Why Strategic Practice?
These are trying times for social movement organizers and activists. In addition to dealing with the impacts of ongoing financial and moral crises, we are trying to make sense of recent political set-backs. Putting current challenges into historical perspective is a critical step toward developing a social movement strategy for our time. As we critically assess the current moment, we find some potential openings amid the many set-backs, including possibilities for transforming our economy. In order to take advantage of these openings, social movement groups need to orient their short-term actions toward advancing long-term strategy. They need strategic practice.
Many social movement groups are rethinking their long-held approaches to organizing, mobilizing, cutting issues, communicating vision and goals and other activities. Building from the best of their organizing traditions, these groups are experimenting with new approaches, expanding their power analysis, re-examining their assumptions about alliance-building, exploring their fundamental beliefs and tying vision to strategy.
At the Grassroots Policy Project (GPP), we have spent over 14 years developing and refining concepts and tools for strategy development. More recently, our focus has been on how groups operate within a long-term social change strategy. Strategic practice is about how long-term goals show up in an organization’s day-to-day work, or how long-term strategy actually impacts what an organization does.
We are launching this site on strategic practice as a place to explore, learn from, and debate the kinds of experimentation in organizing, alliance-building, communications and electoral engagement that are happening today.
This summary of ‘elements of strategic practice’ is distilled from our case study of ISAIAH’s worldview, leadership development and racial justice work:
- A bold, long-term vision for social transformation is at the heart of the organization’s work.
- The organization has a systematic and disciplined organizing methodology.
- Leadership development is central to all organizing practice.
- The work is about both social and personal transformation.
- Strategies are rooted in a deliberate power analysis that understands both organization and ideas as forms of power.
- Investments are made in alliance-building, to achieve results that no single organization can accomplish on its own.
- To achieve major changes, groups and their leaders must sometimes take organizational and personal risks.
Please let us know what you think about these elements: what are you seeing in your organization or in others, that reflects strategic practice? How do these elements compare? Would you add elements, or state these differently? Please share your thoughts and examples with us.
Here's a partial listing of writings on strategic practice [click here for a complete listing]:
Other resources on strategic practice:
• [Tom's paper]
* [Zemsky and Mann]
• [Robin Katcher]
