Community Advocate

Organizing Manual

NC Justice Center

Education and Law Project

P.O. Box 28068

Raleigh, NC 27611

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Why organize around public education issues? 4

Getting Started 5

Organizational Structure 6

Recruitment 7

Sustaining the Group 8

Leadership 9

Meeting 10

Facilitation 11

Tackling an Issue 12

Research 12

Power Analysis 13

Planning 14

Strategic Thinking 16

Introduction

Research shows that wealth and higher education are the key factors in American political participation. The privileged are more politically active and are increasingly well organized to impose their demands on the government. As a result, public officials are more responsive to wealthy citizens than they are to average citizens.

When people become involved in their communities they become a powerful force for dealing with local problems. Through coordinated planning, research and action, you can accomplish what individuals working alone could not.

When people decide they are going to be part of the solution, local problems start getting solved. When they actually begin to work with other individuals, schools, associations, businesses, and government service providers, there is no limit to what they can accomplish.

Public education continues to remain unequal, with 60% of black fourth graders failing the national reading test. According to some education experts, the lack of participation by working class families is a key reason why poorly performing schools in low-income communities rarely experience significant improvements.

Community organizing is essential to getting community members involved in improving public education. North Carolina Community Advocates for Revitalizing Education places faith in the value and power of people working together for common goal: a sound basic education for every child in NC. Here, the people lead. Without them there is nothing.

Those of us who are in the movement imagine ourselves to be in the great tradition of American democracy. Our hopes and dreams are based on our confidence in the people as a whole to govern themselves. We have seen nothing in past or present experiences to persuade us that any other approach will bring us closer to liberty, equality and community.⁴⁸

- Mike Miller, Organize Training Center

Why organize around public education issues?

There are a number of reasons why a grassroots community organization may want to organize around public education issues:

1. Public schools are community assets – and one of the most important community institutions in low-income neighborhoods. Organizing around the continued attack on public education can preserve this vital community resource.

2. Schools are a major factor in where families choose to live. Poor schools cause middle class flight, draining communities of resources and power. A fight for good schools is a fight for well integrated, functional communities.

3. Public education is crucial: the education a child gets from kindergarten through high school will lay the foundation for lifelong learning and a career path. The quality of that education plays a big role in determining how prepared a child is to succeed as an adult.

4. In some school districts, children of color and poor children are the majority of students attending public schools, yet often their needs are not adequately addressed by the school system. Funding inequities contribute to disparities in schools.

5. Despite the existence of parent-teacher organizations, many parents feel shut out of their children’s schools and have limited ability to affect the quality of their children’s education.

6. The new federal law —the No Child Left Behind Act— mandates major changes in public schools, driving decisions on a wide range of issues and placing new burdens on local schools and districts.

7. Many community organizations have a track record of organizing to improve public schools, proving that collective power can create change, even in a system that often is viewed as too complex and dysfunctional to be fixed.

Getting Started

Learn it yourself
Before you can do-it-yourself you will have to learn-it-yourself. Learning is actually the easy part; just follow the practices recommended in the Handbook, modifying them as necessary to fit your particular situation.

Adapt to available resources
Most of the literature on community development is far too optimistic about what can be achieved by all-volunteer groups that are not propelled by a hot issue. With no resources you usually need to —

· reduce the amount of time devoted to what seems like work,

· keep the group size small,

· weave actions into everyday life,

· make sure everyone enjoys one another’s company, and

· focus on a single short project with concrete results, or on a single long project with good potential for concrete results “along the way.”

How to Begin

Begin with a community building activity
The "Community Building Activities" section of the Handbook lists seventeen informal opportunities for neighbors to meet one another.

Begin by joining an existing group
Most communities have many different kinds of active organizations. Linking up with one of these can be an easy way to get involved. Begin by checking out the local community groups.

Begin by starting a new group
If working with an existing group looks difficult, you might have to start a new group. New community organizations usually form around a core of three to five committed people. Putting together a core of first-rate people is worth the effort. Once you have done so consider these questions:

· What are we trying to do?

· What size of area are we going to organize?
(The smaller the area, the easier the task.)

· Who will support our efforts?

· What is a good idea for our first action?
(It should be simple, local, and increase the group's visibility.)

· How are we going to reach out to others?
(Should we organize a general meeting and invite the community?)

Make a special effort to remain friendly with other local groups that have similar goals. Friendliness can replace the common tendency toward competition with the potential of cooperation. Inter-group cooperation is the engine of real progress at the grassroots.

Organizational Structure

Grassroots Structure
Citizens groups can operate with little structure if necessary, but the right amount is just enough to address their goals. Do not focus so much on structure that you end up spending more time on the needs of the organization than on the reason for getting together.

Grassroots organizations seem to work better with a flat structure as free as possible of boards, directors, and chairs. Citizen's groups must avoid the common mistake of involving small numbers of people heavily. Your group should strive to involve large numbers of people lightly.

The most successful organizations have:

· Regular meetings

· A means of delegating tasks and responsibilities

· Training for new members

· Social time together

· A planning process

· Working relationships with power players and resource organizations.

Coalition

NCCARE is a coalition of parents and community members working to influence educational policies in North Carolina. A coalition requires that all participants have a clear set of expectations and get together regularly to develop a friendly working relationship. If you intend to tackle a large issue you will need allies. Approach other organizations by asking to speak on a matter of community importance at their next executive or general meeting.

Committees & Task Forces
Committees and task forces are the main way jobs are shared. They make it possible to get a lot done without anyone getting worn out. Standing committees look after a continuing group function. Task forces carry out a specific task, then disband. Both provide members with a way of getting involved in projects that interest them.

Recruitment

Getting more people involved is not easy; most people don't like the idea of doing community work in their spare time. Despite this, it is important to remember a few people committed to a single course of action can achieve amazing results.

Ask members to invite others
Eighty per cent of volunteers doing community work said they began because they were asked by a friend, a family member, or a neighbor.

Go to where people are
Instead of trying to get people to come to you, try going to them. Go to the meetings of other groups, and to places and events where people gather.

Look for ways to collect names, addresses, phone numbers
Have sign-in sheets at your meetings and events. At events organized by others, ask people to add their name, address, email address and phone number to requests-for-information. In return, hand out an issue sheet, or an explanation of how your group is attempting to address an issue.

Try to include those who are under-represented
Minority groups, low-income residents, and youth all tend to be under-represented in community groups. Here are some ways to include the under-represented:

· Address their issues.

· Use your connections.

· Treat people as people first.

· Organize projects that focus on kids.

Create detailed membership lists
Create membership lists with places for entering name, address, day and evening phone and fax numbers, priorities for local improvement, occupation, personal interests, special skills, times available, what the person would be willing to do, and what the person would not be willing to do.

Sustain the Group

People join community groups to meet people, to learn new skills, to pursue a common goal, and to link their lives to some higher purpose. They leave if they don't find what they are looking for.

Stay in touch with one another.
Regular contact is vital. Face to face is best. If you have to meet, getting together in someone's house is better than meeting in a hall.

Welcome newcomers.
Introduce them to members of your group. Consider appointing greeters for large meetings and events. Call new contacts to invite them to events, or to pass on information. Help people find a place in the organization.

Act more, meet less
The great majority of people detest meetings; too many are the Black Death of community groups. By comparison, activities like tree-planting draw large numbers of people of all ages.

Keep time demands modest
Most people lead busy lives. Don't ask them to come to meetings if they don't need to be there. Keep expanding the number of active members to ensure everyone does a little, and no one does too much. Work out realistic time commitments for projects.

Do it in twos
A practice from Holland suggests working in pairs. It improves the quality of communication, makes work less lonely, and ensures tasks get done. Ethnically mixed pairs (such as English and Chinese) can maintain links to different cultures. Gender mixed pairs can take advantage of differences in ways of relating to men and women.

Provide social time and activities
Endless work drives people away, so schedule social time at the beginning and end of each meeting. Turn routine tasks into social events; for example, stuff envelopes while sharing pizza. Some groups form a social committee to plan parties, dinners, and trips.

Provide skills training
Provide skill-building workshops and on-the-job training. Training in leadership, group facilitating and conflict resolution are important enough to warrant special weekend workshops.

Leadership

Good leaders are the key to effective community organizing. They do not tell other people what to do, but help others to take charge. They do not grab center stage, but nudge others into the limelight. They recognize that only by creating more leaders can an organizing effort expand.

Lead by creating an example to follow
When Rosa Parks refused to give up a bus seat reserved for white people, others followed her example in such numbers that it blossomed into the civil rights movement.

Divide-up and delegate work
Divide tasks into bite-sized chunks, then discuss who will do each chunk. Make sure everyone has the ability to carry out their task, and then let them carry it out in their own way. Have someone check on progress.

Appreciate all contributions, no matter how small Recognize people’s efforts in conversations, at meetings, in newsletters, and with tokens of appreciation: thank-you notes, certificates, and awards for special efforts.

Welcome criticism
Accepting criticism may be difficult for some leaders, but members need to feel they can be critical without being attacked.

Help people to believe in themselves
A leader builds people’s confidence that they can accomplish what they have never accomplished before. The unflagging optimism of a good leader energizes everyone.

Have a higher purpose
People often volunteer to serve some higher purpose. A leader should be able to articulate this purpose, to hold it up as a glowing beacon whenever the occasion demands. A good leader will celebrate every grassroots victory as an example of what can happen when people work together for a common good.

Avoid doing most of the work
Don’t try to run the whole show or do most of the work. Others will become less involved. And you will burn out.

Meeting

Meetings are necessary for planning, and decision making. How well they work influences whether people remain in a group. All meetings should be as lively and as much fun as possible.

The basics of meeting

Ÿ Fix a convenient time, date and place to meet. To keep a group together, decide on a regular monthly meeting time, or think of another way of staying in touch.

Ÿ Agree on an agenda beforehand. A good agenda states meeting place; starting time, time for each item, ending time; objectives of the meeting; and items to be discussed.

Ÿ Start the meeting by choosing a facilitator, a recorder, and a timekeeper.

Ÿ Next, review the agreements of the previous meeting. Ask for amendments or additions to the agenda, and then begin working through the agenda.

Ÿ Record actions required, who will carry them out, and how much will be accomplished before the next meeting.

Ÿ Finally, set a time, place and an agenda for the next meeting.

Display everyone's contribution
Consider using a flip chart, overhead projector or a blackboard.

Follow a set of discussion guidelines
Regular meetings work better if everyone agrees on a set of discussion guidelines:

· Listen to others without interrupting

· Ask clarifying questions

· Welcome new ideas

· Do not allow personal attacks

· Treat every contribution as valuable

Develop a friendly culture
Encourage humor. Provide food and drink, or meet in a restaurant. Allow for social time.

Live with disagreements
Get agreement on the big picture, then turn to action. Don't exhaust yourself trying to achieve consensus on details. Embrace a variety of positions.

Facilitation

A good facilitator is helpful when a group is trying to deal with new or difficult issues. The more people who learn to facilitate the better. The facilitator must be neutral.

Watch group vibes
If people seem bored or inattentive, you may have to speed up the pace of the meeting. If people seem tense because of unvoiced disagreements, you may have to bring concerns out into the open.

Make sure everyone gets a chance to speak
Invite quiet people to speak. Another way to get quiet people to speak is to initiate a round, in which you move around the table, with everyone getting a few minutes to present their views.

Encourage open discussion
Try to encourage people to speak up if they seem reluctant to disagree with a speaker.

Draw people out with open-ended questions
Open-ended questions require more than a yes / no answer.

Paraphrase
When you paraphrase, you try to restate briefly the point that someone has just made: “Let me see if I’m understanding you . . .”

Deal with difficult behavior

Flare-ups: When two members get into a heated discussion, summarize the points made by each and then turn the discussion back to the group.

Grandstanding: Interrupt the one-person show with a statement that gives credit for his or her contribution, but ask the person to reserve other points for later.

Broken recording: Paraphrase the contribution of someone who repeats the same point over and over. This lets the person know they have been heard.

Interrupting: Step in immediately. “Hold on, let Margaret finish what she has to say.”

Continual criticizing: Legitimize negative feelings on difficult issues. You might say, “Yes, it will be tough to reduce traffic congestion on Main Street, but there are successful models we can look at.”

Identify areas of common ground.
Summarize differences in points of view, then note where there is common ground. For instance, you might begin, “It seems we agree that . . . ”
Follow a procedure to reach closure.
One procedure for large groups is to ask the group to vote. A better procedure for small groups is for the person in charge to —
1. close the discussion,
2. clarify the proposal,
3. poll the group, then
4. decide to a) make the decision or b) continue the discussion.

TACKLING AN ISSUE

Research

Acting before researching can waste time and energy. It can also reinforce the stereotype of active citizens as loud but uninformed and hinder citizen participation in local decision-making.

Gather existing information on your community/school district
Information on your community already exists!

· Your city and county government has community profiles, traffic studies, zoning and other maps, aerial photos, and other information related to local policies.

· The local health and human services agency may have a needs assessment or more focused studies that are relevent.

· As a CARE, both the local board of education and county government have information that will be helpful.

· The NC Department of Public Instruction publishes a variety of use district and state level reports.

· Community newsletters and local newspapers may contain recent history of local issues.

· Your branch of the public library will have copies of many local reports, studies and newsletters.

Discover your human resources
Start by answering these questions:

· Who can help?

· What resources does the community have: churches, hospitals, schools, business groups, religious organizations, citizen associations, clubs, ethnic groups, sports and recreational groups, cultural associations, service groups, major property owners, businesses, individuals?

· How, why, and where do people get together?

· How do people find out what is going on?

· Who has a stake in the community?

· Who most influences local decisions, local funding, and local investment?

Find out what people want
In the absence of a single, obvious issue, your group will have to identify community issues. In many cases you will try to answer the following questions:

· What do residents expect from their schools and what do they want to change?

· What is the highest priority problem? Who is affected?

· Where is it located?

· What has been done?

· What can be done?

· Who can help?

Give this research some time. The first question may take your group a couple of meetings to discuss and prioritize.

Consider a survey of residents
Any survey requiring face-to-face interaction not only provides information but helps build community and attract people to your group.

Go to those in the know
Meet with the people who know what is going on in the community, and those who know how to deal with the issue. The most useful people to talk to are those with first-hand experience with the issue. Other sources of information are community activists, and people listed as contact persons for community organizations.

Research solutions from other places
A problem in your community exists in other communities and other school districts. Find out how citizens in other places are solving the problem.

Power Analysis

As you begin to look at and hear about issues within the schools in your community, develop a plan for leaders to conduct a local power analysis. Look at who’s on the local school board; who contributes to their campaigns; what authority do individual schools have over the issues that you’re concerned about? Sit down with a district official, or see if the district publishes a guide to district finances and school budgets.

It is important to acknowledge the reluctance of many parents’ to approach schools or engage in issues that directly affect classroom practice. Schools are good at sending subtle messages about the limits of parent involvement. Take your time.

Planning

Planning is necessary if you want to avoid wasted activity, and make your collective efforts count. It should move from the general to the specific, from the big picture to the small, from the long term to the short, from "what" to "how".

Planning entails:

· Setting a goal

· Devising strategies to achieve the goal

· Devising actions to achieve the objectives.

Look beyond the obvious to find good goals
Look beyond symptoms, at causes, you might decide to try to open local schools during evening. Your research will help you look beyond the obvious.

How do your goals score?
Generate ideas for strategies to achieve your goal and then decide what action to take. Test alternative strategies by asking:
~Will it improve confer a public good?
~ Is it easy to understand?
~ Is it specific? Will you know when you’ve reached your goal?
~ Will it have a immediate impact?
~ Will it contribute to reaching long-term goals?
~ Will other citizens want to help?
~ Will it establish healthy connections between people?
~ Is it attainable?
~ Is it attainable with available resources?

One goal at a time
To be effective, your group should pursue only one goal at a time. New groups should begin with small projects that have a high probability of success over the short term.

One good way to identify a group’s priorities is to ask people to write their own view of what the priorities are. Each person writes his or her priorities on large post-it notes, one priority per note, and then sticks them to a board or large sheet of paper where everyone can see them. Arrange the notes into clusters with similar characteristics and the top priority should soon become apparent.

Determine support and opposition
One of the most important decisions for any group is what their strategy will be in the face of opposition. In every situation, you should ask yourself: what is going to be most effective: cooperation, negotiation, or confrontation?

Successful groups do not have a single style; they constantly respond to shifting circumstances by deciding what is most appropriate at the moment. Generally it is best to make every attempt to succeed through cooperation and negotiation.

As you think about strategy, you will need to answer the following questions:

· Where can you find the resources you need?

· Who will support your initiative? What concerns will they have? How can you take advantage of their support?

· Who will oppose your initiative? What concerns will they have? What form will their opposition take?

Gandhi’s methods for converting an opponent

1. Refrain from violence and hostility.

2. Attempt to obtain your opponent’s trust through

· Truthfulness

· Openness about intentions

· Making behavior inoffensive without compromising the issue at hand

3. Refrain from humiliating an opponent.

4. Make visible sacrifices for one’s cause. Ideally, make the suffering of the aggrieved visible.

5. Carry on constructive work. Address parts of the problem you can address. Make improvements where you can. Participate in activities regarded by everyone as benefiting everyone.

6. Maintain contact with the opponent. This is absolutely necessary if conversion is to succeed.

7. Demonstrate trust in the opponent.

8. Develop empathy, good will and patience toward the opponent.

Strategic Thinking

The smartest and most effective activists think, plan, and act strategically. Smart activists use strategic thinking to solve problems in advance, considering pros and cons of various moves in order to identify the best course of action.

Creating a Strategy

Creating a strategy for a public interest campaign involves:

~ defining goals and intermediate and short-term objectives,
~ identifying opponents,
~ carrying out a SWOT analysis,
~ imagining and playing scenarios,
~ identifying primary and secondary targets,
~ identifying allies,
~ deciding what resources are required (salaries, expenses, other),
~ devising tactics, and
~ drawing up an action timetable.

Defining goals and objectives
Your goals are the broad results you wish to achieve over the long term. Objectives are what you want to accomplish more immediately. Your objectives allow naturally from your goals. They help you reach your goal.

Identifying opponents and obstacles
What stands in the way of reaching your objective? Who can make the necessary changes? Who specifically do you need to influence? In many cases you will be trying, in some way, to bring about changes to government policy or legislation.

Carrying out a SWOT analysis
It is easier to make choices after identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis can be applied to a position, an idea, an individual, or an organization. Do a SWOT analysis for your group as well as for your target.

Identifying primary and secondary targets
If your group cannot itself deliver a public good, you must be able to identify a decision maker or primary target who can. Campaigns directed at getting a target to do something usually require negotiation, campaigning, and confrontation. These tactics work best on people who are elected. Hired bureaucrats and appointed officials are more resistant.

You should also identify one or more secondary targets. These are people who will cooperate with you, who have some power over the primary target. Secondary targets might be regulatory officials, important customers, or politicians from a more senior level of government.

Identifying allies
If you can’t influence a decision maker on your own, are there others who can help? When groups with similar interests create strategic alliances, they are much more likely to achieve their goals. Allies may also be sympathetic insiders. The best intelligence comes from inside organizations that can influence the success of your project. .

Devising tactics
Tactics are the action part of a strategy. Generating good tactical alternatives requires creative thinking. Choosing which ones to use requires knowledge of what works in a particular context.

Tactics differ in what they try to accomplish. They can aim to:

· win an objective by giving the other side something it wants (credit, votes, support),

· win an objective by depriving or threatening to deprive the other side of something it wants (credibility, respect, money, labor, employment),

· build public support in the media, or build the support of allies or secondary targets

· show a target the size and concern of your constituency, or

· build the morale of your group.

Drawing up a detailed action timetable
Your timetable should be a chart with start and completion dates for everything you want to do, as well as start and completion dates for all significant external events (such as voter registration and election dates). Strategies that involve winning something from a target usually begin with opening a line of communication with the target, and then move on to action meetings.