Why and How We Organize
As we make this transition to Maryland Just Power Alliance, it has been a great opportunity to reflect on why and how we organize.
We have been holding interesting conversations with experts in organizing at the national level. Their message has been clear—our type of deep relational organizing, primarily connected to institutions, has a specific and important role to play in this political and cultural moment.
While we often talk about our achievements and challenges, I want to take some time today to share more about why and how we organize, and why it is particularly important right now.
The bedrock and center of our work is relational meetings. At a time where we are constantly connected to devices we do something old-school–we sit down, face-to-face, and exchange stories about who we are, what has shaped us, and our hopes for ourselves, our children, and our community.
Our organizers spend most of their time face-to-face with people. From these conversations, we figure out who sees things that are wrong and wants to do something about them. We get to know people who are brave and have some edge, who want to build genuine relationships, or who see a vision of how our community and world could be better and are willing to work towards those goals.
Connecting to others, and understanding our shared humanity, helps us feel less alone, and gives us hope.
This work cannot be done by surveys or on social media. It requires trust, especially when working together across race and class and faith. Trust of this kind only comes with time and collective experiences.Conversation is not enough.
We identify teams to work together on solutions that make a real, felt difference in people’s lives. We hold ourselves to the standard of working on issues only when people who are directly affected by them are leading the work.
We figure out who has the power to implement these solutions–elected officials, business leaders, community institutions–and then build the collective power to make those changes happen through strategic campaigns that usually last months or years.
This is how we have created hundreds of jobs, tens of thousands of homes, after-school programs for thousands of students, and much more.
Our focus on solutions requires imagination and helps us to get out of the defensive and depressing crouch of just reacting to the world around us. It makes us partners in governing with elected officials and businesses.
These exercises—working with leaders, building teams, creating solutions, building working relationships with other power players—are exactly the type of work that is needed to safeguard and build up our democracy to be of the people and for the people.
If you would like to get more involved with our work to build democracy from the ground up, we would love to have you join us! We have a Candidate Action on Sunday, October 18, 2:45 pm at First Baptist Church of Guilford in Columbia (register here), and opportunities to be part of our action teams at the local and state level. Email us at connect@actioninmontgomery.org to learn more.
Thank you for being part of our community and work!
Cynthia Marshall
Executive Director, Maryland Just Power Alliance
