Welcome Learning Thursdays Community Organising Masterclass How to

Welcome! Learning Thursdays Community Organising Masterclass: How to Build/Rebuild a Citizens Chapter This session will begin soon

Citizens UK Growth Project

What we’re trying to do • Understand evaluate the processes involved in setting up an alliance. • Understand report on the impact that the alliances have on: • Individuals • Institutions • The wider community Note: final stages of evaluation analysis and write up, so these impressions are to be treated as draft and subject to change!

Since becoming involved in Citizens, to what extent do you agree that your organisation has improved. . . 40 36 35 35 25 86% state that their organisation has improved its approach to taking on issues facing the local area. 29 30 22 20 15 9 10 6 3 5 0 8 Strongly agree Agree 6 2 Bringing people of different backgrounds together, within the organisation Disagree Connecting people from within the organisation to people of different backgrounds from outside of the organisation Strongly disagree 100% of survey participants agree that people in their neighbourhood CAN influence decisions that affect their neighbourhood (70% strongly agree). Don't know Based on 79 respondents to second survey. Question was used as one measure of social capital and building trust. • Bringing people of different backgrounds together, within the organisation: • Strongly/agree: 74% • Connecting people from within the organisation to people of different backgrounds from outside of the organisation: • Strongly/agree: 82% This result matters because… The alliances have been set up in areas characterised by participants as follows: • People integrate from different walks of life (45% strongly/agree) • This area is a close, tight knit community (30% strongly/agree) • Most people who live in this area trust one another (38% strongly/agree) 66% believe their organisation has improved its power and influence locally. 89% felt that their campaigns had achieved what they set out to do either fully or to some extent.

Individual skill development What has changed for your institution? 4 Grown in membership or levels of participation within the life of my institution 29 8 35 3 Introduced a more inclusive and democratic way of making decisions internally 11 2 43 18 15 Developed more leaders 46 14 5 17 Developed a more relational culture 46 8 0 Don't know Not really or not at all 5 10 15 To some extent 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 To a great extent Most institutions have seen the involvement of a ‘few leaders’ who have taken part in training or action (53%). There is also evidence of core teams of leaders emerging (35%) who are intentional about organising. 85% strongly/agree that member institutions own and lead the work of the alliance…. …but there is evidence that this is inconsistent, as one said ‘there is very little internal depth except to some extent in some…’ 53% have lived experience of being directly affected by one or more issues prioritised by the alliance. 45% of participants felt more capable of making decisions in their personal, professional and/or public life.

What is the role of a sponsoring committee? • A sponsoring committee is a gathering of sponsors who are committed to creating a broad based organisation. • These sponsors can be institutions/orgs like unions, faith communities, education, issue or interest groups etc and/or individuals or major decision makers who are connected to potential sources of money or membership for the broad based organisation. • The sponsoring committee is not the organisation. Its job is to sponsor the building of the organisation • The sponsoring committee raises the money for the organising effort. They raise enough money to hire a full time organiser, to pay for the basic infrastructure for operating and for the chapter to take off. • The sponsoring committee has a unique and special job to help credentialise the organisation, especially in those early days when stakeholders will have questions about a new BBO in their area. • • Invite others to join and be part of the journey • Ideally come together for 12 – 18 months before an organiser is recruited Important to showcase how relationships are built and for new members to learn from – they are setting the example for the chapter.

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Targeting of institutions Recruitment of member institutions Running with supervisor – Neil Lots 1: 1’s with diverse institutions Lots of meeting with key stakeholders, doing 1; 1’s, sharing the visions of the chapter and city and asking other dream with us on the journey.

Our first gathering of leaders! Training our leaders on the tools of community organising, how to build a BBO and launching our listening campaign

Delegates Assemblies and voting on the GMC priority campaigns

So important to do our first public action, to get our leaders thinking about their role in public life and to get in the media ahead of our launch.

Meeting with Mayoral Candidates

Creating the buzz around the historic first GMC Mayoral Assembly. Getting into the local paper and being featured about the new chapter being set up and why it was important to the residents of Greater Manchester.

Our founding Assembly and the launch of GMC

Rebuilding an Alliance – Waltham Forest Citizens. An organizer’s perspective

Step 1: An exciting team of core leaders

Step 2: 2: AAtimeline – Waltham Forest People’s Assembly 2018

Step 3: Excitement about dues and common structure

Step 4: Recruitment list

What the Waltham Forest Alliance won …

Mistakes 1) Not broadening the leadership team early enough – alliance was still too white 2) Not building in a sufficiently wide group of schools 3) Not starting with 2/3 small and easy wins – it was harder to hold on to and hold the Council accountable for the range of things they committed to.

Upcoming ‘Learning Thursdays’ 29 th October – Topical Learning Session: The Hostile Environment How can we organise our communities to address the hostile environment? Focusing on people who are homeless but denied support due to their immigration status (NRPF) and calling on the Government to settle the status of our neighbours who are living without documents. November – Race, Power and Privilege • 5 th November: • Learning For Leaders: Power Intro & Power Analysis. • Masterclass: In-depth exploration of Relational Power and Power Analysis • 12 th November – Joint Session: Privilege 101 • 19 th November • Learning for Leaders: Story-telling for social change • Masterclass: Story-telling Masterclass • 26 th November – Topical Learning Session: Race and Organising in the UK