Over the years Organizing Empowerment trainers have worked with groups in 27 states on how to plan and implement a successful relational organizing program. We have worked with large multi-state national committees with hundreds of staff, to small two-person teams organizing a few zip codes.
Through almost 10 years of implementing relational organizing, we have learned that there is a sizable gap in organizing knowledge and the way that it is trained and implemented. Over the years, the organizing movement has begun to focus on big data and micro-targeting at the expense of organizing, at times insisting that we only need to communicate to a narrow pool of the electorate. In recent years this has left millions out of our organizing programs because they didn’t fit the targeted model. Relational organizing provides a way to expand the reach back out into communities, who have been left behind and are often hard to reach.
Organizing Empowerment works to get us back to the foundational roots of organizing. We have assisted relational organizing in rural districts, urban and suburban districts, communities of color, and in multiple languages.
Most importantly, Organizing Empowerment works with leaders already engaged in targeted communities. Relational organizing is about building real power and a movement that is sustainable beyond the next election, with organizers who will continue to work to ensure their communities thrive.