Overview
Structure is at the very heart of organizing. How we choose to build our organizations, how we relate to each other both vertically and horizontally, how we sustain staff and leadership, are all questions deeply connected to our organizational structures.
In this experimental workshop, you will be joined by others who are seeking to reflect on their own experiences in organizing, about what’s worked in some places and why, about what’s not worked and why, and have the opportunity to come up with new ideas and plans for how you engage in your work. We will be focusing primarily on the question of “How do we build meaningful structures in our organizations that can sustain and develop volunteer leaders over the long term?”
This course will be a facilitated, discussion-based experience with minimal direct instruction. Participants will be coming in with their own contexts and experiences, learning from those experiences, drawing their own conclusions, and designing systems for application. Each session will have its own initial focus, and will build on one another as we progress.
Lesson Plan
- Principles of Leadership Team Structures
- Tasks & Responsibilities
- Leadership Ladders
- Building Volunteer Leadership Programs
Who is this course for?
- Organizers and EDs: Participants should be movement practitioners who are tasked with, or interested in, building member and/or volunteer leadership structures at their organizations. Ideal participants will have experience with succeeding and/or failing at implementing long-term leadership structures.
- Relational & people-focused: Ideal participants are excited to build relationships, to invest in the leadership of others, and to build and grow healthy membership and/or volunteer organizations.
- Open to sharing and experimenting: Structure is heavily context-based and as such, there is no one formula for how to do it. Participants in this course should come ready to share what they’ve worked on, and be open to changing and experimenting with new approaches in their work.
Ideal applicants come from all walks of life–we welcome everyone from activists looking to deepen their skills, to complete beginners who are passionate about organizing. Here are some attributes shared by all our applicants:
Relational: We are interested in people who are curious and committed to working in collaboration with others. If you are interested in building power with your community, or in investigating innovative ways of bringing people together for social change, then you may be a good fit.
Organizing Insight: You don’t need to be a professional organizer but we’re looking for applicants with some experience doing organizing and/or community-building work on the ground. That work can be tied to grassroots, electoral, and/or issue organizing. We seek to support people who are currently part of an organizing/community-building effort or are seeking to develop one.
Dedication to Inclusive Politics and Intersectional Solutions: At re:power Fund, we center race, class, gender and sexuality across all our trainings – it’s part of our practice of inclusive politics. We encourage organizers to be open to new ideas regarding inclusive politics, especially from their fellow organizers who will reflect our diverse communities.
Course Expectations
This is an interactive course with several active, live discussions. We ask participants to write in the chat box, share verbally, and participate in said discussions. During breakouts, all participants will be asked to engage. We encourage, but do not require, participants to turn on video at all times, and especially during breakout discussions. If you are unable or unwilling to practice during breakouts, we ask that you let our Lead Trainer know, and you will not be placed in a breakout room. While we will respect that choice, we offer that this course may not be for you as the bulk of the learning happens in the breakout practice.
