We’ve been looking at the grassroots community led social justice organization movement lately. As part of this we decided to see who PTP has reached over the years. It’s interesting primarily because it shows how widespread the movement is. Here’s a map from our web site:
Mark this event on your calendar! Paul Getsos, co-author of Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for Power in your Community, will do a book reading on Wednesday April 2nd 2008 – 7:00pm, Magers & Quinn Bookstore (3038 Hennepin Avenue S., Minneapolis).
In Tools for Radical Democracy, Getsos and co-author Minieri share stories and tools from their nationally recognized and award-winning work of building a community-led organization, training community leaders, and conducting campaigns that changed public policy and delivered concrete results to tens of thousands of people. The book contains keen insights for using technology effectively, building more powerful alliances, and engaging in the social justice movement.
“This manual is an organizer’s organizer. I hope many people will put this to use.”
—Heather Booth, founder and president, Midwest Academy
“This book is ‘the secret’ for building collective power for long-term social change.”
—Nat Chioke Williams, Executive Director, Hill-Snowdon Foundation
“Minieri and Getsos provide real-world examples of how ordinary people can become leaders who effect positive change. This book will be required reading for our staff and recommended reading for all our members.”
—Janet S. Keating, Co-Director, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
“Students, scholars, and social activists alike will find something to their tastes in this how-to guide for rebuilding democracy from the ground up.”
—Joaquin Herranz Jr., Assistant Professor, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington
Are you trying to get your membership database to talk to your voter canvass data? Are you interested in attending PTP’s Voter Tech Training but don’t have the funds? Do you need some help from political or technology consultants to move your electoral engagement planning forward?
If you answered “YES” to one or more of these questions, you might be interested in a new grant program that PTP just opened:
The Progressive Technology Project is announcing the VOTER Project, a new initiative that builds on its new Voter TechKit. In the Voter Organizing Technology Education and Resources Project (VOTER Project) PTP will work with community-led organizations to greatly increase their long-term capacity to conduct effective integrated voter engagement activities.
PTP will work with a select group of 501 C3 community organizing groups that are engaged in voter education and get-out-the-vote projects in 2008. This program is designed to develop, support and document efforts to integrate the organization’s voter engagement work with its on-going programmatic work.
Details and application information are here.
Organizer and author Paul Getsos, (co-author of “Tools for Radical Democracy” and former director of Community Voices Heard) will help us kick off the Databases, and Technology Assessment and Planning Training, April 2-4 in Minneapolis, MN.
Paul’s joining us to share his experience and perspective on how and why technology, and in particular databases are a critical tool for building power. As he and Joan Minieri wrote:
Organizing is ultimately about building and managing mass numbers of relationships. A database offers the most effective way to track and manage relationships.
With a well-organized and well-managed database, you keep track of everyone who comes into contact with the organization. . . . Of all the technologies available for large-scale base-building, mobilizing, and leadership development, an easy-to-use database is the one technology that most effectively builds the power of an organization.
There are still a few more places available in the Database Training, so if you’re interested, click here to register.
Also, if you’re thinking about registering for our Voter Tech Training, and your organization doesn’t have a solid data system “footing,” you should really think about attending both April 2-4 Database training, as well as the Voter Tech Training.
I picked up this article by Eugene Eric Kim via Jon Stahl’s blog.
In it, Eugene writes about a training experience in which he clearly sees the impact of differences in technology understanding - what he calls the technology understanding gap:
The following day, I co-led a session on this topic with AngusParker. Two of the participants were dealing with the specific challenge of connecting members of a national network of leaders in reproductive health, so we used that as a case study. We decided to use Clay’s contention to frame the problem, resulting in this whiteboard:
What do you notice about this picture? Obviously, the Tools column is completely empty. That’s a dead giveaway that I’m facilitating this discussion. (That and the horrific handwriting.) Figure out the basics first. Don’t let the question about technology drive the discussion. During the discussion, one of the participants asked, “What tools can we use?” I responded, “Let’s not worry about that now.” So we kept talking and talking, and I noticed the two non-technical participants in the group squirming like crazy. So I stopped, noticed how gaping the Tools column looked, and said, “You’re uncomfortable about not having discussed the tools, aren’t you.” She nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” I responded. “The tools part will be easy, once we figure everything else out.” “Easy for you, maybe,” she said. “You already know what goes there.” That was not quite true, but I got her point, and the force of it struck me so hard, I had to stop for a moment. I looked at the gap, and I saw possibilities. She looked at the gap, and she saw a void. That was upsetting for her. It made it hard for her to think about the other aspects of the problem. It made me realize how much I take my technology literacy for granted. But it also created an opportunity to discuss how easily we are sidetracked by technology. “Tool” does not have to mean software, and making that assumption prevents us from exploring other viable, possibly better solutions.
Jon follows up with this observation:
often, people who are less technically literate think that if they only fill in the right answer in that middle “Tools” column, that their problems will all be solved. When, really, it is more important to get the Promise and the Bargain right. I like to call this pattern “magical tool thinking.” It results in a lot of wasted time and effort trying to identify that magical, right tool — effort which should go into thinking about process, objectives and how to sustain the non-technological parts of the organizing effort.
I couldn’t agree more - with both of them. In fact, it is this “Technology Understanding Gap” and the its impacts that Jon notes that we address with our Community Organizing and Technology Institute.
Our goal with COaTI - and really all of our programs - is to help organizers understand what’s possible with technology so that organizers can put the “tools” in their proper context and focus on the goals and strategy that should drive any technology’s use.
