Grassroots ORGANIZING 101

GOALS:

  • To learn what is grassroots organizing and all its elements.
  • To learn the importance of grassroots organizing and why we need to do it.
  • To learn that we all play a part in grassroots organizing towards self-determination, sustainment and empowerment

AGENDA:

  1. Icebreaker/Check ins (10 minutes)
  2. What’s up with our schools? (30 minutes)
  3. Methods of change! (15 minutes)
  4. BREAK! (5 minutes)
  5. Power in NUMBERS (50 minutes)
  6. WRAP UP and EVAL (5 minutes)

TOTAL 1hr 55mins

MATERIALS NEEDED:

  • Outreach script & tool
  • Phonebank script
  • 1x1 Questions/Outline
  • Signs for Outreaching and Phone banking stations [can be hand written]
  • Feedback for Organizer/Adv. SYLA at each station (print out enough for each station and person observing)
  • What’s up with our schools activity
  • Signs for characters

HANDOUTS

  • RAP Sheets: Outreach and Phone Banking

BUTCHERS

  • Goals/Agenda
  • Base Building Basic Points
  • Direct Action Definition
  • Blank Butcher for evaluation and responses
  • Definition: Grassroots

  1. Icebreaker/Check ins (10 minutes)

SAY: Welcome everyone to the second wonderful day of SYLA!! So we’re going to do a quick go around and hear how you’re feeling so far after the first day? Was it everything you hoped for? What did you get out of day 1? What recommendations do you have? [butcher responses]Great! Thank you for sharing.

Now can I get a volunteer to read the goals and another to read the agenda? GREAT! So as some of you already guessed, we are going to talk about the ins and outs of ORGANIZING and what it has to do with you, your communities, families, and life in general.

B. What’s up with our schools ACTIVITY (30 minutes)

SAY: Okay so we’re going to jump right into the following activity that will teach you about organizing in a not so boring way. So who remembers the definition what ‘grassroots organizing’ from yesterdays MOVEMENT workshop? Or who can define it in their own words? Cool!

So just to recap, grassroots organizing is [refer to butcher from Movement workshop if you still have it] taking the people who are most affected by a problem face to face with the decision makers. So that people here at the grassroots are creating the solutions, building their leadership, growing their power.

Is everyone comfortable with what grassroots organizing is and able to tell someone else about it if it comes up? Great!

Now we’re all going to participate in some Community Theater.

Materials:

  • 1 Sign: Jamie - A student (Part of group 1)
  • 2-10 Signs: Students from Hood High (Group 1)
  • 2-10 Signs: Students from Hood High (Group 2)
  • 2-10 Signs: Filthy Richbanks’ Allies (Group 3)
  • 1 Sign: Filthy RichBanks (Part of group 3)

SAY: We’re going to read a short story that relates to organizing, so when you hear your role being called, act out that portion of the story. For example, “the student from Hood High walked around crying hysterically.” GOOD, so everyone with a student sign should be acting that out.

Ok, let’s begin…(Read handout: “What’s up with our schools,” slowly, allowing time for folks to act.)

Great! Thanks actors, but we’re not done yet. Now we’re going to split into three smaller groups where each group is going to act out their particular group. Group One is the students who want to keep up the fundraising effort; Group Two is the students who want to confront Filthy Richbanks; and Group Three is Filthy Richbanks and his allies. Your groups are going to be at a school meeting where the issue is being discussed.

Each group will have 10 minutes to prepare a skit for their group, where they explain and defend their position.

After 10 minutes bring the large group back together and have participants perform their skit. While each group performs the other groups should actively play their roles. (The entire school meeting - all 3 skits - should be no longer than 15mins.)

Facilitator should play the role of the meeting facilitator asking the groups various questions to divide or unify them such as:

  • What is your position?
  • Why should we do it your way?
  • How do you fell about the other groups?
  • What would you want to say to Filthy Richbanks?
  • How will this help students?

After the school meeting…

SAY: Now we’re going to stop and each group is going to answer 2 questions:

  1. Do you think your strategy is successful? Why or Why not?
  2. How would the story end if your strategy were used?

Take several responses and thank folks for participating

ASK: So can someone tell us what he or she learned from the activity?

Take several responses

SAY: This exercise is about how to respond to an issue in the community. Some people wanted to create methods to get toilet paper in the schools and others wanted understand why there wasn’t toilet paper in the first place, then try to stop that. As we can see from Filthy Richbanks’ answers it is only in taking the second approach that all the needs of the students would be met. This is what organizing is - looking at the root of the problems, and getting people together to fight to fix them.

ASK:

  • So what’s the difference between the two approaches?...... Short & long term affects.
  • Which approach does CFJ practice? Why?...... 2nd approach - sustainable change
  • Does this mean that other approaches aren’t important?

CFJ believes there has to be many ways to fight the conditions in our communities, and that we need to respect to all people who are trying to make change in our communities and trying to find solutions to problems.

There has to be people to take care of the people who don’t have toilet paper. However, there also has to be people who make sure that all the needs of students are met. We believe organizing is the only way to make long-term change and to address problems at the root.

Organizing is often even stronger when it is done in collaboration with these other ways of making change - like education while also providing services - which we will talk about in the next section. We believe that these things alone cannot make fundamental change in the world. They must be used in relation to community organizing in order to make long-term change in our communities.

C. Methods of change (15 minutes)

SAY:

Let’s step back for a moment. Let’s look at the words: service, organizing, and advocacy.

Service:

Ask: What is an example of a service organization? What do they do? (feeding the homeless)

Ask: What would a service organization do in this story? (Donate toilet paper to the school, even if they can’t donate to all schools, or to every bathroom stall)

Organizing:

Ask: Who knows what an organizer would do? (grab as many students as they could and go face to face with the person denying them the funding for adequate schools.)

Advocacy: (Def: Advocacy is representative organizing or service…i.e. lawyers)

Ask: Who knows what an ‘advocate’ would do? (speaking on behalf or representing a person(s))

What type of organization is CFJ?

With Organizing, we believe in the outcomes – but also the process. We could spend our $1.3 million budget hiring a bunch of lawyers, or opening shelters or work-force training sites for folks, but we believe that change needs to happen –and the folks who should be at the forefront are those who are on the ground, being impacted by these issues.

Now let’s look at the term Grassroots. Who can tell me what this means? Take a few responses. Right: read butcher:

Grassroots is a term used to mean any kind of effort that draws its power and reason from common ordinary people. Grassroots political movements are characterized by organizing in specific communities or among specific types of people, such as factory workers or students and organizing these groups to advocate for the changes they want to see.

So when we say that we are a grassroots organization we mean that we are organizing the folks that are affected most by an issue. This is an effective way to build power and make change.

SAY: What else will CFJ do as a grassroots organization to build its power and to be prepared to make change? (Alliance building, leadership development, grassroots fundraising…AND like we just said Basebuilding!).

That’s right, so we’ll be talking about Basebuilding after we get back from our 5 minute break.

D. BREAK! (5 minutes)
E. Power in NUMBERS (50 minutes)

*Intro. (15 minutes)*

SAY: CFJ cannot be CFJ without what?? That’s right!! PEOPLE!! Why? Yeah, if we don’t have a large number of people that are really committed for our cause, anything we plan will not work out because it will lack POWER IN NUMBERS.

When we’re talking about POWER IN NUMBERS we’re really talking about BASE BUILDING which one can argue is the most important element to organizing. It is the BACK BONE of GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING because it’s about connecting with people, building relationships, EMPOWERMENT, and getting people committed and really helping them realize that they can change all the unjust going on around them.

For Base Building there are 3 basic points to remember-

Butcher

  1. Empower yourself before you empower others. [Believe in and know what you’re doing]
  2. Be HONEST and CLEAR with people about your message and don’t underestimate or judge anyone. Be understanding and REAL.
  3. Remember to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS instead of just getting CONTACTS…Really have conversations with people; ASK QUESTIONS and LISTEN.

*Base Building Prep (35 minutes)*

SAY: Everyone remembers what CFJ’s mission and vision is right? Who can put it in their own words? GREAT! We believe that every person has a fundamental right to a dignified life free from poverty, discrimination and oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, country of origin, or language.

With that take a minute to explain to the person next to you what CFJ and SYLA is in 1 sentence…GREAT! You are all CFJ experts now!! [pass out Outreach sheet]

As you can see one side is a description and an example and the other side is blank. [Briefly go over left side of rap sheet]. Are there any questions? Cool! So right now we’re going to take a couple of minutes to put at least two lines in the blank portion of the rap sheet in your own words…especially your 1-2 CFJ line. When phone banking, it’s pretty much the same thing except that you’re on the phone [pass out Phone Banking RAP sheet]…How are people feeling? Any questions??

Now we’re going to put these points into practice and actually do some base building! There should be 3 stations…1. Outreaching 2. Phone Banking 3. One on One’s

There are 3 stations. One is ‘Outreaching’ which means you’ll actually be going out into the streets and talking to people. The second is Phone Banking, you’re going to call some folks and invite them to next weeks engaging ed. The third is ‘one on one’s’ which is sitting down and taking time to get to know someone and asking them to step up into a specific role [if you don’t have enough Adv. SYLA or staff available have them do one on one’s with each other]. We’re going to break up into 3 groups and then each group will be at a station for 10 minutes.

Each person should practice their role as the organizer, and staff/ADV SYLA will be in each group to run a debrief & give feedback. After the 10 minutes rotate. So we should all be back in 30 minutes.

How was it? So we’re going to be doing this throughout the summer so be ready!

F. Closing (5 minutes)

Now take some time to make some goals…[Go around and butcher each persons outreaching goals for next week and post up on the wall…# of approaches for next week, how many new numbers, how many surveys do they want to collect if applicable et cetera]

To close out, what is 1 personal goal you have for our outreach this summer – think about our role-plays and what you want to work on.

OUTREACH RAP SHEET

Develop a line for each section of the rap IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Remember…

  1. KNOW and BELIEVE in what you’re talking about.
  2. Be HONEST and CLEAR with people about your message.
  3. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS, ASK QUESTIONS and LISTEN.

*You will be evaluated on these 3 main points SO BE READY! The following is just an example of what you might say so make sure to put it into your own words.

Hook
/ EX: “Hi! My name is____.How are you doing? (Pause, and be an attentive listener, respond appropriately.) So I wanted to talk to you about an action I am planning with Californians for Justice for (fill in the date). I wanted to see if you would be willing to support and participate in our work to protect school funding.” / Get their attention & intro yourself. Find out about them
Problem

/ EX: I have been a member with CFJ since ______. We work on local and statewide campaigns to improve schools and make sure that low-income students and students of color are given the resources we need to get into college. Did you know 80% of students in CA want to go to college, but only 20% make it? As a student, I have faced…. / Here you state the problem that we are working on. Use facts & tie to their personal experience
Solution
/ EX: As you may have heard, we are facing huge budget cuts this year, and that will have a negative impact on school funding, including cuts for teachers and counselors.
We are planning an action on [insert date] to make sure all students have the opportunity and the resources they need to learn. / Describe the campaign or issue we are working on.
CRUNCH
/ Today I am asking you to:
1. Sign this postcard so that we can…2. If you can, come to our local action on…3. Even if you can’t come to the action, you can make a donation to support our work b/c….
Will you support our work for better schools by ___? (Pause and wait for them to respond). / Make the ASK for them to sign-up, turn-out, make a donation!
Thank them.

Phone Bank Script/ Rap

MATERIALS NEEDED:

-Script

-List of numbers

-Phone;)

-Pen/ pencil

-Commitment sheet

-Directions to office

-Remember to take note of their interest level or conflicts that may keep them from coming such as a job or sports.

SCRIPT

  • Hello may I speak to______?
  • My name is ______and I am a youth leader/ volunteer with Californians for Justice.
  • How are you? (wait for response)
  • We met you (downtown/ after school at insert high school/…), remember?
  • (wait for a response)
  • Like you probably remember Californians for Justice is a statewide non-profit organization of students fighting for better schools.
  • We are doing a quick survey of students and want to know what you think. So you think of your school?
  • If you could change 1 thing about your school what would it be?
  • (Affirm their comment & link to current work) That is what we are hearing from other students. Right now we are working to better schools in Fresno by …
  • Another reason we are calling is to remind you/ let you know about the Engaging Ed Field Trips we do over the summer. They are an opportunity to get out in the community and learn about issues in a hands-on way. The next one is on [insert topic] that we are holding on [insert date] at [insert time].
  • Do you think you can make it?

IF YES: (go to next point)

IF NO ask why not: (write down notes)

  • Do you need directions?
  • If you have a pen I can give them to you… (give directions)
  • Do you have a friend that you can bring with you?

Great. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days to see if they can make it too.Thank you and we’ll see you soon!!

Personal Visit Outline

Introductions

Start by sharing what you know of the leaders’ experiences and role with CFJ. Ask them to elaborate.

  • How did you get involved, what has been your role with CFJ?
  • What’s been going on with you? How is school going – other stuff you may know – job, family or other extra curricular activities.
  • Acknowledge what appreciate about them – their energy, what specifically about their leadership how they contribute (build community, set a good tone, excite others, etc.)

Updates

Base:

To make the kind of change that we all believe in, we need to get all our folks active with our work.

  • You know that at CFJ power gets represented in numbers but more importantly we want student leaders on the front lines leading our campaigns.
  • I’m interested and committed to helping figure out how to be an active leader with us.

Describe the Leadership Development Model we Have:

  • Volunteer, Member, Leader, Committee Chair, SYLA, Internship, Staff, Board….

Local Campaign:

Right now our local campaign activity is focused on:

  • Fill in the blank….
  • OR: Talk about CQE – statewide campaign

Opportunities:

  1. We could use support with things having more members participating, recruiting students from more schools, helping collect surveys for our campaign, or planning our next campaign action at the School District.

THE CRUNCH