Organising Stakeholders, Building Movement, Setting the Agenda

Civic organising - the process of bringing people and institutions together to effect change - is one of the most fundamental elements of problem-solving in a democratic society. Because change doesn't define or sell itself, organising is crucial for motivating, building capacity for, and, perhaps most importantly, creating a constituency for change. More and more observers are documenting the contributions of organising to community well-being, empowerment, and active citizenship.

But there are a number of myths about organising. Some confuse it with the tactics of pressure politics, for example, or with mere programme "outreach." Or they assume that organising is only about connecting people at the grassroots.

What's more, it isn't always clear how a larger process of organising can be tied to strategies for planning, negotiating, and implementing - all of which offer ways to engage stakeholders in meaningful collective work. This tool offers a straightforward way of understanding what organising is and what it does. The tool highlights pitfalls and tensions, and it outlines how you can do or support organising, help set the community agenda, and build movement for constructive change.

KEY ISSUE	OPPORTUNITIES	PITFALLS
Organising is frequently misunderstood, overlooked, or constrained by myths about what organising is and how it operates. It is treated as a synonym for advocacy and outreach, as code language for a particular political ideology, as a mechanism for generating conflict (not building consensus), as a set of protest tactics.	Re-framing organising can itself be a mechanism of community learning and change, as stakeholders distinguish the process of change from particular ideology (to guide change) or tactics (to accomplish it), as they link organising to key strategies, such as policy advocacy or planning.	There may be as many definitions of organising as there are organisers,so not everyone will agree on what it is or whose interests it serves. Furthermore, opening up the civic process in a democracy necessarily involves sharing control, which often - and perhaps naturally - creates anxiety. Organising is (actually) a civic activity that brings people together to create change, in part by building their capacity to take action together. Organising is motivational,and sometimes it involves building new institutions.
Organising helps to create constituencies for action, which related civic tools - planning, for example - often do not ensure. Organising is not simply about marketing an aim of ours that should belong to "them" or merely creating a "sense of community."	Some organising employs conflict to mobilise, and sharp us/them lines may be drawn. Without a sense of the bigger picture, organising can create legitimate new claims but not the basis for addressing them.	Organising can support the negotiation, planning, and implementing of solutions in crucial ways. And these specific tools give form to organising, make it something more than building a constituency that "spins its wheels."
By bringing new parties, issues, and a sharper sense of stakes into the process, organising can lead to more democratic negotiation, planning that creates real and equitable results, and implementation that engages others as vital "co-producers" of change.	These skill areas often require flexible styles of thinking and agility in how stakeholders interact and adjust their goals over time. E.g., pressure politics can lead to costly stand-off in negotiation. Because it is change-oriented, organising necessarily raises issues of power or influence - but how should we think about power and learn to share it?	Power to do something (power that accomplishes) does not always require power over others, and there are multiple levels of power - to set the agenda, to make proposals, to influence decisions per se, etc. Simple definitions of power make it a synonym for having resources, but resourcefulness - using what you have effectively - is a key to influencing outcomes that matter.

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Contact:
xavier_briggs@harvard.edu