ORGANIZING NOTES
(2000)
Action
(#8)
We began the semester with a discussion of how organizers mobilize common resources on behalf of common interests. Then we turned to the role of leaders. Three weeks ago we looked at how leaders build relationships. Then we looked at the two ways in which leaders do the interpretative work required to arrive at shared understandings – motivational and strategic. This week we focus on action programs - concrete ways we mobilize resources to provide service or make claims. Interweaving relationships, understanding and action creates new organization.
Action and Planning
We are often told the way things work – or ought to work – is that we evaluate our environment, we make a plan, we take action, we evaluate our action, we plan, etc. In reality, the process is far less linear than this. Sometimes it is taking action that gives rise to the understanding we need to develop a meaningful plan. This is what Alinsky means when he says, "the action is in the reaction." The students who conducted the first sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 had no elaborate strategic plan about how their action would give rise to a whole student movement. By taking action the focused the issue, inspired others to act, and sparked a movement – that made all sorts of plans possible that would have been inconceivable before they had acted. Jane Addams warns us to avoid being caught in the "snare of preparation" – a common academic affliction – just one more survey, just one more data point, just one more regression and we'll KNOW what to do. Sometimes. Sometimes too it is only by doing that we come to know what is possible – especially in the work of making "change."
What Is an Action Program?
An action program can be viewed as a kind of pyramid (Action Chart #1). At the base of the pyramid are resources an organization can mobilize to achieve its purposes. These resources are usually mobilized as smaller steps lead to greater ones. A first step might be to sign a petition, a second step to come to a meeting, a third step to join in an "action," and so on. These steps culminate in a very specific goal; the founding meeting of a credit union, for example, or contacting 5000 voters, enrolling enough members to start a death benefit, or getting 2000 people to a meeting to get the city to allocate needed drainage funds.
Where Does an Action Program Fit into the Strategy?
A complete organizing strategy addresses three questions - how are we building relationships, how are we interpreting what we do, and how are actually doing it. In the real world, these occur together and I have separated them for "analytic" purposes. In other words, any good organizing tactic will have a relational, interpretive and action component.
Conducting a petition drive involves relational tactics, for example, in recruiting new people, motivating them, training them, uniting them as group, and so forth. It also involves interpretive tactics such as deliberation about whom to target and stories you tell about why someone should sign your petition. Action tactics include organizing your daily signature gathering, developing the best techniques (where to stand, how many to hold, whether to use a table or an ironing board), tracking and reporting procedures, and how best to use them. Similarly, holding a house meeting is relational in that it draws on networks to bring people together, it is interpretive in terms of the talk which takes place there, and may result in action such as signing a card of support, agreeing to help on a phone bank, etc. This way a new group begins learning the action of which it is capable even while strengthening its relationships and deepening its understanding.
Although organizing strategies are grounded in relational and interpretive work, their significance is that they lead to action - the concrete mobilization of resources to exercise power. Focusing on action also helps avoid what Jane Addams (and Tolstoy before her) called the "snare of preparation."
Where Does an Action Program Come From?
The account of one of Cesar Chavez's first house meetings offers a glimpse of an action program in the making. Chavez clearly brought with him a vision of where the organization could go. The conversation unfolded, however, in terms of the interests of those who came to the meeting - burial and credit. Chavez led them into a reflection on how they could mobilize resources through the organization to solve these problems - a death benefit, a credit union. And how could these goals be achieved? Each person could begin that very evening by filling out a census card or agreeing to host a meeting of his or her friends. In this way, the goals of an action program evolve from the interests of a constituency, and the steps to be taken based on the resources available to it. It also shows how narrow individual interests can be translated into the basis for broader community action.
Collaboration and Claims Making Action
Whether an organization pursues "collaborative" or "claims making" strategy, its action program usually begins with "collaborative" tactics. Closer to the bottom of the pyramid are those tactics that can help build a broad base of support to develop as much organizational capacity or "power to" as possible. These tactics can be used to achieve collaborative goals such as a credit union, a death benefit, or cooperative day care. On the other hand, if the organization has "claims making" intent, a foundation built in this way can be the first step in challenging someone else's "power over" the community; for example, getting the city to allocate funds, an employer to raise wages, congress to pass a law. This may require direct action, political action or economic mobilization. In either case, collaborative work lays the foundation by creating enough "power to" to begin to challenge "power over." Social service programs are usually collaborative at best, whereas social action programs usually involve claims making. Mobilizing community resources for after school tutoring is an example of collaborative action that develops "power to." Mobilizing to require the university to establish an ethnic studies program is an example of claims making action which challenges "power over."
Collaborative Action
Action programs begin with "start-up tactics" which cast the net for support very widely, giving many people the opportunity to express support, and drawing in resources that could become very important later on. These tactics include filling out a census card, signing a petition, filling out a pledge, and getting an endorsement. These tactics are tied to a specific goal - such as getting 1000 signatures - which, in turn, is tied by a credible strategy to the ultimate goals of the project. Can you think of ways that tactics like these can facilitate leadership development, relationship building and developing shared understanding? What can you learn from debriefing your results as you go along that will help you refine your program? What resources are you generating which can be called upon later in your action program?
In the second phase of an action program, organizers build upon individual expressions of support to bring people together, deepen their commitment and broaden support. Tactics may include coming to a meeting, going to a rally, participating in a march, and so on. The main focus of the activity remains one of expanding support - building more "power to."
The goals of a collaborative action program are based on resources a community can mobilize to do for itself. For example, the farm workers established a credit union and a death benefit program, and the "orange hats" learned to conduct an effective neighborhood watch campaign. These goals can be achieved based on inside resources such as membership fees, fees for service, volunteer time, and in kind contributions. They can also be based on outside resources such as start-up grants and loans. Tactics include committing to recruit others, taking part in a fund-raiser, joining a specific program, volunteering for a neighborhood watch, volunteering to make phone calls, and engaging people in helping solve each other's problems.
Claims Making Action
A "claims making" action program aims at a response - or reaction - from individuals and organizations with the resources to address the claims. As is recounted in Cold Anger, COPS had to get the city to commit the drainage money. In the farm worker account, the UFW had to get union contracts from the growers. The organizational resources drawn on are no different from those mentioned above, but they may need to meet requirements for a greater degree of commitment. Inside resources include dues, tithing, group pledges, and regular fund-raisers. Outside resources include fund- raisers, wealthy contributors, sympathetic groups, direct mail campaigns, second collections in churches, and gate collections outside union halls.
In hope of avoiding premature confrontations while building their organizational capacity, organizers usually begin making claims with persuasive tactics such as petitions, delegations, public meetings, public protests, demonstrations, rallies, fasts, vigils, exposes, fact finding missions, etc. These tactics also educate one's own people, potential supporters, the public, and the opposition (or people within the opposition who might be potential allies). They give the organization as a whole an opportunity to learn how to mobilize under conditions less likely to produce a crippling oppositional reaction.
Depending on how the opposition responds, more assertive tactics may be appropriate such as "non-cooperation" (as Gandhi called it) or "disruption" - sit-ins, sit-downs, shop-ins, teach-ins, pray-ins and (as described above) balloon-ins. Tactics of non-cooperation reveal the fact that most of the institutions to which we attribute so much "power" rely on our active (if unthinking) cooperation to do their business. Sharp catalogues most of the nonviolent tactics anyone has thought of.
Economic tactics can be still more assertive and include such actions as strikes, boycotts, and picket lines. They also include stockholder campaigns, proxy fights, and various "corporate" campaigns used more recently by unions and others. Sometimes tactics of non-cooperation and economics are combined as in the boycotts of the American colonists or Gandhi's salt march.
Legal tactics may be used in hopes they will produce the desired outcome directly (as in winning a lawsuit), but more often because of the economic and other costs they may impose on the opposition, and sometimes because they help delegitimate the opposition. In 1965, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party persuaded two members of Congress to challenge the right to be seated of Mississippi Congressional representatives who had been elected in segregated elections. The hearings this led to throughout rural Mississippi created venues in which black citizens could summon local white officials to account for their actions - and could themselves testify under Federal protection. Although the challenge itself was ultimately lost, the process helped mobilize local African-Americans and outside support while it demoralized the opposition. One of the main reasons the Teamsters Union decided to make peace with the Farm Workers was the legal fees they faced which approached $750,000. Legal tactics include lawsuits, motions for discovery, interrogatories, depositions, and challenges to legislative seating.
Finally, useful electoral tactics include accountability sessions, candidate endorsements, opposition, getting out the vote, registering voters, staffing phone banks, lobbying, and letter writing. A capacity to mobilize to influence the election or defeat of political officials is one of the most persuasive ways to influence their actions.
The strategic judgment, of course, is in linking appropriate resources, tactics, and goals in an achievable action program.
Resource Mobilization and Effective Action
Oliver and Marwell argue that the way resources are deployed affects how they can be mobilized, and the way they are mobilized affects how they can be deployed (Action Chart #2). This helps clarify the relationship between action programs and resources. Resources mobilized from within the constituency can be deployed subject only to direct accountability to the constituency itself. Outside resources, on the other hand, often entail accountability to those who contribute them - placing limits on how they can be used. When a number of foundations decided that the environment was a priority, for example, some inner city organizations dependent on foundation funding decided interests of their constituents could be served by a focus on environmental programs.
Similarly, devising tactics which require lots of money, if what you have is lots of people, can impose severe constraints on what you do. Or they can backfire as in Ron Carey's recent campaign for the presidency of the Teamsters Union which relied on high tech tactics which required large amounts of funds which were raised in dubious ways.
Basing your action program on tactics that require mobilizing people, on the other hand, can most directly empower your constituency, but it can constrain you to find tactics your people are willing to take part in.
Although an organization can mobilize resources in a variety of ways, its center of gravity rests somewhere in the area described by Action Chart #1. If the center of gravity is in the inside/people box it empowers the constituency, makes the organization accountable to the constituency, and limits the use of resources to the constituency's interest. One example is a union. On the other hand, if the center of gravity is in the outside/money box, it can disempower the constituency (unless it is outside), make the organization accountable to its funders, and limit its tactics to those consistent with the interests of its funders. One example is a foundation funded service program.
Finally, action programs that generate resources must be distinguished from action programs that drain resources. In union organizing, for example, the more successful the union, the more members it gets, the larger the dues base, the more leadership it has developed, and the greater its human and financial resources. Similarly, as COPS conducted parish renewal work among member churches, its human and financial capacity grew. Grant-based action programs, in contrast, often fail to generate new resources from the work they do -- and keep themselves in a state of perpetual dependency.
There is no right or wrong answer to what an appropriate relationship between resources and action should be. Understanding the relationship is essential, however, so you can make conscious choices about how to set up your organization so it has a chance to accomplish its purposes.
Evaluating An Action Program
There are three sound ways to evaluate an action program (Hackman):
• First, does it solve the problem at hand? Did you get done what you set out to do? Are there more books in the school, for example? Did more money get allocated for environmental protection?
• Second, does it strengthen the organization? Did it deepen understanding, build relational commitment, and generate new resources?
The beauty of the grape boycott was that it was an action in which everyone could play a part -- from a person who shunned grapes in a Florida supermarket to a student who dropped out of school to come to work full time for the UFW, and everything in between. At one point in 1975, pollster Lou Harris found that 12% of the American public - some 17 million people - were boycotting grapes. The wider the opportunity to act, the wider the participation and the responsibility.
Action entails cost -- time, effort, risk, and hard work. Sacrifice can also be widely shared. The more widely it is shared, the more people have a stake the outcome. The boycott is a good example of this as well. When one or two people do all the "sacrificing" they quickly become "burned out," while everyone else blames them for whatever goes wrong.
The flip side of shared sacrifice is shared success. When many people have an opportunity to contribute to the effort, they also share in its success. It is "their" victory, not someone else's. This, in turn, creates motivation and a sense of entitlement that facilitates accountability. The day after we won the Pelosi for Congress campaign in San Francisco, 15 Filipina women who had served as precinct leaders showed up at the campaign headquarters looking for Nancy (Pelosi). They had turned out her vote very effectively and played an important role in the victory. They had won, they said, and now they had come to find "Nancy" to get help on the immigration problems they had. This was exactly as it should be. It had been their work, their victory, and now they were entitled to enjoy some of the fruits of success.
• Third, does it facilitate the growth of individuals who take part in the action? Did people learn, did they gain confidence, were they energized - or were they completely burned out?
Any action program that satisfies these three criteria will be a pretty good one.
Conclusion
Returning to Cesar's house meeting, an event at the beginning of his efforts to build the UFW, let's reexamine the tactics. What were the relational tactics he used? What kind of interpretive tactics did he use? And what kind of action tactics did he use? The goal of the work we have done the last three weeks is to see how these three kinds of tactics can be woven together in effective organizational strategies - of which this house meeting is an excellent example.