Michael Silberman has a really interesting summary of how things came together recently for the 350 Global Day of Action. The whole piece is worth reading and if you haven’t looked at the amazing array of images gathered from around the world as part of this organizing effort, it really is worth spending some time on the 350.org website. Prepare to be moved.
One thing I thought was particularly interesting in Michael’s piece is this paragraph:
Notice how May Boeve refers to herself as a coordinator — not an organizer — when I ask her about her work (video). Sounds minor, but the reality is that no dozen people could have directly organized more than 5,200 simultaneous events on every continent using traditional organizing methods. In most campaigns, community organizers cover relatively small territories, working closely with volunteers to train and empower them to take on the campaign’s work. In this campaign, the “organizers” were the volunteers, not the staff.
This notion that “the organizers were the volunteers, not the staff” is subtle but extremely important. Modern, large-scale organizing efforts operate on a scale that can no longer be effectively organized purely by staff.
This is about pushing the power of the organization beyond the edges of the org chart. In this model, the role of the staff shifts to that of “coordinator” – the coordinators of other people who are doing the actual organizing.
