Step-by-Step Organizer Toolkit for the People's Campaign for the Constitution
Building Coalitions from the Bottom Up
From an early stage, it is important to strive towards developing both a broad-based coalition membership as well as a leadership that reflects that diversity.
The way we build our coalitions informs how we’re able to pressure our representatives. Coalitions built from the bottom-up emphasize the common principles and demands that bring them together. When choosing a spokesperson for the coalition, it is important to make it clear that the person is speaking on behalf of many groups – not just on behalf of the coalition member group to which she belongs or on behalf of herself.
In order to be able to move your representative, you need to build power. To do that, it is important to “avoid taking shortcuts,” as the Midwest Academy, an organizing education institute in Chicago, suggests. The Academy’s resource on running an "accountability session" suggests:
If someone says, "Oh, the Senator is a friend of mine, I'll invite her for you", don't do it! You want [your representative] to come because of your group's strength, or not at all. What's more, you will then have to contend with the friend saying, "No, you can't ask her that, it will embarrass me."
Avoiding the shortcuts requires gaining support for both your demands and your strategy with potential coalition partners. Even if your group decides to choose your spokesperson partly on the basis of that person’s relationship to your representative, what matters most is that the whole coalition is struggling to establish a relationship between the community and its representative that involves greater accountability.
Further Reading:
Midwest Academy, Holding a Meeting with an Elected Official: "The Accountablity Session"
A chapter from the published third edition of the The Academy Organizing Manual "Organizing for Social Change".
