Initial Planning

Initial Meeting

Organize an initial meeting and invite people in your community (e.g., neighbors, friends, colleagues, or acquaintances) who you think might be interested in civil liberties issues. Share your concerns with the group and assess who is interested in supporting a collaborative effort. This can be a small or large group of people, formed as an informal affinity group, a new group, a subcommittee of a pre-existing organization, or a coalition of existing groups or organizations.

Discuss a strategy to accomplish your goals. Begin by assessing the local political landscape.

• Who among your coalition has time and interest to actively participate? Does anyone have a particular interest that you could harness?
• Consider forming subcommittees to take responsibility for specific areas. As a group, review a list of possible subcommittees with descriptions of their responsibilities and ask each participant to volunteer for one committee.
• Brainstorm ways to build public support. Examples:
  • hosting a forum or educational event
  • building a coalition of diverse groups and elected officials
  • circulating a petition
  • press outreach
  • lobbying local elected officials
• Before finishing your first meeting, be sure to schedule the next meeting and write down follow-up tasks and the participant(s) responsible for each.

Networking and Outreach

Organize members of your group to call other local people and organizations that might be interested in supporting the local ordinance. Schedule the next coalition meeting and have group members invite people in other organizations. People and groups you might include in your outreach:

• Teachers, professors, students, and student groups
• Civic groups and neighborhood associations
• Religious leaders
• Activist groups
• Union locals
• Political party chapters
• Human rights commission of your local government body, if one exists
• Librarians
• Attorneys

Be sure to seek out people who have been most affected by laws and policies enacted as part of the so-called “war on terror.” Talk to groups that fight racial and religious profiling, immigrants’ rights groups, Latino advocacy groups, and those that advocate for Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans.

Ask existing local organizations who express interest in working with you if they would be willing to share their mailing list or email list, or to send an announcement about your coalition to their membership.

Use social networks for outreach as well. Create a group on Facebook and have members join and invite friends. Spread the word about your effort by encouraging your members to post about it in a Facebook status update or on Twitter. You can also use Facebook groups to manage your subcommittees and coordinate outreach.

Emphasize that our government’s constitutional violations affect us all. Refrain from involving members of only one partisan group. A coalition that represents the diversity within your community will be more effective and less vulnerable to the opposition than one that reflects the views of only a few community members.

Tools:

• Suggestions for building bridges with Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities