The Art of Organizing People

Whether you’re a social director on a cruise ship, a union organizer, or a catalyst for online action, the role of organizer requires patience.

A certain streak of zealotry seems to be a requirement, if you’re going to make it through the endless work of encouraging and prodding people to support whatever cause you’re working for.

Jess Kutch highlights a few truisms written by California farmworkers’ organizer Fred Ross Sr. (who inspired Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to launch the United Farm Workers Union):

• An organizer is a leader who does not lead but gets behind the people and pushes.
• Don’t waste time fighting the competition: use that time to fight the issues and win and that will take care of the competition.
• 90 percent of organizing is follow-up.
• A good organizer must be able to charge an issue with a supreme sense of urgency.
• How can you move others unless you are moved yourself?
• The organizer tries to turn each person she meets into a temporary organizer.
• When you are tempted to make a statement, ask a question.
• Reminding is the essence of organizing.
• When you find “live wires” put them to work immediately. Find something they can do–any little thing–get them started and ready to do more, or you’ll lose them for the cause.

The UFW is best known for the table grape boycotts organized in the late 1960s to put pressure on California grape growers.

The key line for me is “fight the issues and win, and that will take care of the competition.” That is the essence of public relations advocacy. Lobbying some politician isn’t effective if you haven’t demonstrated broad public support for the issue you’re pushing.

Also, check out an interesting profile of Dolores Huerta by SF Chronicle reporter Tyche Hendricks.

Grapes photo courtesy LD Cross, through a Creative Commons Attribution License. Fist photo by Jarek Szymanski.