes from differing experiences and world views to help fill the gaps in their knowledge base, and their skill set. One person can’t do it all or know it all, but a combination of people can. Recognizing that it’s your responsibility to make sure others feel safe enough to share their wealth of knowledge is the first step in building a working organization.
2. Communicate expectations
If you’re starting up a community garden, or self defense group, its vital for everyone to know what they should or should not be doing. This isn’t to say you should be barking orders at everyone and ruling over them from a top down hierarchy. What it means is that your group should have open and meaningful conversations about what is expected as a member of the group. You should have standards and ideals and a way to easily disseminate them to the group. Settings rigorous and attainable expectations will help your org grow and be productive instead of constantly needing to have meetings and debate on actions. It will also prevent the infighting and sabotage that happens to most organizations in their early stages.
3. Challenge people to think and think through problems.
If you’re the only one in your group who has a plan or answers to problems, then you’ve got a serious problem. Either you fucked up #1 somehow, or you’re doing an authoritarian thing. Neither of those are good, and you solve that by having your org or team collectively solve problems. Even if it seems simple to you, giving people the tools to critically analyze and then work through a problem or puzzle not only helps strengthen your group, but helps them grow as a person. You don’t want a bunch of sheep or “yes men”, you want strong independent thinkers who can collectively tackle any problems that arise.
4. Be accountable to others
The last thing you want is to have an organization like PSL or some of the other mainstream communist groups. Their leadership is accountable to no one and is incapable of being dealt with when they commit gross atrocities against their members. As you build an team, it MUST be built horizontally such that nobody stands above another. If you aren’t accountable to others, people aren’t going to work with you.
5. Lead by example
If you have done zero organizing work on the ground level, you cannot expect people to join your cause because they assume they will do all the work while you just bark orders or schedule meetings. You need to be out doing the brunt of the work in order to show others around you that you are capable of doing the things you ask of them.
6. Seek continuous feedback (relates to #1)
You should be checking in with others as often as possible about where everyone stands on the work you’re collectively doing. Sometimes people become frustrated with an org and because the other members never bother to ask each other how everyone is doing, it goes ignored until you start hemorrhaging numbers. I recommend people who want to take on the task of practical anarchism explore the ideas of “growth mindset” as a lot of those principles will help with your organizing as well.
7. Properly allocate and deploy talent. Don’t put your best gardener on guard duty.
This seems pretty obvious, but it’s worth mentioning especially if you have people inside your community who are jacks of all trades or multi talented in some way. You wanna be sure that your best communicators are handling communications and your best engineers are working on projects around building things. When people feel like they are able to contribute their best, they are more inclined to stick around and work harder towards your goals.
8. Avoid procrastination. It CAN’T be put off till later. Get it done when it needs to.
As it’s been said multiple times, but can’t be stressed enough, meetings and things like them aren’t work. Its where work is planned. If your org is always just having meetings, or sending emails about next steps but never actually doing anything, your org is dead. No matter how often you communicate. Set hard deadlines for things so they can be done and the next task can be lined up and completed.
9. Stay Positive and maintain a good attitude. Even when its tough. Show outward positivity.
Nobody wants to work with someone who is miserable and defeatist all the time. Constantly whining about how the work you’re doing doesn’t matter or that everything is hopeless is only going to drive people to work with anyone else. In addition to that, if you truly feel that way, why are your organizing in the first place? The whole point is to fix problems and make the world better. If you don’t think it’s possible, you clearly aren’t a leftist, and clearly don’t belong in organizing circles. Cheer up! We have nothing to lose but our chains!
10. Be a great teacher. Teach what you know. Learn what you can. Inspire others to teach as well. Everyone has value and knowledge to share.
Part of being a good teacher is also having a student mindset. Realizing that you don’t and can’t know everything, but striving to learn as much as you can whenever you can is vital for your growth. Fostering an environment where all the members feel like they can spread their knowledge and create more subject matter experts in a variety of fields will push your group towards success.
11. Invest in relationships. Per the Community Defense section: Know your community and spend time with them.
We all hate that person who we talked too in high school and only ever calls or comes around when they are trying to get you to buy into their new shitty MLM/Pyramid scheme. Don’t be that person. You should be working to foster meaningful relationships with the people around you as much as you can. Even outside of organizing, the data tells us that meaningful and fullfilling relationships help us to live longer, be healthier, reduce depression/anxiety symptoms, and create a sense of belonging that we need. We’re social animals. Be social.
12. Generally enjoy the responsibility.
Its a big deal that people look to you. Enjoy it without letting it go to your head. But take pride in your efforts. You put in a lot of work to build teams/orgs/etc, and you should enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy being in your community, organizing people, or anything like it, then hand the responsibility off to someone else. If your heart isn’t in it, you won’t give it the effort it needs.
I hope the further explanations help and provide a little more context to what I had mentioned earlier. Remember to take care of yourself and those around you. Stay safe and chat with a neighbor today.
-EQ