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Creating Grassroots Movements for Change: A Field Manual
Chapter 8: Growing Your Organization
You’ve started a grassroots social movement that has done exactly what you’d hoped—generated a dedicated following of like-minded people who care passionately about the cause. To have the biggest impact, though, you’ll want to expand that following internationally, and move from online communities to real-world communities.
To successfully grow your organization, you will need:
- Consensus
- Organizational structure
- Forethought
- Diplomacy
- Creativity
Although the ideals you started with—your mission statement—should always guide your movement, the following practical considerations can help broaden your goals:
Step 1: Reach consensus. As your movement grows, more members will have more ideas about what you should do, and how and when you should do it. This is exactly what should happen with a grassroots movement, so encourage a diversity of voices by relying on consensus to shape your plans. If individuals feel they don’t have a say, they’ll become resentful or disenfranchised, as will the majority if they see that a single person or small group of members hold all the power. Put potential projects or plans up for a vote.Reach out to members and event participants via e-mail, text, social-networking sites, and forums. Their feedback should help shape your group's future, set a precedent for open communication, and keep enthusiasm up.
Step 2: Consider infrastructure. If your group grows large enough and is active in planning offline activities, you may need the logistical organization that a leadership structure can provide.You may want to elect officers, or ask any leaders who have emerged to take on specific roles that suit their talents and skills, like heading up membership outreach, fundraising, event planning, or public relations. In either case, keep this team as small as can manage the tasks required, and make sure their actions and decisions are always transparent to all members.
Tip 1: Think about how you might create a leadership structure before you actually need to do so. If your group outgrows your ability to make decisions and effect change, it will be more difficult to figure out how to proceed when you have so many other issues to deal with.
Step 3: Consider a code. Whether your group has a flat structure, where each member has equal power, or managers who are empowered to take on specific responsibilities, consider creating a code of ethics by which your members agree to act. The larger you grow, the likelier your members will disagree with each other and factions can develop. A code of ethics or a constitution that members agree to follow can help institute rules that mirror the movement’s ethos and goals, and can guide decision-making and planning.
Tip 2: Friction can develop among personalities within a group for a number of reasons, including success. If a spokesperson is frequently interviewed or highlighted in the media, members could resent their public perception as an authority. If a group grows very large, a faction could develop that wants to take the movement in a new direction. Work to resolve tensions diplomatically, but remember: it’s possible that a splinter group could ultimately be positive. After all, the more groups bringing attention to your cause, the better!
Step 4: Set an Agenda. Have your new core group examine feedback to help define your cause and its goals. Once you've reached consensus on what you want to achieve, create a short-term and a long-term action plan to focus on what needs to be done within the next six months – and what you hope to accomplish in the coming years. Set priorities for all your short-term items now, and review your progress frequently.
Step 5: Build Alliances. Build alliances. You will naturally become aware of other movements, organizations, nonprofits, schools, companies in the private sector, powerful individuals, and even government agencies that are aligned with or sympathetic to your cause. Reach out to them. They may have a well-established presence in a certain geographical area, a mailing list that they are willing to share, or the means to generate exposure for your cause. Be willing to reciprocate.
Tip 3: Choose your alliances wisely. If you accept aid of any kind from an organization that is affiliated with anything opposed to your movement, the association could undermine your credibility and hinder your group more than help.
Step 6: Establish Yourself. Register as an official, legal entity to establish your legitimacy. Check your local laws to see what's required in your area. Becoming official may qualify you for grants and assistance, like the Google Grants program, which gives free advertising to charitable organizations to help drive traffic to their web sites.
Step 7: Raise funds. Come up with creative ways for members and other interested parties to donate online, such as the Causes application on Facebook, and at events; sell merchandise with your logo; call upon alliances you’ve developed to partner with you in money-making ventures; approach companies for donations of money, goods, or services as part of their corporate social responsibility plans; host a mobile fundraiser. With any fundraising effort, be clear about how your organization will use the money.
Tip 4: Although licensing your name and logo to sell merchandise could earn your movement money, consider this: If your group becomes popular offline, allowing anyone—like street vendors or student groups—to sell merchandise using your name and logo could generate more exposure for your movement, which may be more valuable in the long run.
Step 8. Grow offline. Although most modern grassroots movements start online, if you’re afforded the freedom of speech or the ability to gather in your country, they don’t have to stay there. Build on the success of whatever activities you’ve already organized, or take advantage of a critical moment in the history of your cause to plan creative new ways to further your social mobilization. Develop training sessions or workshops, create and screen media relevant to your cause, or host any number of awareness-raising (or fundraising) events.
Step 9. Attract an international audience. Your online presence and popularity may naturally attract members from other countries, especially if there is an expatriate community abroad to whom you can appeal. Likewise, as you seek to form alliances with other groups, look to international ones who can help spread your message to a global audience. Consider hosting or participating in an on- or offline international conference or summit where you can make new connections abroad.
Step 10. Go international. Prepare to extend your reach to foreign soil, not just in online membership but in action. Research the country in question to ensure that the government will be receptive to your active presence there, and be respectful of all local legal and bureaucratic rules and procedures. If you have the money and ability to place experienced group members abroad, make sure they work in partnership with locals who know the culture of both the local movement and the place itself. After all, the most important element of a successful international grassroots movement is that it is grass roots.
Did you know: By 2008, just three years after it was founded, Invisible Children had grown to employ 35 people in the U.S. and 95 in Uganda, with an annual operating budget of nearly $10 million. Visit Invisible Children at http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php
How do you appeal to the private sector for help?
Case study: In 2008, the first full year mobile fundraising technology was available, $500,000 was raised via texts – $200,000 more than all of the internet proceeds of 1997, the first year online donations became popular.
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