What does an Organizing Sentence look like?
Learn how to formulate an organizing sentence to guide and focus your organizing.
The following is from pg. 40 of Organizing, People, Power and Change, By Leading Change Network, Marshall Ganz, New Organizing Institute, Peter Gibbs, Shea Sinnott, et al., pg 40.
An organizing sentence summarizes your campaign and provides clarity on your people, strategy, tactics, and timeline. The “organizing sentence” is a tool used to clarify the important components of your strategy and organizing plan. Every team in a campaign – including the core leadership team and each local leadership team – should compose an organizing sentence unique to their team..
An organizing sentence looks like this:
We are organizing (WHO) (WHAT OUTCOME) through (HOW) by (WHEN)
Or, put another way:
We are organizing (our people) to (strategic goal) through (tactics) by (timeline).
For example, in a provincial election, a core leadership team’s organizing sentence may look like this:
We are organizing BC Liberal Party members and other supporters of a free enterprise coalition to identify 805,126 voters who will pledge to vote Liberal through door-to-door and phone canvassing by May 13, 2014.
Similarly, a local leadership team’s organizing sentence in a provincial election may look like this:
We are organizing BC Liberal Party members and other supporters of a free enterprise coalition in the Nechako Lakes riding to identify 4,920 voters who will pledge to vote Liberal through door-to-door and phone canvassing by May 13, 2014.
To summarize, we implement tactics to act and put our strategy into practice. In order to be effective, we must employ “sweet tactics” that are strategic, strengthen our organization, and develop individuals. In turn, formulating an organizing sentence – that employs sweet tactics and is mindful of the campaign timeline – is a useful tool for guiding and focusing our organizing.