Creative Community Organizing by Si Kahn

Author:Si Kahn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2010-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

In every campaign, there is a magic moment just before the victory (and, unfortunately, sometimes just before the defeat). No matter how experienced and skillful we are as organizers, we usually never find out exactly when, where, or why that moment took place.

But we do know that it happened. It’s the moment in which one person changes her mind.

In that instant, one corporate CEO says, “I know that many of you on the board disagree with me, but we’re settling this right now. Furthermore, we’re going to do it on their terms because, if we don’t, it’s only going to get worse.”

In that moment, the vote on the county council stops being seven to six against us, and becomes seven to six for us—because one council member switched her vote.

In that flash, one lone person says, “Enough.”

How do we as creative community organizers get from here to there? Ironically, we start by thinking about how to get from there to here. That is, we start the process of strategy development by imagining the instant just before victory, and then, working backwards, do our best to figure out the steps that will lead to that moment.

We usually don’t know in advance who that one person is going to be. But, as we practice our craft, we can learn to become reasonably good at making educated guesses—and then at developing strategies for helping that person, whether or not we know for sure who they’re going to be, come around to our point of view.

That’s one of the fascinating secrets at the heart of creative community organizing. In order to move forward, we need to start at the finish line.

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