Echoing Justice Communications Strategies for Community Organizing in the 21st Century Executive Summary Echoing Justice is an action research project of the Echo Justice Communications Collaborative—a multi-year initiative to incubate, innovate, and implement movement building communications strategies that strengthen racial justice alliances and their impact. The Echoing Justice report team includes staff of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ), the Praxis Project, Center for Story Based Strategy (formerly smartMeme), the Movement Strategy Center (MSC), Community Media Workshop, and UNITY Alliance. Lead writer: Julie Quiroz, Movement Strategy Center Lead researcher: Jen Soriano, Lionswrite Consulting Report editing and production: Karlos Schmieder, Center for Media Justice Design: Micah Bazant, micahbazant.com Resources for this report were provided by the Surdna Foundation, the Akonadi Foundation and the Frances Fund.
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The Echo Justice Communications Collaborative is a result of consistent questioning of the false boundaries between communications and organizing, while recognizing the historic role that not-so-strategic communications has played in undermining progressive change. In other words, while we recognize that organizing and communications are synergistic and must be done in ways that support transformative change, not all communications work actually supports this change. —Makani Temba, Praxis Project
In July 2010, a core set of progressive communicators convened a People’s Movement Assembly in Detroit during the United States Social Forum to begin a conversation with racial justice alliances about communications strategy, collaborative infrastructure, and leadership development needs of the sector. In Spring 2011 Center for Media Justice, Praxis Project, smartMeme, Movement Strategy Center and The Progressive Communicators Network brought together a team of visionary communications and movement building intermediaries to investigate communications conditions of racial justice sectors. Inspired by the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of network-driven organizing, this team of intermediary leaders convened 22 alliance-based leaders and a set of allied funders in October 2011 to landscape and define the communications capacity needed by justice sector alliances and movements to achieve their organizing and movement building goals. Made possible by the support of the Solidago and Akonadi Foundations, this convening was an example of the new space conveners sought to create: space for organizers, communicators, and funder allies to forge strategies together that build the influence of justice sectors to shape meaning and contest power.
Together, convening participants identified three priority areas of work: 1. Supporting collaborative communications strategies; 2. Creating space for effective leadership development; and 3. Initiating shared communications infrastructure Guided by this mandate, the Echo Justice Communications Collaborative (Echo Collaborative) was launched in Spring 2012 as a flexible, responsive network of communications practitioners, funders, artists, and alliance leaders with the mission to: • Define and align the communications vision and leadership of justice sectors through collaborative convenings and curriculum • Cultivate and support bold movement building communications strategies and infrastructure that increase the effectiveness and boost the immediate political impacts of justice sector networks through collaborative training and technical assistance projects • Sustain and replicate collaborative communications activities by generating new revenue sources and partners, and joint production of field research This report, Echoing Justice, is an action research report by the Echo Collaborative that offers a landscape analysis and field assessment, as well as recommendations to grassroots organizing groups, alliances and foundations on how to strengthen, resource and support communications for grassroots organizing and base building. Through this report we hope to spark a conversation amongst those stakeholders on the kinds of collaborative communications infrastructure, strategic convening, and projects that are needed to get to scale, and the resources to do so.
Echoing Justice
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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This report seeks to explore and lift up emerging lessons from grassroots movement communications including: • What kind of communications work supports organizing? • How does movement communications look on the ground? • What kind of commitments must be made by investors, practitioners, and the field at large in order to build the comprehensive movement infrastructure that strategic synergy requires?
Engaging the Field The Communications Challenge Communications training and capacity building within racial justice sectors remains limited by four dominant methods: • Narrow, short-term metrics focus on communications activities not long-term policy or movement goals • Micro support on issues that results in a fragmented approach to communications • Marginalized organizing expertise and input in communications strategy development • Race-blind communications approaches negating work for racial justice
Building from successful engagement of more than 20 national organizing alliances, a national gathering, and a shared vision for how to work together, we interviewed alliance leaders about key campaigns and initiatives; surveyed organizations and program officers at foundations about research trends, capacity conditions, and evaluation metrics; and collected and integrated secondary existing research to measure the success of communications and presswork. The stories, surveys, and secondary research were used to generate the following key findings.
Echoing Justice
The full report, Echoing Justice: Communications Strategies for Community Organizing in the 21st Century, offers an assessment of social justice communications strategies, as well as recommendations to grassroots organizing groups, alliances and foundations on how to strengthen, align, and support communications for greater scale and impact. Through this brief executive summary, members of the Echo Communications Collaborative hope to spark a conversation amongst stakeholders about the collaborative communications infrastructure, strategic convening, and projects needed to win the culture wars of the 21st century.
Key Findings
2. Grassroots alliances and groups are doing innovative and impactful communications without adequate resources. Using community-based research methods, the Echoing Justice survey of 56 grassroots organizations found that more than one third (36%) of respondents allocate less than $10,000 to communications annually. Four fifths of respondents (80%) report that their communications staff have one year or less of experience or training.
3. Grassroots groups are measuring the effectiveness and impact of grassroots communications through a combination of organizing and public relations metrics to build capacity and to ensure a return on investment.
Photo by Diane Ovalle
The Echoing Justice survey found that groups engage a varied approach to measure impact of integrated organizing and communications work. Respondents were most likely to use three indicators—two that are usually thought of as communications measures: “number of stories placed” (71%) and “shifts in opinions of target audiences” (71%); as well as “campaign wins” (70%) which is usually thought of as an organizing measure.
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1. Innovative grassroots communications is having big impact. The stories in this report show how communications integrated with organizing has catalyzed the passage of universal healthcare in Vermont; won new rights, opportunities, and federal legislation for exploited workers in Louisiana; blocked a corporate merger with nationwide implications; brought a dramatic shift in housing and urban policy direction in Miami; and resulted in the defeat of anti-immigrant bills in Arizona.
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1. Prioritize communications collaboration. Whether investing in shared staff and infrastructure, strategic convenings, or the deployment of joint communications activities, collaboration makes philanthropic dollars go further.
2. It takes significant investment to gain significant returns. As shown in the stories and data articulated in this report, foundation partners have a critical role to play in ensuring that justice sectors have the capacity to communicate their vision and elevate their public voice.
3. Monitor and report on foundation investments in progressive communications. In the early and mid 1990s, data on the rate of progressive and conservative spending on communications and culture were more available. Today, we need effective, cost efficient ways of tracking communications spending in order to assess our reach and impact. Progressive foundations and other key investors should not only monitor their grantee efforts, they should also monitor their institutional spending in these areas at the organizational level and sector wide. Get the full recommendations at http://centerformediajustice.org/echoingjustice
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Key Recommendations
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The grassroots organizing sector has no shortage of creative and strategic capacity. It is this strategic creativity that has led to so many organizing and communications successes, even with little to no resources, as the examples below illustrate. • Winning universal healthcare: In 2008, advocates and the media believed universal healthcare in Vermont was a political impossibility. Organizers had not yet built a large and conscious base of support capable of winning universal healthcare. Then, organizers gathered and shared personal healthcare stories across race and class lines to build a large base of support and deepen members’ and allies’ commitment to a racial justice frame and a human rights message. The impact? Vermont became the first state in the U.S. to pass universal healthcare. (For the full story, see “Healthcare is a Human Right: Confronting the Immigration Wedge in Vermont”) • Building power against anti-immigrant laws: In 2010, facing searing anti-Latino stereotypes and armed with almost no communications capacity or resources, local organizers needed to address the “show me your papers” attack while maintaining strategic focus and momentum. Building on the strength of their ongoing organizing, local organizers reached out through local-to-local networks to create a hub of organizing, communications, and cultural collaboration. The impact of this movement communications was a shift in the media coverage of SB 1070 toward a focus on the demand for human rights, rather than fear in the community or policy reforms constrained by Washington politics. Communications reinforced powerful local organizing, galvanized larger numbers of people, and helped defeat additional anti-immigrant bills. (For the full story, see “From Fear to Freedom: How Local Collaboration Changed the Story on Arizona’s SB1070”)
• Shifting Public Debate on Public Housing: In Miami, in a campaign to save public housing, organizers struggled against the “common sense” created by corporate owned media, right wing think tanks, and mainstream culture that welcomes gentrification and displacement of people of color as solutions to poverty. In 2005, taking a movement communications approach, organizers began to shift the frame. Organizers built a large and powerful community-based coalition that caught the eye of an investigative reporter. Rather than seeking coverage for their campaign, the organizers pointed the reporter to the larger story of greed and corruption that would allow public housing to be valued as a part of a brighter vision for the city. In a major breakthrough, the reporter produced a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the Miami Herald that transformed the policy debate in Miami and opened the door for the demands coming from communities of color. (For the full story, read “From Stereotypes to Swindlers: Going Beyond Sound Bites to Re-Frame Public Housing Debate in Miami”)
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Case Studies In Brief
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The result of this integrated organizing and communications approach led to victory. Workers gained recognition as survivors of human trafficking, as well as concrete victories, including: work authorization, the right to bring their families to the United States, and the introduction of new guest worker rights legislation in the U.S. Congress. (For the full story, read “Our Voices in Our Hands: Participatory Communications and the Indian Guest Worker Fight for Labor Protections in New Orleans”) • Blocking a Giant Telecoms Merger: In
2010, when the proposed merger of two giant telecommunications corporations created an important organizing battle and opportunity, organizers were constrained by the technocratic framing and inaccessible advocacy that plagued Internet policy discussion. Using a strategic, creative, cultural, and hyper-local communications and organizing strategy, organizers connected the proposed merger to social justice movements and the needs of local audiences. In the end, people from all sectors of
society participated in the campaign that successfully blocked one of the largest mergers in corporate history. (For the full story read “Building Progressive Majorities for Internet Policy, Niche by Niche”) As these story briefs demonstrate, there is a growing body of evidence for what works in communications for progressive community organizing. Approaches such as: • • • • •
Directly confronting race and immigration wedges; Forging local-to-local communications collaboration; Shifting debate and public opinion, not just getting coverage; Building out and up from participatory communications; Connecting policy issues to organizing through local and cultural strategies.
These stories of innovation offer glimpses of the many more movement communications successes happening at local, regional, national and international levels. They demonstrate that communications innovation is growing from the grassroots, and is worth the investment. See the full report at http://centerformediajustice.org/echoingjustice
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• Challenging corporate exploitation: In 2006, as guest workers from India rose up against exploitation and barbaric conditions, they needed a strong internal infrastructure to take on a giant corporation and the policies supporting it, as well as a strategy for having their stories heard and understood. Taking a movement communications approach, sharing workers stories became the centerpiece of the campaign, placing guest workers at the center of the organizing and strategic framing process.