Midwest Academy Campaign Planning [American Medical Student Association]
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Midwest Academy campaign strategy process by American Medical Student Association]
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Midwest Academy Campaign Planning [American Medical Student Association]
- 1. 1 Grassroots Organizing & Coalition Building… Skills to transform IDEAS into ACTION! American Medical Student Association
- 2. 2 Three crucial ingredients for political change “Policy provides direction and an agenda for action; grassroots organizing builds a constituency to fight for change; and electoral politics is the main way, in the absence of sweeping social movements, that we contest for power and hold decision- makers accountable for progressive public policy.” Paul Wellstone, February 18, 2001 from "Winning Politics," The Nation Good public policy Grassroots organizing Electoral Politics
- 4. 4 Strategic Planning… …is not the same as simple planning …is planning that works within, around, and through power relationships …is the way that you get what you want from somebody …is the FIRST step of direct action, not something you do in the middle
- 5. 5 Planning - Midwest Academy Style http://www.midwestacademy.com Long Term Goals (Problems) Resources Constituents & Allies Primary Targets Tactics Issue Goals (Solutions) Fringe Benefits Secondary Targets Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Internal Conflicts Opponents
- 6. 6 Goals – Keeping your eyes on the prize! Long Term Goals (Problems) What’s the overarching problem you are working on? Issue Goals (Solutions) What one step can I take that will help me reach my long term goal? Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Am I making progress in reaching my issue goal?
- 7. 7 Issue Goals BIG PROBLEMS have multiple “partial” solutions Long-term goal: increase healthcare access in America Issue Goals: Pass legislation that guarantees access to all children Pass legislation that expands Medicaid eligibility Pass legislation that sets up a single-payer system in America
- 8. 8 Internal Considerations – Costs? Benefits? Conflict? Long Term Goals (Problems) Resources How much will it cost my group/coalition to win? Time, talent, treasure. Issue Goals (Solutions) Fringe Benefits What will my group gain by being part of this campaign? Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Internal Conflicts Turf issues, personnel issues
- 9. 9 Power Grid / Coalition Building Long Term Goals (Problems) Resources Constituents & Allies Who has something to gain from my winning? Who must I have on board to win? Who loves me and will do whatever I ask? Issue Goals (Solutions) Fringe Benefits Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Internal Conflicts Opponents Who has something to lose? How strong are they?
- 10. 10 Targets - Who can give you what you want? Long Term Goals (Problems) Resources Constituents & Allies Primary Targets People who can give me what I want (i.e., if we get this person on board, we win the issue) Issue Goals (Solutions) Fringe Benefits Secondary Targets People who have more power over the primary target than me. Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Internal Conflicts Opponents
- 11. 11 Tactics - Putting on the pressure to win! Long Term Goals (Problems) Resources Constituents & Allies Primary Targets Tactics Things/activities, etc. you do to the targets Confronting the targets with expressions of your power Putting on the pressure Issue Goals (Solutions) Fringe Benefits Secondary Targets Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Internal Conflicts Opponents
- 12. 12 Midwest Academy Pathway to Success! http://www.midwestacademy.com Long Term Goals (Problems) Resources Constituents & Allies Primary Targets Tactics Issue Goals (Solutions) Fringe Benefits Secondary Targets Short Term Goals (Specific steps) Internal Conflicts Opponents Empower your base to Do To So they give you Action! Decision- makers What you want Strengthen your baseTo Ultimate Goal !!! To continue thefightfor
- 14. 14 Coalition Building takes time You need time to develop relationships You need time to go through organization processes You need time for representatives to educate their own members about your issue
- 15. 15 Why build coalitions? Ignore people in power UNTIL you have built a powerful coalition Ignore people in power UNTIL you have built a powerful coalition Ignore people in power UNTIL you have built a powerful coalition Ignore people in power UNTIL you have built a powerful coalition
- 16. 16 Who to target? Aim for “low-hanging fruit” first, then “climb the tree” to harder groups Organizational leaders first… organizational members Second
- 17. 17 Rule of the thirds Rabid 1/3 of population Will do anything for the cause! Middle 1/3 of population Anti 1/3 of population Hate your cause and everything about it
- 18. 18 The goal… Have them sign something! Resolution or statement of support Have them help with your tactics Have them commit resources
- 19. 19 Summary Direct action is a form of grassroots organizing that challenges power relationships Strategic planning is always the first step when you plan ANY direct action campaign Coalition building is needed to implement your strategic plan
Editor's Notes
- Today, we’re going to be talking about something that is very near and dear to AMSA: grassroots organizing and coalition building. AMSA, as you know, has a 55-year history of grassroots organizing on the local, state, and national levels, and we continue to mobilize medical students to effect meaningful change in medicine. In this presentation, we’re going to cover the basics of grassroots organizing and introduce you to the really important concept of strategic planning. Medical students always have a lot of energy, and the goal here is to give you the tools you need to focus that energy to make change.
- Let’s start with the big picture. How does grassroots organizing relate into the process of making political change? To answer that, let’s turn to Paul Wellstone, the great progressive Minnesota senator who tragically passed away a few years ago. Wellstone said that there are three crucial ingredients for political change: good public policy, grassroots organizing, and electoral politics. Leader: Read the direct quote from Wellstone. So policy gives us a direction; grassroots organizing helps us push for that direction; and electoral politics helps us get people in power who will support our direction. Each of these is equally important, and no change can occur without solid work in each of those areas. However, today we are going to focus solely on grassroots organizing.
- Politics is first and foremost about power, and grassroots organizing for political change therefore must confront the issue of power. There are many different approaches to grassroots organizing, each of which treats power differently. The approaches that accept existing power relationships are on the left, and the approaches that challenge those existing power relationships are on the right. To illustrate, let’s take the example of unaffordable prescription drugs for seniors. Direct service on this issue might be if a senior’s organization provides discounts to its members by buying in bulk. Self-help might be if seniors who need the drugs form their own buying cooperatives to get lower prices. Education might be if an organization prepares materials for seniors on how to get the cheapest drugs, or if an organization commissions a study on the cost of prescription drugs. Advocacy might be if an organization advocates on behalf of people who need drugs by giving testimony to a committee to Congress or the CEO of a drug company. Direct Action might be if seniors decide to organize and pressure politicians to make drug prices more affordable through lobbying, media events, etc. Each one of these strategies is important in its own right. Each one treats power differently – direct service works within existing power relationships, and direct action works to change the existing power relationships. For today, we’re going to be talking about direct action – we want to find a way to organize, gain strength, and make the people in power do what we want them to do!
- As we’ve said, direct action is fundamentally about challenging power relationships. The question becomes: how do we do that, and how do we win? The answer is strategic planning. Strategic planning (or “Strategery”) is not the same as simple planning. A simple plan consists of the steps you need to take to get something done. If you want to bake a cake, you need a recipe, ingredients, and an oven. That’s a simple plan. Strategic planning is planning that works within, around, and through power relationships. It is the way that you get what you want from somebody. It comes into play if you need your mother’s secret cake recipe and she doesn’t want to give it to you. It comes into play if your oven is busted and your landlord won’t fix it. These obstacles require planning that incorporates who you are, who they are, and what they have that you want. Finally, strategic planning is the FIRST step of direct action, not something you do in the middle of your campaign. The tendency is for everyone to jump right to thinking about what kinds of cool events they can do for their issue – standing naked in the streets of New York to protest global AIDS, etc. These tactics are obviously important, but they are in fact the LAST thing you should plan, not the first. You need an overall plan, a context for your events. You need to do the strategic planning first.
- Now to help us do strategic planning, let’s turn to the famous Midwest Academy Strategy Chart – this is the tool that organizers have used for decades to challenge these power structures and make change happen. How do we use this chart? Simple: there are 5 columns. You fill each column one by one starting from the left and going to the right. NEVER do this out of order. Again, it’s too easy to start thinking at the outset about tactics – your media events or media stunts. But if you don’t know what your goal is, all of your tactics will be out of context. Now you might be saying to yourself: hey, this just looks like a bunch of lists. But it’s actually more like a computer spreadsheet – when you change something in one column, something in another column might change. If you add a goal, you may develop more internal conflicts and opponents, which requires targeting new people with specific tactics, and so on. That’s why you have to fill this chart out from left to right.
- OK, so let’s see how the chart works. Let’s assume we are filling this out to increase healthcare access in America. Column #1 is goal setting: what are we after? Let’s break these down into manageable pieces. Long-term problem/goals – what is the overarching problem we are working on? What is the major focus on our work? In our example, it would be achieving universal healthcare for all Americans. Issue goal – what is one step we can take to reach the long-term goal? We’ll talk more about issue goals in the next slide because there are very important. Short-term goals – what are specific steps I can take to reach my Issue Goal? This is the nuts and bolts step: it’s where you set dates, deadlines and expectations to get your issue goal accomplished.
- Issue goals are one of the most important boxes on the entire chart. Why? Because the issue goal is the whole point of your campaign. The issue goal is what you hope to win in THIS campaign. In organizing, our long-term goal is the problem and the issue goal is one solution to address that problem. Leader: use the examples in the slide. If you find yourself saying something general for your issue goal, you’re doing something wrong – this has to be a specific victory that you can get through your campaign. If you find yourself saying something like “educate the public”, you’re confusing an issue goal with a tactic. Education is a tactic. You might use education as a tactic to help you pass a particular piece of legislation, but education is not an issue goal in and of itself.
- Let’s move on to column #2: internal considerations. Campaigns just don’t magically happen. Inspiration is much of it, but campaigns take resources and it is important to take a look in your organizational “investment portfolio” and see what kind costs, benefits, and conflicts you could be up against. Resources: What do I have? Think in terms of the three T’s: Time, Talent (staff, leaders, chapters), Treasure (funds). You are preparing to make an investment in your passion and your resources are your budget to make it happen. Be very specific. For example, in terms of leaders, you have Julie the health policy chair, Jack the president, Joann the treasurer, etc. Fringe Benefits: What will your organization get out of it? Resources are your principle investment, and your fringe benefits are your profit – what you gain as an organization IN ADDITION TO reaching your goal. Examples might be increased media attention for your group during your campaign, new members who join because of your campaign, etc. Internal Conflicts: What might stand in your way internally? For medical students, it might be things like the rigorous schedule of medical school or medical students with opposing viewpoints and priorities. Get these internal conflicts out on the table and get them straight now, or else they will come back to haunt you.
- Column #3 is about our allies and opponents. Power comes with numbers, and if we are ever going to make progress, we must create, strengthen and focus our relationships with individuals and organizations. Leader: Read questions on chart under “Allies” and expand as you see fit. At the same time, we must identify those groups that would prevent our coalition from carrying out its goals. Leader: Read questions on chart under “Opponents”
- Column #4 is our targets: who can give you what you want? Here, there are two different types of targets. PRIMARY targets are first and foremost people, not institutions. You can’t say, “let’s target Congress.” That’s not specific enough. You need a specific person to target. The president, the governor, the dean, the course director, whatever. Primary targets are the people who have the direct power to give you what you want. That is, if you get this person on board in your campaign, you win. SECONDARY targets are people who have more power over the primary target than you do. These are the people who can influence the behavior of the primary target. So if your primary target is an elected official, a secondary target might be constituents who can pressure the elected official to support a piece of legislation. This is what AMSA does with our action alerts all the time – we pressure elected officials by targeting constituents. Another example is a course director – the secondary targets there might be the dean of medical education or the dean of the medical school. Once you select your target, you can then start thinking about things like: where do they live? Who is their constituency? Who gave them money? What groups do they pay attention to?
- Finally, there’s column #5: tactics. This is the fun part – this is where you brainstorm your crazy media stunts and events so you can pressure your targets. Important: the event has to pressure the target! If you stop traffic in New York by standing around naked to protest global AIDS without pressuring a specific target, what you’ve accomplished is not direct action – it’s education and raising awareness. It’s not direct action unless you pressure someone to give you what you want! A direct action tactic would be if you stop traffic in New York by standing around naked to protest the fact that New York’s senators haven’t been proactive enough in supporting expansions of funding for global AIDS.
- So let’s take a step back. We’ve been going column by column, examining each element of developing a strategy, but how does it all fit together? It starts with your constituents and allies in column #3. Basically, you: 1) Call upon and EMPOWER your base to DO… 2) An ACTION to the 3) DECISION-MAKERS so that they give you 4) What you WANT so that you 5) STRENGTHEN your base to continue to fight for the 6) ULTIMATE GOAL! That’s how it works! Organizing is a challenging, complex process, but when we use this tool often and practice, it becomes much easier and we experience success in our efforts.
- OK, so that’s how strategic planning works. Now we’re going to talk about implementing this beautiful plan that we’ve come up with. We’re going to talk about COALITION BUILDING!
- So to begin with, let’s be up front about what it takes to build a coalition. This is an extremely time-consuming activity. Why? First, you need time to develop relationships with other organizations. Organizations come and go, and sometimes their policies or leadership change, so coalition building is a continuing process. Second, you need to let other organizations go through their specific organizational processes. We at AMSA have an organizational process when we join a coalition – we make sure that the relevant leaders are contacted, we consult our PPP to make sure it’s consistent with our principles, etc. Other organizations may have to consult their Board of Directors, hold a vote, or whatever. That always takes time. Finally, you need time for other organizations to educate their own members about your issue. So if you’re AMSA and want the American College of Physicians to support single-payer universal healthcare, you’d have to contact the right person, and then let that person educate the membership so that the membership can decide whether they support it or not.
- So given that it takes so long to build a coalition, why should we bother investing the time? Because it’s NEVER a good idea to go to lawmakers or other people in power until you have built a powerful coalition. NEVER. Why? It’s a matter of simple politics – you need to get the attention of powerful people, and to do that, you have to be seen as a legitimate force. Also, you’re usually not going to get everything you want on the first try. In that case, you need to have a powerful coalition to back you up and keep pushing for what you want. If you have a weak coalition, they might get discouraged at the initial failure and say, “Well, we’re not powerful enough to make anything happen.”
- So how do you go about building a coalition? You start by asking which organizations you should target. In general, you should first go for the organizations that are “low hanging fruit” – the ones you think will be easy to convince to join a coalition. Then you climb the tree and try to recruit groups that may be harder to convince. Don’t do this the other way around, because it’ll be easier to convince more reluctant groups if you already have other groups on board. Once you’ve selected an organization to target for your coalition, you have to decide who in the organization to target. You always go for the leaders first, not the members. If the organization’s leaders give you permission to directly access the organization’s members, then you can start targeting them. It’s never a good idea to start with the members, because you’ll end up alienating the leaders.
- Now an important rule of thumb to use in organizing is the so-called “rule of thirds.” There’s the rabid 1/3, who will do anything for your cause. There’s the middle 1/3, who may support you but who aren’t going to take the time to become active in the issue. And of course there’s the anti-1/3 of the population who hates your cause and will never support you, and in fact will sometimes oppose you actively. So a question that organizers ask themselves is: which third of the population should you target? [Have audience members raise hands]. A lot of people think it’s the middle 1/3, but in fact, it’s the rabid 1/3! You are first and foremost in charge of energizing your base, the people who will do anything for you. Rally them first! Once you get a victory, the people in the middle 1/3 will be more likely to join you. If you target them first, your base never gets energized, and you may be less successful because the middle 1/3 is busy with other activities not related to your issue.
- Once you’ve recruited coalitions, you have to get them to do things for you. Here are some examples: You can get them to sign something, like a resolution or statement of support. You can ask them for help with your tactics – getting their members to attend one of your media events, getting their members to write letters to the editor. And of course, you can ask them for resources like money, staff, etc.
- OK, so that’ strategic planning and coalition building in a nutshell. Here are the three main points of this talk: Leader: Read the slide and ask for questions.