In January, I attended a retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico with a little under 20 other organizers across the movement ecosystem (immigration justice, labor, community organizing, etc.) We were all gathered to discuss the state of organizing & basebuilding.
In spirit of reflecting on my learnings, sharing a few takeaways from the retreat below, things I’m tossing over in this little mind of mind, post retreat.
Core Questions
[Framing in context of social movements + left organizations] - What are we trying to win and what do all the pieces add up to? How are our movements and organizations aligning and working towards some unified vision of society?
Need for unifying campaign
Skepticism around coalition work; how do powerful organizing collectively
How are we organizing the unorganized? How are we meeting people where they are (e.g., online, on YouTube, on video game platforms) and organizing them
What does sustainable leadership within our movements and organizations look like?
We are not building power and winning; what are we doing wrong and what, as movements and organizations, must we do differently?
Core Learnings & Takeaways
Thinking about critical vulnerabilities of our opponents (where are they vulnerable, how can we build power to make them crumble)
We’re very reactionary, don’t have clear plan or offense game for our opponents
We need more creative funding models for our organizations that don’t just rely on philanthropy. Thinking about how someone can seed an ecosystem of businesses that directly send profits toward movement work.
Core things I’m thinking about
We’re all running up against the limitations of our political system; that rules of the game are stacked against us. We’re in need of campaigns/work around democratic reform (e.g., getting rid of Senate, filibuster, partisan gerrymandering, electoral college, we need automatic voter registration + push for online voting, we need publicly funded elections)
The role of labor; UAW has been talking about 2028, mass strike; thinking about the ways in which we build organizations that can organize up until that point. And about ways labor and social movement orgs need to be in deeper relationships with each other.
Meaningful Quotes
“ The way we raise our children will matter in a hundred years.”
“Keep hope as a North Star”
“Less ego more impact”
“How do we use a crisis as an opportunity?”
“We are in a street fight and we are getting fucked up.”