Choosing Problems & Issues

There is a difference between a problem and an issue. The problem is what is wrong, an issue is a solution or partial solution to a problem. We organize to win issues. This sessions offers the Midwest Academy's criteria for selecting problems and issues based on an analysis of the common points in many successful campaigns. A written exercise and discussion follow.
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Using Storytelling as an Organizing Tool

Master story teller David Hunt leads this session. The focus is on why knowing people's life stories is a necessary step in developing leadership and framing issues. Class members exchange the stories of what brought them into organizing.


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Economic Context Of Organizing]

Economic trends in the country and the world shape our organizing possibilities. This slide presentation examines recent trends in income, jobs taxes. It challenges the claim that these are the best of times for the US economy, and highlights rising inequality in income and wealth.
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Strategy Guidelines

Strategy development is the core of the Midwest Academy program. We teach it through the use of the strategy chart which relates the five basic elements of strategy.

1. Goals, the long term intermediate and short term issues that you want to win.
2. Organizational Considerations, what resources your organization brings to the campaign, and what specific forms of organizational growth you hope to achieve during the campaign.
3. Constituency, the answer to the question, who cares about this issue? How are people already organized? How can we cut the issue to get the broadest support?
4. Decision Maker, the person or persons who can give you what you want. (also know as the Target of the campaign.) The decision maker is always a person, never as institution.
5. Tactics, what the people in the constituency column do to the Decision Maker in order to force the Decision Maker to give you your Goals.

Action Guidelines

An Action is a tactic that is particularly useful to medium sized community groups. During an action a Decision Maker or "Target" is confronted by an organized group of people. A demand is made and the group expects a positive response on the spot. The skill lies in being able to figure out what power the organization has over the decision maker, what demand is commiserate with the power, and how to demonstrate the power during the Action. A role play of an action follows the presentation.
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Recruitment

Getting people to join an organization requires two things. First, they have to be asked, and second, the act of joining needs meet some element of self interest. Self interest comes from a Latin word meaning to be among or between. Self interest therefore means self among others, and it is quite different from the word selfish. This session focuses on understanding individual and organizational self interest. Guidelines for recruitment are presented, followed by one-on-one recruitment roleplays
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Working With Coalitions

The Coalition session emphasizes understanding the self interest of organizations. Advantages and disadvantages of coalitions building are discussed along with guidelines for successful coalition building. Time usually allows some trouble shooting of actual coalition problems that students are facing. An exercise on evaluating potential coalition partners follows the presentation.
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Preconditions For Social Change Movements

Many people doing the day to day work of organization building, hope that eventually their efforts will grow into a full scale social movement. It is therefore necessary to analyze the emergence of social movements in history, and to develop an understanding of the forces that make them possible. This session looks at the economic precondition of the movements of the 1960's and '70's, the Civil Rights Movement, the Student Movement and the Women's Movement, and it traces their origins to the economic and social conditions created by the Second World War. The discussion then shifts to more recent movements, and attempts to define what organizers can and can not do to further movement development.
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Accountability Sessions

An Accountability Session is a large community meeting with an elected official. It is held on your organization's turf. It should not be confused with a "town meeting" at which all points of view are heard. This meeting is to present only the views of your organization. Testimony is given by leaders of your group and allied organizations, and then the elected official is asked to respond to very specific demands put by a panel of leaders. The official is expected to yield to the groups demands. An accountability Session is a major show of numerical strength which can translate into votes. It requires showing community support beyond the people in the room. We outline the use of the strategy chart in planning this type of event. and delineate the specific tasks that leaders must perform. Students then roleplay planning and enacting an Accountability Session with an instructor in the role of the elected official.
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Film

Salt Of The Earth, Herbert Biberman's 1953 classic film, deals with the impact of race and gender divisions on the unity of striking Mexican American zinc miners. Made with a blacklisted cast and film crew, and banned by the Hollywood film industry, this production demonstrates the impact of the witch hunt and McCarthyism on American politics and organizations.

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Media Guidelines

Any organization can get good media coverage. This session analyzes the self interest of the media and explains how group can get into the news. It focuses on doing a media hit, and event created especially for the media. Media advisories and press releases are discussed, and the session ends with a roleplaying a media hit.
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Page Revised 12/30/98