2022 Convening

What you get: An opportunity to meet others in the (virtual) room, have fun, and practice our relationship building skills. ‍ Who: Everyone

Recent Supreme Court decisions, coupled with the January 6th hearings, have made it clearer than ever that we are operating in a politically charged, high stakes, power arena. How should organizers think about “winning” in this context? What is our role in this power arena?

Every cycle organizations hope to emerge from the election more powerful with stronger members and greater leadership. At DPI we have learned that a key to achieving that goal is to have systems for tracking member and leader engagement that are as rigorous as those used to track voter contact. How can an organization do that?

In their groundbreaking book Prisms of the People, Hahrie Han, Liz McKenna and Michelle Oyakawa found that powerful base building organizations build a culture and set of practices where groups of individuals can adaptively deploy their resources to move power strategically. But how can organizations do that important work in an election season when it is easy to reduce our members and volunteers to cogs in a voter contact machine?

In many jurisdictions, local elections officials have broad discretion over voting policies and practices. How can organizations develop productive relationships with their local elections officials to promote the implementation of pro-voter practices?

What forces shape the political environment and create political “weather?” What role can and does organizing play? Drawing on an in-depth case study of a state-wide campaign to protect democracy in Michigan in the wake of the 2020 election, this session surfaced lessons about how groups can insert themselves in larger power struggles and build the structures and strategic capacity necessary to anticipate and counter well-funded and media-savvy political opponents.

Multiracial Democracy demands multiracial participation, so where is everybody? How did we end up with an electorate that is missing half the eligible population? And what can we do right now to turn this around?

Social scientists continue to affirm that when it comes to politics (or anything really) people listen most to those closest to them: friends, family, co-workers. So how are organizers adapting their electoral programs to prepare volunteers to be leaders in their own social networks?

DPI has prioritized understanding narrative frameworks that connect uniquely with Black, Latinx and AAPI communities through research shaped by and for organizers. In this session, we shared what we learned about narratives that can be used to craft effective organizing content that can be applied in multiple contexts including digital content.

In recent years, returning citizens and their allies have made important progress in the work to remove legal barriers to voting for formerly incarcerated people. Our challenge now is to develop and implement strategies to connect with and inspire returning citizens to fully realize their political agency.

Go get a snack, you (always) deserve it!

From our previous research with HIT Strategies and New Georgia Project, we learned that power narratives move Black voters to take more political action. Use these learnings and insights from our initial Latinx and AAPI values research to share best practices for developing engaging scripts that promote and support Black, Latinx, and AAPI political action.

We all know that the voter files are flawed. Black, Latinx, AAPI, and Native people are disproportionately missing and vote propensity (VP) scoring is frequently inaccurate. Join organizing data leaders as they share tools, strategies, and practical tactics for developing and implementing alternative methods to reach constituents.

What you get: Meet your fellow Funders, Directors/Lead Organizers, Organizers, Data leads, Communicators. Prioritize follow up and future interventions in your zone of influence

Next steps, deep breaths