Organizational Reflection for Strengthening our Organizations and Movements Regardless of Election Outcomes
In this current moment we are facing rising threats with less preparedness, power, unity, skills, and resources than we would like. We didn’t choose these conditions, but we can choose how we prepare for and respond to them.
As organizations focused on building the capacity of our movements, we are committed to supporting you to navigate our current conditions and respond to election outcomes in ways that leave our movements more powerful and resilient then they were before election season.
The following prompts can be used alongside scenario planning to grow our capacity in six core areas: 1) connecting to and building base, 2) strengthening our movement ecosystem, 3) practicing principled disagreement, 4) building resilient organizational culture, 5) learning about and engaging with power, and 6) exercising radical imagination.
Connecting to and building base
What are 2-3 ways our base expects the election outcomes to impact the kind of work we do/the communities we organize with? What role can our organization play as our base and communities navigate these impacts?
How can our scenario planning and election response work build the organizing skills, political education and social emotional capacities of our base?
Building resilient organizational culture
How will we navigate fear and grief, cultivate hope, and connect to the legacies of resilience and resistance we come before the election? How will we continue these practices if/when times get harder?
What are 2-3 ways that our organization might experience disruption to our structural and financial health? Who, in our organization, would be a part of tending to that disruption? How could we tend to that disruption by working in partnership across organizations or sectors?
How will staff/workers of our organization be personally impacted by various election outcomes? How can we support one another? What policies and practices does our organization need in place? What might we want to develop that will support our organization to balance attending to the work that matters and ensuring that staff/workers are tending to their well being and communities?
Strengthening our movement ecosystem
What are 2 organizations inside my sector that I want to invite for a conversation to learn what they are considering? What do I want to share and what do I want to know so we can support each other to play our roles well?
What are 2 organizations outside of my sector that if I connected with, we might offer each other some dynamic opportunities as we tend to new conditions?
Learning about and engaging with power
How do we understand, and make meaning of, the power we have in this moment vs. the power we ultimately want to build? What is our assessment of what stands most in our way?
How do we understand, and make meaning of, the power that our opposition has?
Practicing principled disagreement
On a scale of 1 to 5, how practiced is my organization at being in disagreement? 1 is disagreements do not end well, often resulting in damage to relationships or further confusion and 5 is we disagree well with each other and use disagreement to build deeper clarity. What would it take to get your organization to a 5?
While doing scenario planning and responding to these prompts ask: where do we disagree? Take time to explore your answers.
Exercising radical imagination
What are 3 practices we could draw on that would build our organizational culture to ensure that possibility, joy, and soulfulness are at the center of how we work?
What is something you’ve always thought would be powerful to try in your organization's work that might thrive inside new conditions?