Have you heard people say community organizing before and wondering what the
heck it means.
Watch this video for my easy to understand definition of community organizing
and you'll also get some helpful tips and tricks to make you a more effective
community organizer for the most awesome advice on activism,
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So right now there is a lot of activity and the social justice field you always
are seeing petitions.
You are always hearing about a rally or different organization that's working to
change some sort of injustice that is impacting different populations of people.
You probably have heard the term community activists,
community organizer and especially with Obama.
That's one of the things that he did in the past and not too many people really
understand what it was that he actually did. By the end of this video,
you will definitely have a more clear understanding of what community organizing
is and some helpful tips and tricks to make you a more effective community
organizer.
I've taught this to several folks from professionals to students to artists and
entrepreneurs because these skills are transferable.
I had nine years experience, multiple victories.
I'm in the award winning community organizer and activist and I founded my own
company, uh,
2015 and we're still having an impact in running strong thanks in large part to
the skills that you are going to learn by the end of this video.
You may have heard the term activism used interchangeably with organizing or
community organizing.
That is actually incorrect so we need to first understand the difference between
the two terms before we dig into what community organizing is.
So activism activism is the policy or action of using vigorous campaign and to
bring about political or social change.
In my last video we talked about slacktivism and I also gave you guys some
information on campaigning that will be more information coming in the future on
my YouTube channel and then 2020 I will be launching my first online course to
teach you guys the different transferable skills that you can use as an activist
or entrepreneur or independent artists.
The difference between activism and organizing is that organizing is to arrange
systematically for United action and power people to empower themselves and
challenge the balance of power.
A lot of times when people talk about organizing, including myself,
when I give presentations,
I always show the picture of the little fish in the big fish, right?
So that's challenging the balance of power.
We have to really understand what society we live in.
Even though we're labeled as a democracy that is ran by the people.
When you're challenging the battle, the balance of power,
you are usually giving power back to the people so that some sort of change can
happen that positively impacts the lives of others.
So that is the difference between community organizing and activism and
community organizing is mainly based in creating relationships,
authentic relationships, building those relationships,
and then being able to leverage those relationships and mobilize people to
impact positive change.
People can tell if you are only nice or act a certain way towards people who are
powerful, right? So we all seen that person before,
hopefully not in this work where you know,
when they are around the average people,
they act a certain way and then someone that can write a check or like a
legislator or somebody walked into the room and they're a completely different
person or way more pleasant per se. So in order to be a good organizer,
you're not one of those type of people.
The last point that enables you to build relationships and be a good organizer
is that you don't judge people.
You give everyone the benefit of the doubt and you work to understand why people
act a certain way. The reason that that is so important is because, you know,
this isn't like a game, you know,
so you're,
you're working to create change in society that's going to impact a lot of
people. You can't really be coming from a place of emotion, um,
and very reactive and wanting to see things change in a way that makes you feel
better.
Everybody is a culmination of their life experiences and the knowledge that they
have taken that. And,
and there are certain systems that dictate those experiences.
So when you want to create change,
you need to first understand the people. So instead of being like,
we want to lock everyone up for a hundred years, who commits a crime?
We want to understand why do people commit crimes and then you work to address
those root causes that actually creates a solution that better the lives of
people, if that makes sense.
But the best way that I can understand this is when I used to work at McDonald's
and they used to say that, you know, you get,
you give everyone the benefit of the doubt and I worked at a good McDonald's.
These are very, very rare, right?
So there's like you're never going to benefit of the doubt.
I became a manager and they was like, you know,
if someone calls out for the third time because they have to go to a funeral for
their third grandmother,
it's not your place to be like you only have two grandmas. It was like,
how do you have the third grandmother? You don't know what life they live in.
They could be a child who has been through multiple marriages with a parent or
something like that,
or they could be the product of a close knit community where they do have a
community grandmother who helped raise them like a grandmother.
This could definitely be their third grandmother that they're going to see be
buried. So it's not your place to judge.
You need to work to understand people and then that allows you to build
relationships which will make you a better community organizer.
There's a whole skill set associated with building relationships and being an
effective community organizer.
And I'm going to leave a link down in the description to a checklist so that you
guys can build your skills on your own dime because I don't want this video to
run too long,
but one thing I do want to talk about is one to one meetings that is like the
Holy grail of community organizer and what it is.
It's legitimately a one-to-one meeting where you sit down with someone and you
talk and you learn about this person. All right,
so you set up one to one meet ends in the context of the organizing campaign.
They are pretty goal oriented even though it is authentic work and these are
real people in realizing you all build them real relationships when you haven't
one to ones in the context of a campaign since it's so goal driven and usually
have a specific timeline and deadlines that you need to meet.
The reason that you're having one to one meetings is to build, identify,
then build leadership.
So perfect example is when I was building my first youth group that I,
that I ever started and it was made up of young people who were charged as
adults.
And I was really trying to find like who was going to stand out and be, um,
a star of this group that can really put this on their shoulders and take it to
the next level.
And I had a one to one meeting with a young person who had just gotten out.
And one of the things that we talked about was his battle rap career.
So I was like, you know, uh, you rap. He was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, Oh,
I have to like duh duh duh, duh. And then I'm like,
you know what type of rap you do? You say I do everything,
but I'm a battle rapper. So I'm sitting there thinking, right,
what skills are transferable and what skills do we bring to the table with the
things that he is already doing?
He's already cares about the issue because this is the juvenile justice
campaign. He's directly impacted. He already cares.
He wants to make a difference. Okay, how can I plug him in as a leader? Right?
So I asked him like, you know, you remember your lines like yeah,
you perform on stage. Yeah. Okay.
That means that you would probably be a perfect public speaker in spokesperson
if you just get the skills that are specific to this lane.
Right? So that's what comes out of one to one meetings.
And when you have a one to one meet and it's not just a,
a straight up conversation in the context of a campaign, um,
you are trying to identify leaders and also you're not really talking that much.
Like you're listening. Most of the time, uh, the,
the people who lean on this like where it should be. Some people say 60,
40 listening to talk him all the way up to 80,
20 where you know you're listening 80% of the time and you're talking 20% of the
time because you really want to build these relationships.
There is a whole system and skillset to one-to-one the effective way to do them
and how you can utilize them not only as a community organizer but to build
network and learn people in whatever field that you're in.
We don't leave a link down in the description to another tool kit that you can
use and implement that show you how to do the perfect one to ones and this will
brush up your communication skills as well,
which is also necessary for anything you want to do and activism,
entrepreneurship or the yards.
Now you understand what community organizing is and how it is different from
activism.
How are you going to use this information in these skills to push forward with
ever initiative or project that you have? If you liked this video,
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Leave a comment down below so we can talk more about this.
If you have any questions or you want to leave any feedback about the video,
definitely love hearing from you guys and appreciate you guys. Also,
please sign up for my email list as a link in the description in 2020 I will be
launching my first online course that will teach you guys the intersecting
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Have an awesome day.