How can we build both strong movements and sustainable organizations at the same time? Movement Strategy Center presents this article from Zak Sinclair, Lisa Russ and others who look at some different approaches to transformation.
Zak Sinclair, Lisa Russ, Susan Lubeck, Pia Infante, Nghia Tran, and Ernest Mark
Do you sometimes stay up at night wondering if your organization is actually making a difference? How often do you see groups moving from one organizing campaign to the next without stopping to think about the bigger picture? Are you sure of what we as progressives are ultimately fighting for? When is the last time you heard about another social justice organization that does vital work falling into the throes of staff tensions and nearly shutting down? How many people do you know who decided to leave their social justice work to spend more time with their families, go back to school, or find a less stressful job that would actually pay the bills?
As people working for social change, we currently face serious dilemmas about our organizational ability to grow, change, and stick around long enough to nurture broad social movements. As vehicles for social change, nonprofits are an important building block in a broad-based movement aiming to reinvigorate democracy and achieve real racial and economic justice. Nonprofit leaders committed to movement-building face this central question: How can our organizations both be bold enough to alter the fundamental structural relationships in society, and wise enough to act according to principles of organizational sustainability and community transformation?
The elements of collective action, political analysis, organizational structure, and individual reflection are critically important to building a social movement that on one hand embodies sustainable practices, and on the other is politically shrewd and powerful enough to contend with oppressive forces. At the same time, each element presents a different approach to change that surfaces contentious questions about the value of internal work (both personal and organizational), the centrality of power-based analysis, and the primacy of action above all else. Differences of opinion in each of these areas crystallize sharp tensions and can impede even the most concerted efforts to work together.
This article explores organizational and movement-building tensions, like the ones above, in order to unearth potential places of unity and develop a more holistic framework for change. This framework contains four approaches to transformation that we believe are vital components to social change, and that are frequently at odds with each other within organizations. They are: Community Organizing (CO), Power Analysis (PA), Organization Development (OD), and Spirit/Sustainable Practice (SP)
