Pushback Network is fired up about the US Social Forum!

From June 22-26^th, over 200 members from the 9 Pushback State Alliances are uniting in Detroit to strengthen our collective efforts and craft visions of liberation and justice.

Seeing as the time has come for us to build collective power in this milieu of massive unemployment, SB 1070, the oil spill, de-funding of public education, foreclosures and the bank bailouts, Pushback has constructed a strong program that highlights the diverse, multi-issue, multi-region, multi-constituency nature of our network.

You can catch us in Detroit sponsoring the following workshops, convention, and party:

• DTE Protest on Tuesday, June 22
• Workshop: Why Get in The Game? on Wednesday, June 23rd at 10am, Cobo Hall M3-32
• Workshop: Grassroots Participation in the Redistricting Process on Wednesday, June 23rd at 1pm, Cobo Hall D3-26
• Inter-Alliance Dialogue Convention-Grassroots Responses to the Economic Crisis and Critical Issues of our Time on Fri, June 25th at 1pm
• Grassroots Global Justice 5th Anniversary/Leftist Lounge Party on Friday, June 25th at 9pm

You can download the entire Pushback program here: Pushback Network Schedule at USSF

We eagerly look forward to the Detroit for it opens up greater possibilities for creative resistance and transformation.

As a network, we see the forum as a crucial component to building a bottom-up, sustainable movement in the US that has the teeth to fight back against the current neo-liberal system that places profits over people.

We’ll see you in the streets!

Another World is Possible. Another US is Necessary. A New Detroit is on its Way.

Sustainable Communities Organizer, Community Voices Heard

June 1, 2010

Ground Breaking Experience: Lessons from Mass Base Organizing

By visiting with our brothers and sisters in Albuquerque NM with the South West Organizing Project, I gained valuable insights into the model of organizing they call MASS BASE WORK. In preparation for our own election cycle in NY, I got to see first hand how SWOP approaches electoral work separate from ongoing campaign development, membership recruitment, and leadership development.

What they have is a separate track that acknowledges the opportunities for civic engagement that elections bring with them, while also recognizing the limitations of peoples lives that is not always conducive to becoming active members. In this sense, they have developed a whole strategy (MASS BASE), that seeks to develop shallower, but broader relations, with a much wider constituency of people that are not being engaged to be members. Rather, the goals of the mass base work seeks to build a collective of people that on some level, recognize SWOP and the image of the Campaign For A Better New Mexico, share the same progressive values, and are moveable to a small action step – usually voting, making a phone call, writing a letter, etc.

In order to effectively achieve the goals of mass base organizing work, SWOP has mastered the use of voter technology so that they can with laser like precision identify super specific constituencies to engage in a campaign cycle. They use the Voter Activation Network, and have additional layers from which to identify specific demographics of people, and fuse the data with consumer reports that they subjectively I.D in terms of political inclinations. The goal is not simply increasing voter turnout; rather it is about turnout among bases of people that share progressive values while influencing political culture towards participation and affecting outcomes around elections and policy. They limit their communications to mailings and phone calls, no face to face door knocking. By doing so, they focus capacity on a wider spread of people to engage as oppose to having fewer conversations. Over time they hope to establish themselves as a counter point to the dominant two party system by having enough recognition in their target areas to sway elections and policy.

Independent Sector will honor Community Voices Heard with the 2009 American Express Building Leadership Award for empowering low-income people in New York City and State to advocate for public policy changes that improve their lives. CVH will receive its award, which includes a gift of $10,000, at the Independent Sector Annual Conference in Detroit, November 4-6.

CVH is a membership-led organization that engages low-income people, particularly women of
color, in direct action campaigns to improve workforce and welfare systems, save and expand
affordable housing, allow greater access to education and training opportunities, and ensure that
low-income residents help shape the future of their communities. It trains members to be leaders
both within the organization and at other grassroots nonprofits, and harnesses their expertise and
experience to inform, challenge, and change public policy. CVH combines education, grassroots
organizing, leadership development, and civic engagement to build the advocacy power of its
membership and advance causes that its members believe are critical to improving their
communities.

“Community Voices Heard is a model for how to integrate leadership development into policy and
advocacy work, enabling people who have been historically marginalized to help influence the
decisions that directly affect their lives,” said Diana Aviv, president and CEO of Independent
Sector. “The training and expertise they provide committed activists and emerging organizers has
enabled them to press elected officials to uphold their responsibilities to communities, creating more
effective programs that continue to improve the quality of life for so many living in New York and
beyond.”

Members of CVH, who are predominantly women of color with experience with public assistance
programs, have led efforts to advocate for public policies that benefit the nearly 2.7 million
individuals in New York State living in poverty. The organization developed the concept for — and
subsequently got the City of New York to implement — the Parks Opportunity Program, the largest
paid welfare-to-work transitional jobs program in the United States, employing over 25,000 lowincome
people since its creation. This year, CVH helped secure over $25 million in new resources
for paid jobs programs for public assistance recipients statewide. At the encouragement of CVH
members, in 2006 Mayor Bloomberg established a new position of deputy mayor for health and
human services and appointed a Commission for Economic Opportunity to recommend solutions
to reduce the number of New York City residents at or below the poverty line.

In just three years, CVH has been successful at securing over $222 million in additional resources for the NYC Housing Authority to help support the public housing stock in the city. Its Voter Power Project, which educates low-income individuals about the importance of voting and uses election cycles to insert issues involving poverty into campaign debates, has contacted and mobilized a total of more than 17,000 New York voters in over 50 election districts — in the South Bronx, East and Central Harlem, Yonkers, Newburgh, and Poughkeepsie — since its inception in 2004.

Training modules are a key element of CVH’s commitment to cultivating leadership, such as power
analysis trainings that brief members and staff about key elected officials’ strengths and policy
positions; media trainings that prepare members to speak on message about specific government
programs; and fundraising trainings that explain the budget process and how to raise resources to
sustain its work. To ensure staff is representative of its diverse membership, it operates an organizer
training program that educates people from its constituency in the theory and practice of basebuilding
and campaign development and execution. Upon completion of the program, trainees are
qualified for paid staff organizing positions at CVH and other grassroots organizations. Its newly
developed Gail Aska Policy & Research Fellowship — named for CVH’s late co-founder — will
further its commitment to being a multi-racial and multi-cultural organization by building the
presence of women of color in policy and research staff positions.

“Community Voices Heard is honored that the 2009 American Express Building Leadership Award
recognizes our work to create an organization led by our members, who are the driving force behind
the development and execution of our campaigns and programs,” said Ketny Jean-Francois, co-chair
of the Community Voices Heard board. “I hope that our example encourages other grassroots
organizations to view their constituents as leaders and to maximize their involvement in
strengthening their organizations and community.”

Formed in 1994 in response to elected officials’ efforts to eliminate aid to poor families and children
and in reaction to the negative stereotypes about individuals on welfare, Community Voices Heard
works to promote the social welfare of low income people living in New York City, New York State,
and the nation through grassroots organizing, leadership development, participatory research, public
education, and advocacy. To learn more about the organization, visit: www.CVHaction.org.
American Express Building Leadership Award, formally known as the Leadership IS Award, is
sponsored by American Express. The award, which was established in 1999, recognizes the
importance of investing in leaders of the nonprofit community by celebrating an organization that
embodies this principle in spirit and practice.

To learn more about the American Express Building Leadership Award, please visit:
www.independentsector.org/programs/leadership/organizationalaward.htm.

To learn more about the Independent Sector Annual Conference, please visit:
http://www.independentsector.org/AnnualConference/2009.

North Star Fund is presenting Community Voices Heard with the Frederick Douglass Award at its 2009 30th Anniversary Community Gala. This award is given to community organizations creating equality, economic justice and peace.

Please join them on April 30th for a memorable evening among philanthropists, activists, business and labor leaders, and grassroots organizers who applaud CVH’s vision of democracy and social justice.

Click here to find out how to join the Leadership Committee or buy tickets.

The gala will be on April 30, 2009 from 6-10pm at the Tribeca Rooftop in New York City.

]]> http://pushbacknetwork.org/2009/03/19/north-star-fund-honors-community-voices-heard-at-30th-anniversary-community-gala/feed/ 0 http://pushbacknetwork.org/2009/02/02/pushback-network-announces-new-executive-director/ http://pushbacknetwork.org/2009/02/02/pushback-network-announces-new-executive-director/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:09:17 +0000 Brigid Flaherty http://pushbacknetwork.org/?p=188

Pushback Network (PBN) proudly welcomes accomplished social justice leader Peter Hardie as its new Executive Director.

Emphasizing community organizing and voter engagement strategies to empower underrepresented constituencies, PBN continues to grow as an organization assisting people in defining their mutual interests and working together to improve their lives.

“Peter is ideally poised to help lead the Pushback Network as a facilitator and as a leader in the national and local struggles for justice and democracy,” said PBN Chair Robby Rodriguez. “Currently, PBN is developing and implementing voter engagement and other civic participation strategies in eight states: New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and California. We foster collaborative efforts to increase the effectiveness of groups doing community organizing and non-partisan electoral work on the ground. Peter Hardie is an ideal fit for PBN because his career has combined organizing, advocacy and activism with significant experience and practice in organizational assessment and development. He has worked side by side with coalitions across the country and internationally to build grassroots political power from the bottom up. Peter has coached and advised a diverse range of organizations and knows how to encourage the best outcomes from them.”

Hardie comes to PBN most recently from his role as consultant to accomplished and emerging social justice organizations such as Right to the City, an alliance of base building organizations from cities across the country fighting gentrification, and Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, another national coalition of social justice advocates. He has demonstrated effectiveness in hands-on alliance-building and melding the practices of organizational development with the dynamic needs of grassroots organizing and coalition building. Hardie previously served as Executive Director for the Roxbury Youth Works, where he demonstrated a deep knowledge of, and commitment to, the principles of community organizing as focused particularly on building the power of young people and communities of color. With this impressive skill set, Hardie will work as Executive Director to facilitate the Board’s strategic planning and decision-making, manage a national staff, and take on and help guide the staff’s planning, program support, fundraising, financial management, and other key Network responsibilities.

“When all is said and done, the invitation from the Pushback Network was impossible to resist,” said Hardie. “My work life has centered on building community and building bridges between communities. This opportunity at the Pushback Network is about growth and renewal for the country and an opportunity for me to join an alliance of people with tremendous potential for change and impact on many levels”

“Peter has a great understanding of base building organizations,” continued Rodriguez. “His vision aligns perfectly with our own of a democracy where ordinary people, who have been historically pushed to the political margins, move and guide our political process by organizing from the bottom up.”

“The recent bailout on Wall Street reinforces the powerful necessity for political organizing among bedrock communities. The nation has elected a President who has asked Americans to roll up their sleeves and re-make this nation.” Hardie said, “The Pushback Network, with its diverse mix of communities and organizations, is the model for exactly the kind of civic engagement and genuine democracy that the new president and these times demand of us.”

“But the city welfare agency says it’s doing as well as possible under federal welfare rules.”

By Matt Schwarzfeld
Fernando Le’Bron has provided legal assistance to welfare recipients since the 1980s. Ever since welfare reform took hold in New York City a decade ago, he’s seen a steady increase in the percentage of his clients on public assistance who are unable to work because of a physical or mental disability or a substance abuse problem. This is in part a reflection of the city’s success in moving “work ready” people—those who do not have a physical or mental barrier to employment—off of welfare and into jobs. Viewed from this perspective, the city has had success in promoting greater self-sufficiency.

But the story of welfare reform hardly ends there. Le’Bron, a paralegal with the Queens Legal Services Corporation, says that though his clients nowadays have more complex needs than ever, they are at greater risk of being “sanctioned,” or punished through a reduction in benefits. The Human Resources Administration (HRA), the city agency that administers cash assistance, “has been very proficient in sanctioning people,” Le’Bron said. “They haven’t been so successful in helping them avoid sanctions in the first place.”

A recent report by the nonprofit group Community Voices Heard (CVH), a membership organization of low-income people, found that HRA’s efforts to place work-ready clients in sustainable jobs through the three-year-old Back to Work program has hit a wall. The report suggests that the high sanction rate and poor job placement and retention rates demonstrate that HRA needs to re-think the shape of its “work-first” approach to welfare. Coming at a time when work itself is harder to find than it used to be, some are paying attention.

“There’s a prevalent philosophy that people are better off not on welfare, since it encourages dependency,” said Vicky Lens, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work. “Many [welfare clients] were working but lost their jobs, and the reasons are more complex” than HRA’s current approach is designed to address, Lens said.

In an interview last week, Deputy Executive Commissioners Seth Diamond, who heads HRA’s Family Independence Administration, and Barbara Brancaccio, who heads the agency’s press office, disputed CVH’s charges point-by-point. “The numbers they have aren’t accurate. It’s misleading,” Brancaccio said. “We understand the role of advocates in city government. But the assumption that it’s the intent of people in this agency for people to fail couldn’t be any further from the truth.”

CVH’s report, Missing the Mark, is the latest of several recent evaluations critical of HRA. A recent report by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum found that people faced a number of barriers in accessing HRA services, and an audit by Comptroller William Thompson found flaws in HRA contractor oversight.

“With a series of different reports by both government offices and NGOs, we hope there will be enough cumulative pressure to shine some light on this huge agency that serves the most disenfranchised,” said Sondra Youdelman, CVH executive director and one of the report’s authors.

Diminishing returns

In the decade since welfare reform was implemented in New York state, HRA has significantly reduced the welfare rolls. As of last month, the number of New Yorkers receiving some form of cash assistance stood at 336,765—a 5 percent decrease from the same time a year ago and a 27 percent decrease since Bloomberg took office in 2002. HRA’s website also points out that’s the lowest number since 1963. Federal law requires welfare recipients to participate in “work activities” – which can include a job, job training, a job search or education activities – unless they are on disability or SSI, Supplemental Security Income.

Serving an average of 13,000 people in any given month, Back to Work is the largest HRA “workfare” program, and serves the people whom HRA Job Center staff determine to have no health and language barriers that would keep them from working. (The other two programs are Begin Employment, Gain Independence Now, or BEGIN, which provides basic skills and literacy instruction for clients who are not English proficient; and WeCare, which serves those with physical or mental barriers to employment.)

But the fact that HRA determined Back to Work’s client base to have no major health or language barriers to employment doesn’t mean that finding and keeping a job is going to be easy for them. CVH found that three-quarters of the nearly 1,000 clients it surveyed reported having a major obstacle to finding a job, such as unstable housing, difficulties finding childcare, and low levels of education.

Criticism of Back to Work generally breaks down into three objections: The program is not finding people sustainable jobs; vendors who are charged with actual service delivery are not helping people overcome the challenges that make it hard to turn their lives around; and people are being sanctioned out of the program well before it works for them.

A major contributor to these trends, CVH argued, is the performance-based focus of HRA’s contracts with the seven vendors that operate the Back to Work centers—America Works, based in Brooklyn; Goodwill Industries, based in Queens; Arbor, based in Staten Island; and FEGS, N-PAC/Seedco, CEC and Wildcat, all based in Manhattan. The program is funded at $159.6 million over three years, and HRA’s contracts run through June 2009. The prospect of contract renewals – and the hope of affecting that upcoming process – is one reason CVH released its report last month.

The group maintains that only 8 percent of participants who begin the program are placed in jobs for a minimum of 30 days, versus the agency’s target of 13 percent, and only 2 percent hold these jobs for 180 days, versus HRA’s target of 5 percent. Of those referred to the program from Job Centers, CVH says that only 20 percent actually start the program, far below HRA’s projection of 52 percent. On top of this, CVH found that over half the people who were placed in jobs by Back to Work vendors ended up back in the program within nine months, which it saw as evidence that a work-first model that doesn’t emphasize career building won’t get people off welfare. (Being “in the program” means showing up for three days a week of work experience, like performing parks maintenance, and two days of in-class training; the goal is that these required weeks will lead to placement in a secretarial, technical or other job.)

“It is clear,” CVH researchers concluded, “that while HRA recognizes the high level of barriers to employment facing Back to Work clients, they have not shifted the model of services to reflect this reality. Instead, vendors are encouraged to quickly place participants in any job they can get.” CVH found that 75 percent of clients felt the program did not address the problems that made finding and holding a job difficult.

Some critics see this as the consequence of HRA’s intentional inaccessibility, complex requirements, and an approach that trivializes hardships. “HRA is not a welcoming bureaucracy. It’s in part meant to deter people from the rolls,” says Vicky Lens.

These trends appear to be compounded by a stagnant job market that has hit low-wage, low-skilled labor sectors hard. “In this frightening fiscal environment, there just aren’t going to be enough quality jobs to refer people to,” Youdelman said. “Now is the time to re-think the whole system, and how HRA is investing in its programs. The goal should be to get people trained and educated and launched on a career path, not a short-term fix.”

Not quite career planning

Back to Work was designed in the context of complex federal rules that specify how jurisdictions can spend Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds on welfare administration. The federal government requires states to place 50 percent of all cash assistance recipients in work-related activities or else face stiff penalties. Many of the things that would best serve those with barriers to employment – like help in locating housing, child care, or substance abuse and mental health treatment – are only considered “work activities” for a short period of time, according to federal rules.

“One of the very big problems is that the state doesn’t get any credit towards the required work participation rate for almost all the activities that make progress towards self-sufficiency,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst for the D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy, which analyzes policy affecting lower-income Americans.

A state can place up to 30 percent of its welfare caseload in education and job training programs that count toward the work participation rate, but CVH found that less than 2 percent of Back to Work clients are using these opportunities. Advocates are calling for HRA to allow welfare clients to pursue off-site vocational training programs that match their personal career goals—for example, using federal money to pay for an associate’s degree to become a carpenter, mechanic, or paralegal. “If you want people to get a career and not just a job, you have to make sure people are up-skilling their education with a high school diploma or associate’s degree,” said Jeremy Reiss, director of workforce mobility initiatives at the Community Service Society.

HRA considers CVH’s numbers here, as in most places, misleading. According to Family Independence Administration chief Diamond, HRA staff at Job Centers determine whether people want to go into training activities full-time; if so, they’re referred to the agency’s Training Approval Group, which provides full-time vocational education for around 300 people a week (rather than Back to Work). He feels advocates place too much stock in full-time training and don’t see the value of a blended program. “Our primary focus is getting people into employment activities, and the best way to do this is to combine work and training into one single program,” Diamond said.

While part of HRA’s reticence regarding education and training is rooted in ideology, Diamond also sees an equity issue. “If a middle-class family can’t access education without working, is it fair for people on cash assistance to participate in the same services without working?” he asked.

The issue of underutilization of education capacity illustrates a larger tension. Advocates have long argued that Back to Work denies clients control over their own destinies. They feel clients are pressured to take the first job found by vendors, and if they don’t they’re likely to be sanctioned. In its report, CVH quoted a client, Anita Walton, who faulted Back to Work for interfering with the completion of her degree in secretarial studies. “If I hadn’t been constantly pressured to get a job instantly, attend programs like the Back to Work Program, do a WEP assignment, and constantly be sanctioned unjustly, I might be done with my degree by now and already be working in a good-paying job,” Walton told CVH researchers.

City policy makers have questioned whether HRA designed Back to Work to effect long-term life changes or just comply with federal guidelines. Brooklyn City Councilman Bill de Blasio, chair of the General Welfare Committee, which has legislative oversight of all HRA programs, has expressed concerns about HRA’s effectiveness in getting clients on the right path. “While I commend HRA for attempting to improve its job placement programs over the years, I think the data speaks for itself,” says de Blasio. “Until HRA provides people with real education and training opportunities that prepare them for living-wage jobs, we are just rearranging the deck chairs.”

Too quick to sanction?

Federal welfare guidelines also require cities and states to sanction welfare recipients who don’t comply with the work rules. This means if you’re late to a Back to Work meeting, or have a dispute with someone at a Job Center or vendor office, you may be issued a “failure to comply” notice, which is a precursor to a sanction.

Critics of HRA have long thought the agency’s sanctioning process exceeds legal standards. CVH’s report states that 68 percent of Back to Work applicants, and 28 percent of recipients, received a “failure to comply” notice while in the program—and 60 percent of these were later found through administrative hearings to be in error. CVH pointed to these data to explain the low number of people referred to the program who actually engaged in it or remained connected.

Diamond stressed that HRA has worked very hard to streamline the appeals processes for sanctions and failures to comply. He didn’t specifically address the 60 percent error rate found by CVH, but did emphasize that linking this rate to data around engagement and job placement is based on faulty logic. Many of the people referred to the program didn’t ultimately participate since they were deemed ineligible for any number of reasons—not necessarily because they were sanctioned out of it, Diamond explained.

Vicky Lens believes the problem with the sanctioning process is both philosophical and procedural. “What happened here and elsewhere is that sanctions have become a punitive tool,” Lens said. Someone might be sanctioned if they miss a meeting in order to attend some other mandatory appointment with another city agency, like a housing court hearing. “It undermines the whole goal of welfare reform—to make people more self-sufficient. Instead it just makes their lives harder and achieving their goals less likely.”

Contracting complications

The CVH report suggests that the sanctioning process has a negative effect on Back to Work vendors’ ability to help clients. Vendors are supposed to help clients connect with what are called “transitional benefits” – things that help with covering rent, transportation and medical bills—but CVH found that their priorities may be elsewhere.

In its report, CVH quoted vendors (who remained anonymous to avoid compromising their organizations’ contracts with HRA) who suggested vendors’ role in the sanctions process consumed all else. “We have to spend a lot less time actually helping to get employment and providing clients with the case management they need to address barriers,” a vendor told CVH. “[I]nstead we have to spend time doing data entry and collecting time sheets and calling places to make sure absences are excused.”

In designing Back to Work, HRA provided the program’s vendors with a series of milestone incentives that encouraged the seven organizations to place people in long-term jobs, and gave them incentives for working with people who have been sanctioned.

Some outside observers, however, think these incentives are counterproductive. “The problem with performance-based contracts [that don’t provide a base rate for overhead costs] is that vendors often have to make a cost calculus in order to keep their own program running,” Youdelman said. “From their perspective, if I can get a good return by only working with a quarter of the people, then why don’t I just find those most ready to work and just push everyone else out” by getting them into the first available job, she explained – regardless of its quality or their interest in it, or by sanctioning them out of the program.

Barbara Zerzan, director of the Center for Benefits and Services at the Community Service Society and the former head of an HRA-contracted welfare-to-work vendor (not one of the current Back to Work group), believes that vendors generally don’t want to issue sanctions but find themselves with no other recourse. “These vendors are so stressed out, they’re dealing with so many people. If they see the first sign of someone not cooperating, they sanction,” Zerzan said.

Diamond argued that the assumption that HRA wants to sanction people is fundamentally counter-intuitive. The more people who are sanctioned by the agency, the greater risk HRA faces of failing to meet federal work placement guidelines. Diamond recognizes that there’s no specific measure for the sensitivity of case managers, but the emphasis on job retention makes case management essential. “To realize the goals of keeping people in jobs, vendors have to provide this help to get people to stick with it,” he said.

The next step

At this point, CVH calls for HRA to revise its contracting structure in a way that pays vendors for helping people get transitional benefits, make job placements more individually tailored and increase emphasis on education and training, address what it sees as an unfairness in the sanctioning process, and improve oversight and transparency.

It’s not clear that the agency is interested in integrating CVH’s critiques and suggestions. After HRA strongly criticized CVH’s last report, which focused on the WeCare program, CVH sought to partner with the agency on this report. CVH and HRA went back and forth for a number of months over a possible research partnership. HRA at first agreed in principle to participate, but then backed out when it deemed the researchers proposed by CVH would not be sufficiently unbiased.

HRA spokeswoman Brancaccio believes the agency’s critics don’t see the whole picture. “It’s old news to us. This is just another report with no real methodology,” she said. “We tried to work with them. Their numbers are not accurate. We can refute any of it.”

- Matt Schwarzfeld

DON’T: Bait and switch. Be clear and honest with grassroots organizers about intentions and objectives.

DO: Share information and resources. Provide complementary funding, where appropriate, through clear accountable agreements to build long-term capacity that keeps working between election cycles.

DON’T: Come in with an agenda already in place. A useful ally’s agenda is informed by ongoing work on the ground.

DO: Work in areas where local leaders have identified existing gaps. Collaborate on strategies that strengthen long-term capacity to target demographics where local capacity is weakest.

DON’T: Employ messaging that is in conflict with ongoing campaigns. Design media strategies with long-term social change work in mind.

DO: Build on existing strengths and capacities on the ground.

DON’T: Poison the base and burn up turf. Work with grassroots organizations to extend their base, and yours, and share credit for shared work.

DO: Extend training opportunities to local organizers. Even when resources are left with local groups, those groups are too often left without the training to maintain them. Offer local organizations the training needed to maximize collaborative resources before you head home.

DON’T: Take the infrastructure and run. Hand-off what the campaign has built; hand off local volunteers and staff. Take the time for evaluation and debriefing with local partners.

]]> http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/11/02/ten-tips-for-effective-collaborative-organizing/feed/ 0 http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/11/01/collateral-damage/ http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/11/01/collateral-damage/#comments Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:00:22 +0000 Samiya Bashir http://pushbacknetwork.org/?p=160 Follow The Project, PBN’s live, daily, multi-media civic engagement project every day through November 7th. To lead us off, PBN is publishing a few critically important pieces that look at the importance of sound investment in effective civic organizing. Click here for updates.

During the 2006 electoral season, PBN partner Kentuckians for the Commonwealth learned first hand how paratrooper tactics disrupt years’ worth of work in their communities. According to nationally based, numbers-centric guidelines, national groups did a better job targeting the KFTC’s population, and reached more people.

But a closer look shows that while KFTC contacted a third of the people the national paratrooping group reached, they did it for a tenth of the money. KFTC’s numbers, unlike those of the paratroopers, reflected three person-to-person contacts for each individual counted. KFTC’s contacts included civic education and leadership development on a personal level – a crucial benefit that lasts, and one that you can’t get from mailings or robocalls.

This was achieved despite having to constantly firefight to battle the bull-in-a-china-shop blunders of the national organizers. “Last November, on election day, our Lexington organizer was flooded with phone calls from people all over the state asking for a ride to the polls,” said KFTC director Burt Lauderdale. “Somebody at a national organization had contacted our office months before and asked, in general terms, if we provide rides to the polls. We said yes and gave them the info for the local guy.”

“What happened next,” said Lauderdale, “without our permission or notification, was that 36,000 letters were sent to a targeted selection of voters from all over the state. The letters were a mildly threatening attempt to increase turn out by intimidating voters who stayed home for the last election. The organization didn’t identify itself in the letters, listing only a P.O. Box. What they did say was, ‘If you need a ride, call this number.’ That number was the direct line to our lone organizer who was inundated with calls from hundreds of miles away. KFTC had nothing to do with this direct mail piece, but communities across our state were left with negative feelings about us and our work.”

“Now, when I talked to the director of that organization in the days after he was embarrassed,” Lauderdale continued. “He apologized for the miscommunication, then turned around this Spring and did it again. This same group sent another huge mailing to their database encouraging them to register to vote; only it was sent out to them after the voter registration deadline. This was all very expensive to do. It’s frustrating because it’s an ineffective waste of money. Plus, it creates a mountain of mess that we’re left to clean up.”

This organization was knowledgeable enough to locate KFTC and put their phone number onto its direct mail outreach. The next logical step is to find ways to connect with their work in a complementary way. This is where paratrooper tactics fail, and where effective bottom-up collaboration wins.

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]]> http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/11/01/collateral-damage/feed/ 0 http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/10/29/keep-up-with-the-project/ http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/10/29/keep-up-with-the-project/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:01:21 +0000 Samiya Bashir http://pushbacknetwork.org/?p=153

Follow The Project, Pushback Network’s Election 2008 Multi-Media Project online through your social networks, at our Project Updates Blog, or on Friend Feed and watch history happen with updates all day, every day through Election Week!

We’re going to the battlegrounds of New Mexico and Mississippi November 1-7, 2008, to show what the work our partners are doing to fuse community organizing and voter engagement and mobilize people of color, poor people, and young people looks like — in action and in near-real-time using photos, videos, micro-bloggging and more. Check back each day to see where we are with preparations, and see the organizing work happen through the post-election wind-up November 7th.

We’ll also be sharing work from our other state-wide partners to showcase how, from New York to California, integrated voter work builds and strengthens organizations, creates leaders from contacted voters, and shifts public consciousness towards an agenda that supports progressive social values.

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]]> http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/10/29/keep-up-with-the-project/feed/ 0 http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/10/29/walking-new-york-citys-streets/ http://pushbacknetwork.org/2008/10/29/walking-new-york-citys-streets/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:47:50 +0000 Samiya Bashir http://pushbacknetwork.org/?p=152 Community Voices Heard was bustling on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 21st.

I had just walked in from the busy New York subway system only to be met by an even busier canvass team. Alfredo Carrasquillo, Ferdinand Joseph, Cha’ta Green, Demitrus Gonzales, Philneia Timmons, and Ann Valdez—the CVH Queens canvassers—were collecting their pledge cards, nonpartisan voter guides, and know your rights handouts and ready to hit the streets.

“I am a voice for the voiceless,” said Joseph, a 55-yr old man from the Bronx about why he walks with CVH on this campaign. “I’ll stick my neck out for them. Tenants who live in these projects have issues that need to be addressed and they’re looking for someone to show them how to get it done. In the buildings they live in, there are a lot of problems like tenant issues, no hot water, no heat, and the land lord doesn’t do anything. They feel like they’ve been forgotten.”

What campaign drives Joseph, and the rest of the walk team, into New York City public housing developments to knock on doors and speak to the residents? November 4th, CVH is asking voters to send a message to the next New York State Senator: it’s time to get serious about funding public housing.

CVH’s canvassers are holding conversations with the residents of public housing about the stakes involved in the upcoming senatorial race. They are informing them that the next state senator will have the power to determine how much funding New York State will provide for NYCHA in NYC. They are letting people know that the State Senator can improve the conditions in public housing, and in order for their issues to be heard, they need to show them that they’re voting.

While I was at one of the doors with Alfredo “Red” Carrarasquillo in a Queens public housing development, I had the opportunity to listen to the passionate concerns of such a resident. When Red asked the voter to fill out a pledge card telling the candidates about the concerns of public housing residents, the person wrote, “Everything. Rent, lack of services for youth, and maintenance.” A conversation between Red and the resident ensued. They both understood the realities of living in public housing and could relate to each other on a deeper level about the issues each was facing.

After we left the door, Red turned to me with an ear to ear smile. The resident was very receptive to the message Red delivered. When I asked him why he was smiling he said, “It feels good as hell. It feels like we’ve been friends for years. It’s beautiful.”

Flash forward to Thursday, October 23rd. I am headed on a moving train to Yonkers with Sarah Thomason, the CVH community organizer in Westchester. We are meeting up with two CVH members to walk public housing developments.

“Right now we have a campaign in Yonkers around issues of community development and gentrification,” Sarah explains to me. “They are building developments that low-income people can’t afford and are being pushed out. There’s a lot of affordable housing that’s being lost. So we are fighting for the development to include low-income apartments, to train and hire Yonkers residents, and we’re asking city council to put conditions on the money to preserve public housing. Whoever wins, if they see that we turned out 500 low-income residents, it can definitely be a deciding factor.”

The development Sarah is referring to is planned for Chicken Island and Getty Square. The City Council is about to take a vote on the development and the plan doesn’t include housing or jobs for low-income residents.

It is this very reason that motivates Valerie Pearson, a CVH member and recently elected board member, to speak to her neighbors on this very chilly Thursday evening.

“I am door knocking because the election is coming up and I want the community in Yonkers to get out to vote because voting makes a difference. If we don’t vote, then nothing gets done.”

When we are at the doors, I am struck by her style. She is warm, but frank, and the residents respond positively to her message.

“My style is called burning down the house. I say listen, this is what’s going on. I know you’re tired, I know you work. But at this rate, if they don’t hear our voices, if they don’t know we’re listening, if they don’t know we’re watching, they’re gonna do what they want to do. And we have to stick together at this point in time. It’s crucial. I just tell him do it for your kids, do it for your grandkids. And they can hold it in their hearts that their mom did that, their grandma did that. And it’s important. We work hard. We pay the most taxes. And why shouldn’t we live.”

From these two distinct experiences, I had the fortune of witnessing CVH’s message in action. Community Voices Heard mission is about bringing low-income people together to work collectively for social change. They build their leadership from the people directly affected by the issues and by doing so are building power in these very communities. The strategies I saw employed during these days, i.e. leadership development, voter engagement, and grassroots volunteer recruitment, leads me to believe they will succeed in pushing those in power to implement more fair and equitable policies in New York City and Yonkers!