So You Want to Start Organizing….Tips & Tricks for Community Organizing

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Community Organizing: Tips & Tricks

Community Organizing can be a powerful tool to initiate change! What a lot of people new to organizing may not realize is that effective and sustainable community organizing takes a LOT of patience, intentional relational work, and a hefty dose of communication and planning. 

Brown Girls Climb started as an instagram but quickly turned into a much larger group/movement. We have not perfected community organizing and probably never will but wanted to share a few tips, tricks, and lessons we’ve learned along our journey. 

Take what you need and leave the rest!

  1. Find a crew

Organizing is rarely done by a single person. Finding friends, family, or other community members that share your initial vision (this will morph with the people you meet) is an integral place to start to build support and accountability throughout the process. On the other end, having too large of a group at the start can also be a challenge to establish regular meetings, expectations, and general roles. The old saying “Too many cooks in the kitchen” can definitely apply here. We suggest starting small and diverse and intentional build structures that will expand to more people and continue creating accountability along the way. Take time to get to know one another, how each of you prefers to communicate or be communicated with, your strengths and growth areas, and the capacity each of you have to contribute.

  1. Understand your community needs

Most people typically start with a gap or a problem they are individually facing. This is a great way to start but we want to encourage you as you think about creating a resource for multiple people to include their voice along the way. Ask for feedback on what their needs are and what issues they’re facing. Although you may not be able to address them all initially, you can begin to consider how complex the issue you are facing really is and as possible solutions arise, begin crafting approaches that can meet multiple needs in the community outside of the one’s you’ve identified. Asking for feedback from other people that may be facing similar problems or issues is also a great way to build your crew and find interested volunteers!

  1. Develop governance values and agreements

So often this step is skipped because of a shared assumption that everyone is on the same page. Well, even if you’re a crew of besties, we’d recommend you establish some clear house rules and agreements in addition to your mission. These guidelines will help your team build a solid foundation of mutual understanding and can help you work through the following issues that will DEFINITELY arise:

Mission

This is the reason you’ve come together. Maybe it’s to get a stoplight at that intersection that has a history of accidents or maybe it’s build a climbing community in your city, whatever it is, it will help to write your mission down. And remember, you’re creating something and that process of creation doesn’t stop just because you wrote a sentence. You can always go back and recraft it as your vision becomes clearer.

Method for resolving Internal conflict

Sounds scary, we know but a good team is a diverse team and a diverse team won’t always agree and shouldn’t Providing a method or approach to working through internal conflict (from personal to professional) is helpful to acknowledge that this will probably happen and empower your crew to work through it with care and empathy towards one another.

Examples: Discussing resources on calling people in and conflict resolution

Accountability

Just because you think you are doing good work doesn’t mean you aren’t immune to issues along the way. Building accountability methods into your agreements will help you consistently examine ways to reduce harm and seek guidance along the way. You won’t always know the right answer so building honest relationships with people not afraid to call you in is critical. Admittedly, we’re still building and rebuilding our methods into BGC as we grow so this process will be ongoing as you grow and change. We have a lot of folks to thank for checking us when we needed to be checked. Remember your work is for the community. You are accountable to them first! 

Examples: Setting up committees or open community calls 

Self care

Ayyyyeee. This is such a toughie! As Women of Color, many of us labor out of love and many times at the expense of our own health and wellness. Be intentional about your agreements and values and make sure taking time or space for yourself is included. A good team will hopefully be composed of people that can hold one another accountable to this aspect as well. Doing community organizing, especially frontline work is a long term gig and retaining your health is not an option. So build these values into your agreements to make sure folks can take a breather as needed.

Examples: Provide clearly written statements or reminders for folks to take care of themselves. This could be turning off a video during a zoom call or calling a meeting off altogether if needed.

Equitable workload

A big part of leadership is learning how to effectively distribute and delegate tasks. Admittedly some of us are better at this than others and sometimes it takes time to figure out what works best for folks. Establishing roles and responsibilities (even if those change) can be helpful to start along with checkpoints and communication avenues for folks to voice concerns when they might feel things shift to a point where the workload is inequitable is important. Organizing a leadership 

team is it’s own task and an important one to take your time on before growing too fast. This will hopefully help create an effective model as you growth and reach more people. Again, this is an area we are still working on so thinking about it ahead of time will save you some time and struggles we dealt with! 

Examples: Tools like SLACK, Google Groups, Trello and other task management tools can help keep things in order and on track as well!

  1. Identify an initial goal or objective 

Changing the world can be exhilarating even if it’s just in your neighborhood. It can also be daunting! If your mission is for something grand (like changing the face of the outdoors), start with a local or grassroots project that you are familiar with. Identify a local problem that you might be able to help with. Maybe it’s gear or protest supplies or organizing an Afro Latinx queer yoga meet-up, there are an infinite amount of opportunities out there for you to create space and build resources for people out there. Start with a local issue and no doubt more and more people will resonate with what your building and want to help it grow in the future.

  1. Outreach to other orgs, communities, etc to generate support and advice:

The good thing about organizing is there are so many people and groups out there that have had success and challenges along the way! It’s great to have mentors and people that can help answer questions BEFORE you encounter major problems and also help you optimize your approach to organizing. 

Outreach tips

Collaborating with other groups is a great way to spread the word about the work you’re doing. A lot of folks are usually very enthusiastic about supporting your work and can give you their strategies on building partnerships with artists, sponsors, and community builders in your region.

Legal tips or considerations

Whoo. This was always feels icky to talk about because it’s often a tool to police our communities. In reality, this is a real risk and depending on your identity, there may be additional considerations that are worth considering regarding your region or identity. As women of color, we are already questioned at the crag, so we knew it was important to get our certification and insurance so that we aren’t further targeted. Additionally, if you decide to file as a non-profit or a for profit, work with you or special populations, there may be legal issues that are worth researching. Early outreach for legal advice and perspectives can help set you up to more easily navigate complicated systems. You’d be surprised how many business, non-profit, and legal experts are some of your communities!

Fiscal and non fiscal support

Financial support can be one of the biggest challenges for community organizing. Outreach to community and their extended networks can put you in  contact with large and small brands, private funders, or other community organizers that can help you creatively think about ways to generate financial support. Additionally, resources like volunteer time or resources (gear, software, accounting and legal services,) can be hugely impactful if navigated with intention. Taking time to make a list of financial and non financial needs can help you approach folks that want to help with a clear list of items that are useful. 

  1. Develop a plan:

After or during your community outreach, start developing a plan for your initial specific project. This should include the following:

  • Timeline – What should get done in the next few months? Year? Is there an end date? Creating a task list for the timeline can help move things along or at least set the stage for moving the vision forward.
  • Cost/budget – How much would making your dream project come true? What’s the leas amount that you need to make it happen? Establishing a range of a conservative and liberal budget can be helpful to decide what are the ‘must haves’ and the ‘extras’. Also it is worth considering your own time and contributions and how this can be factored in as a line item.
  • Assign roles and responsibilities – What are people’s strengths and capacities for contributing to the project? Work with the timeline and your crew to break up the roles and responsibilities for completing the project
  1. Continual check ins for labor and health

As your project and initiative continues, it is SOOOO important to continue to check in about equitable labor distribution and health and wellness of your volunteers or organizers. We can’t stress this enough. This work is hard, especially if you are advocating for your identities or others in a space. It’s super exhausting. Your health and your team’s health is the most important to keep the momentum and initiatives up so remember to take a moment to breathe, take the day off to  go for a hike or an ice cream, or just laugh with your crew and make sure, together, your organizing team is holding each other accountable to this as well. 

  1. Continual check ins for relational health between members

Along with self care, is checking in on the health of your relationships between organizers. Disagreements and discomforts will come up. Practicing deep listening skills, humility, and just practicing apologizing for unintentional harm when it comes up will help create these expectations as the norm within leadership. These relationships are sacred and nourishing them is such a critical part of moving and creating in community.

  1. Continual check ins for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion education and accountability within your crew to the community you’re trying to serve

As your team or efforts expands, your education will need to as well. Our work is intersectional, so make sure you are continuing your education where and when possible to make sure your work is accessible for as many folks that may want to access it and to help you lead and organize with empathy. Some examples of areas to learn are accessibility information for events and organizing, trans rights and inclusive practices, understanding anti-blackness and white supremacy, deepening understanding of Land Back initiatives and Inidgenous sovereignty. 

  1. Also, trash the scarcity mentality

Most of us encounter a moment of fear that someone else is doing something similar or another organization is getting funded etc. This fear stems out of the idea of scarcity keeps us in competition with one another instead of in collaboration with one another. We’re in the business of wealth redistribution because let’s get real, the wealth is out there but it’s isolated with certain people in certain communities. So, remember that there is enough space for the work you want to do, don’t be afraid to reach out to similar groups to see how you can support each other, and hopefully leverage your collective power to get support from outside of your orgs. 

Climbing & Gym Specific Advice

-Hold local gyms and orgs accountable to equitable and inclusive employment and outreach programs. Here’s a Brown Girls Climb resource for communicating with your gym.

-Use your resources and network to support local social justice or climate justice efforts

-Brainstorm ways to reimagine climbing as a source of healing and restoration for your community

Brown Girls Climb Leadership and Local Interest

We are not currently recruiting new BGC local leaders for the remainder of 2021 but we do plan on activating new regions in the future. Please read more about starting your own chapter here! Please join as a member (free membership are available) to gain access to our app and start getting connected with us. We encourage our members to request a regional group to made for you and your community in our app to start organizing other members online in the meantime so that when applications are released you and another coleader are ready to be supported in person and on the ground!

Resources:

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