ANALYZING AND EVALUATING ORGANIZING STRATEGIES
Level III
RATIONALE: Effective organizers ground their work in theories based on knowledge of issues, groups, and practices of those that came before them. Successful organizing campaigns involve thought, planning and reflection. Organizing efforts often fail because they are reactive, because they lack thoughtful strategies, and/or because they employ the wrong tactics. Most labor and community organizers develop their skills, often with inadequate preparation, in the heat of particular campaigns. How to develop organizing strategies and methods of evaluating campaigns are skills that can be learned.
In many cases working papers and evaluations of their efforts are available for analysis, and organizing students can learn a great deal by analyzing their experience, along with the approaches, values, goals, strategies and tactics these organizers have adopted. Having developed an understanding of the role an organizer plays and the methods she employs in carry out that role, this competency adds to the student’s knowledge base by addressing theories and practices that enhance an organizer’s ability to select the appropriate approach to a campaign. Organizers learn from their own experiences as well as those of others. To ensure skills in evaluating one’s own practice, this competency requires students to have knowledge in evaluating the effectiveness of organizing strategies. Students will assess a selected case study through analyzing: its context, the organizing target, goals of the campaign, selected strategy, resources available, use of the media, etc. Then they will evaluate the campaign described in the case study to determine its relative success and limitations.
COMPETENCY: Can analyze and evaluate the literature about strategic approaches adopted by organizers, analyze a case study of an organizing effort, and evaluate the effectiveness of the organizing strategy involved.
CRITERIA:
1. Review literature that discusses approaches employed by organizers.
2. Choose a case study of an organizing campaign based on one or more of the approaches reviewed.
3. Analyze the case study.
4. Evaluate the campaign described in the case study in terms of both its success (or lack of success) in meeting its goals, and how well the organizing model served the organizers.
PORTFOLIO LINK: You are expected to use the Level III Communications Portfolio writing standards as guidelines for the essays required by this competency. At a minimum, writing should demonstrate Level II Communications Portfolio standards.
STANDARDS:
1. For Criterion 1: Review at least three approaches employed by organizers. The three types of organizing to be examined should be selected based on a general review of the literature of organizing and/or based on suggestions by the evaluator/instructor. For Labor Studies majors, at least one case should involve organizing and/or unionizing unorganized workers; and at least one should involve organizing to gain a contract or solve a worksite problem.
Refer to each type of organizing and identify:
a. The political and historical context in which this approach was developed.
b. The values and political views of those who developed the approach.
c. The short-range and long-range goals of the approach.
d. The tactics associated with the approach.
e. An example of a strategy associated with each of the three (e.g., a case or example in which organizers using one of the approaches developed a strategy and carried it out).
f. What writers, analysts, participants, and the organizers themselves reported on the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy employed.
2. For Criterion 2: A case study should be chosen after consultation with an evaluator or instructor. In some cases, where documentation is sufficient, a case study may be derived from the student’s own organizing efforts. The case may be contemporary or historical.
3. For criterion #3, the explanation of the case study should be made with appropriate descriptive detail. The student should attempt to analyze the case in the terms of all the questions posed below. (If the information provided in the case studies is not sufficient, the student may conduct interviews or additional research to provide added information.)
a. the context in which the organizing campaign took place and how the issues were created and framed by the organizers or by others;
b. the target the organizers chose and why;
c. the goals the organizers chose for the campaign and why;
d. the strategy the organizers chose and why;
e. the choice of strategy, and how it was affected by the values of the organizers and the approach they favored;
f. what resources the organizers utilized and how well they exploited those resources, including sources of information and funding as well as research and media aid;
g. what key groups or constituencies had a stake in the outcome;
h. how well the organizers targeted their opposition and how well they mobilized their constituents and potential allies;
i. what internal problems (including issues of race, class and gender) and external obstacles (e.g., opposition by media and law enforcement) the organizers faced and how they attempted to overcome those obstacles;
j. what tactics the organizers adopted, how well they worked, and what tactics organizers ignored;
k. how well the organizers used the media, and developed a strategy and tactics for doing so;
l. how well the organizers related to elected leaders and to the members and/or followers they were trying to organize; and how the campaign effort or organization functioned internally in terms of democracy, participation, education and empowerment.
4. For Criterion 4: The evaluation of the case study should be based on the descriptive analysis presented in Criterion 3. It should address points a-e in a general way, and may include additional points of analysis the student may wish to add.
a. how well the organizing model served the activists in providing goals, strategies and tactics;
b. how the organizers defined success or failure;
c. why the strategies adopted succeeded or why they failed;
d. why the tactics adopted succeeded or why they failed;
e. what role the organizers themselves played and how they were viewed by the people they tried to organize.
EXAMPLES OF DEMONSTRATION:
1. Prior Learning: A student with experience in community organizing could select three approaches to community organizing like the Alinsky approach, the modified Alinsky or Midwest Academy approach, or the feminist approach. After examining these approaches, the student could then analyze his or her own community organizing experiences in the light of his/her readings.
2. Independent Study: A student interested in labor union organizing could select three approaches to union organizing such as the Blitz, the Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers approach, and a card-check recognition approach. After examining the approaches, the student would evaluate a case study that employed one or more of the approaches, explaining how the approach used in the case was or was not appropriate and effective.
3. Course: Student completes a CPCS course addressing the competency, or an appropriate transfer.
4. Field Project: As part of a CPCS field project, students could take part in an organizing project on the issue of welfare reform. They could read about three potentially appropriate approaches to organizing around this issue, such as the single-issue approach, the multi-issue movement-building approach, and the feminist approach. After examining the approaches, the students could put together a presentation examining the pros and cons of each approach to the task at hand, and recommending the approach they find most appropriate.