building power & transformative organizing
“I had learned that building relationships was a means to an end...a way that you moved people to do what you wanted them to do. And so, learning that actually building the relationships should be the work and should be the end...teacing people how to just listen and be present is really exciting. I feel like I'm a brand new organizer and it's cool."
Power 50 participant
Description: Organizers have achieved countless wins utilizing traditional organizing methods (such as the Alinsky Model), but if we dig into these approaches we can see that they are often rooted in the very oppressive structures that we are working to dismantle.
This session (in 4 parts) takes participants through an evocative process which explores familiar narratives, campaigns, and organizing approaches to understand how some of our common organizing methods limit our ability to achieve transformational goals. These sessions also invite participants to explore the potential of transformative approaches to organizing to build power and take radically doable first steps to addressing all manner of injustice.
Purpose:
To reflect on the ways we build power and begin to shift how we build campaigns from transactional and reactionary to those that are whole and built from a place of love.
To highlight false narratives that undermine our sense of power
For participants to practice radical imagination in their leadership, knowing the transformed organizations and world we long for do not yet exist.
Outcomes:
Participants acquire new knowledge about narrative making and traditional organizing
Participants deepen their understanding of how internalized racist oppression shows up in our structures and campaigns
Participants understand how to build power from a place of love
Participants practice reclaiming their power to imagine and manifest thriving
Participants find more places to move from purpose and choice.
Participants make commitments in the form of a personal goal and next step for creating their liberated zone (part of their leadership development plan)
Process: about 6 hours over 4 parts with 16 people
This is a series of workshop components designed to work together. The times listed below do not include breaks.
Part 1: Intro to Building Power and Transformative Organizing (75 min)
Part 2: Power from a Place of Love (75 min)
Part 3: What does it look like to build power from love? (75 min)
"I spent lot of my life being angry...because of how f***ed up everything is, being angry because system impacted people have to beg for our humanity. And in all of the anger, I forg[o]t to love and come from a place of love. I forgot to rememer everyone's humanity myself."
women's fellowship participant
