COMMUNITY ORGANIZING refers to organizing that:

1. Is Geographic-specific

2. Identifies as its Primary Constituency some set of residents and/or community institutions.

3. Utilizes Issue Campaigns to address specific problems and/or conditions.

4. Consciously and systematically Develops Grassroots Leaders among the Primary Constituency.

5. Seeks to Alter Power Relationships to the benefit of the primary constituency.

6. Builds sustained, ongoing, Independent, Democratic Organization Accountable to the Primary Constituency.CIVIC PARTICIPATION:

Strategies that seek to increase politically conscious voter participation and achieve real democracy through the electoral arena: voter registration, education, and turnout.

Different Types/Arenas of Power:

•Grassroots Lobbying (e.g. letter-writing, delegations with decision-makers, testimony at hearings)

•Direct Action (e.g. Civil Disobedience, disrupting traffic or business)

•Media/ Communications (e.g. press conferences, Op-Ed’s, paid advertising)

•Electoral

1. Watered down because of where elected and voters are

2. Can be illegal for C3

3. Need huge scale to have impact

4. Only targeting voters

5. Leads to more tactical relations with allies

6. The power of money

7. Huge drain of resources

8. Could lose allies (different positions)

9. Not ideological battle where we are setting agenda

10. Short, frantic timeline, then over

11. Less than 10% of people stay involved

12. Mainly opposing things

13. Not about Systemic Change

PROBLEMS-CHALLENGES-LIMITATIONS

1.Can’t ignore issues directly impacting our communities & are hot topics

2.Arena controls how money is distributed

3.Arena is accessible to many people

4.To make allies. A lot of our allies work in this arena

5.Possibility of reaching scale

6.A way to mitigate or stop something

7.It’s a recognized form of power by decision-makers

8.It’s motivating to our leaders

9.It’s a legitimate and important arena where power must be built

REASONS TO BE ACTIVE IN ELECTORAL ARENA

Integrating Electoral Work & Community Organizing1. Developing ONGOING NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZING

STRUCTURES (example: Neighborhood Education Teams)

2. Training and DEVELOPMENT OF GRASSROOTS LEADERS (e.g. increasing skills & ownership) during NON-election cycles.

3. Recruiting and EXPANDING MASS MEMBERSHIP/ BASE by focusing on precincts/ groups of voters based on organizing goals.

4. Using LIVING DATABASE to make ongoing work more strategic and effective (analysis, targeting, tracking, evaluating)

5. Using other Technologies to make work more strategic and effective (e.g. GIS mapping, barcode scanning)

Different Approaches to Voter Outreach…

•MEDIA: TV and Radio ad’s; Press events; Newspaper Advertisements

•MAIL: Flyers, brochures, post cards, etc.

•FIELD/ ONE-ON-ONE: Precinct Walking; Phonebanks; On-site Outreach, House Meetings

•Others: “Robo-Calls”, church announcements, …?

“OCCASIONAL” VOTERS: • Vote in some elections, but not an “Always” voter—e.g. only vote in presidential elections or local

races.• Demographics: Higher concentration of young voters, low-income and people of color voters.• Focus is issue education AND energizing them to turn out. • These voters are our edge—pollsters don’t count them and most traditional programs ignore

these voters.

“ALWAYS” VOTERS:• Very likely to vote in most elections, based on voting history.• Demographics: Tend to be older, wealthier, lower % of people of color than general electorate.• Focus with these voters is issue persuasion

“NEW” VOTERS:• Newly eligible voters (new citizens or just turned 18) or recently moved into the area• Like Occasional voters, turnout with these voters tends to be low- around 20-25% in LA County• Focus is issue education AND energizing them to turn out.

Occasional Voters are our edge:

•the folks who don’t get polled;

• higher % of younger, poorer, people of color voters;

•if we don’t reach out to these voters, no one else will.

Voter ID/ Education• Precinct walks• Phonebanks

GOTV• Confirm Support• Remind Targeted Voters

Election Day Turnout/ Election Protection

• Walk to Targeted Voters• Poll Checking/ Watching

Why THREE contacts?

Montana

Idaho

Iowa

ColoradoMissouri

California

Nevada

Massachusetts

New MexicoAlabama

New York

Kentucky

Mississippi

CA STATE ALLIANCE1. Progressive State Electoral Network

2. Collaborative Progressive State Public Policies Initiatives (Tax & Fiscal, Apollo Alliance, Issue Hubs)

3. Organizational Capacity-Building in Strategic Regions (20 groups, 6 regions)

SCOPE1. Multi-Racial Base-Building & Leadership development

2. Regional Strategic Alliances & Capacity-Building

3. Strategies to Intervene in the Regional Economy

4. In-Depth Civic Participation.

ALLERT• Civic Participation to Scale• Ongoing regional Coalition• Living Voter database/ voter base• Indigenous Precinct network

PUSHBACK NETWORK

1. Anchor Organizations/ Coalition with common programs in 8 states (red/ blue).

2. Long-term Strategies for progressive shift in States’ Power Equation (base & “swing” constituencies).

3. Collaborative Capacity-Building.

Introduction to S.C.O.P.E.

Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education

AGENDA

• Building powerful grassroots organization in South L.A.

• Models for multi-ethnic organizing & leadership development

Los AngelesMetro

Alliance• Building

regional strategic alliances

• Building new grassroots organizations across L.A.• Proactive regional issue

campaigns

• Non-partisan voter education & participation

Strategic Initiatives

Environmental & Economic Justice Project Power Analysis Training

4Taken into Account

Can Get Attention

3

6Major Influence in decision-making

8Active Participant in Decision-making

10Decisive Decision-making Power or Influence

2Not on Radar

Die HardDie Hard Inclined Towards Active SupportActive Support Inclined Towards

STEP 2:Sketch the Competing Agendas. The agenda of the forces who are causing or perpetuating the problems, and your agenda (i.e. the vision you want to bring about)

STEP 3:Sketch the major centers of Decision-making Powerover the problem conditions

Board of Supervisors

State Legislature

City Council

STEP 4:Sketch Current Key Issue or Policy Battlesrelated to major problems & conditions STEP 5:

Sketch major organized Opposition Groups

STEP 6:Sketch Organized Progressive Groups (on your side)

STEP 7:Sketch key unorganizedsocial groups (who you think are most important to be organized)

STEPS TO POWER ANALYSIS

STEP 1:Define the major economic, political, and/or social Conditionswhich are negatively impacting primary constituencies

• Training & Strategy Tools to Help Build the Capacity of Social Justice Organizations.

• Regional, State, and National Alliance Building

• Civic Participation alliances and capacity-building.

Research & Training

• Community-based research for organizing & campaigns

• Strategic Research & Analysis (local, state, national, international)

• Education & training tools for participatory research

• Training & Technical Assistance

Proposition 187: Made it illegal for undocumented residents to access social service programs.

1994

Proposition 184:One of the first “three strikes you’re out” laws in the nation. Disproportionately impacted people of color.

Proposition 209:Eliminated Affirmative Action programs in the state of California.

1996

Proposition 226:Restricted Labor Unions ability to raised political money from it’s members.

1998

Proposition 227: Eliminated bilingual education programs.

1998

Snapshot of SCOPE’s Tactical Electoral Work 1994-2001

Propositions 21 and 22“Juvenile Injustice” and Anti-Gay MarriageProposition 38: School Vouchers.

2000

Developing Leaders• Organizing Skills• Political Education• Developing/Maintaining Membership Base

Expanding Neighborhood Education Teams

• Building a Permanent Network of Power • Building an On-Going Relationship with Voters• Connecting Electoral and Policy Arenas

Educating Public About Campaign Issues

• Education/Surveys on key campaign issues• Signing Petitions, Post Cards, etc.• Mobilizing to Campaign Actions

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Initial Neighborhood Education Team Targeting

NETs

• Teams of 2-4 People in a Precinct / Neighborhood• On going education and mobilization of Neighbors• Permanent base and infrastructure of power

SCOPE’S 2006 PROGRAM1. Test Program to Train NETs in Winter ’06

• Training and Tracking with PDAs• 4 Trainings and 3 Saturday Mobilizations with 60 Leaders

2. June Voter Education and Mobilization Program Contacting 5,000 Voters

• 4 Door-to-Door Mobilizations with 115 Precinct Leaders • A Street Action Team of 10 people for 3 weeks • A three day Get-Out-the-Vote Program which reminded

1,250

3. November Voter Education & Mobilization Program Contacting 8,600 Voters

• 4 Door-to-Door Mobilizations with 148 Precinct Leaders • A Street Action Team of 17 people for 4 weeks• A three day Get-Out-the-Vote Program which reminded

1,030 voters

SCOPE’s Increasing Scale of Contacts in 2006

Total Voters Contacted: 14,245

Non-Duplicative Contacts: 10,871

574

4,989

8,682

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Winter Spring Fall

Lessons from AGENDA’s 2006 Work

• N.E.T. Recruitment must be an on-going part of our work– not just around election time.

• Building an effective, committed coalition is critical to getting to scale.

• Scale increases over multiple Election Cycles as skills, experience and commitment increase.