CSU schools factsheet
Wesley Strong
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Wes Strong
860 916 2761
Wesley Strong
Tim Craine
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:44:25 -0500
Subject: CSU schools factsheet
From: wcst...@gmail.com
To: ctmar...@googlegroups.com
jason ortiz
Local organizing ideas
Signature Petition- The most basic of outreach and organizing tools. A basic petition can amplify your voice by as many times as you can get signatures. Create a simple yet specific statement such as “No Tuition Hikes” or “Make education a priority in the budget”.
Phone call drive- Instead of(or in addition to) having folks signing a petition, have them call a local state rep or a university administrator and say their message directly onto their answering machine. As long as you do this activity in the evening, students will not have to worry about someone actually answering, and can feel more free to add a personal touch. This can add up quickly and give your local favorite administrator a rough start to their morning.
Dorm Storming: Dorm Storming consists of going door to door in a dorm building and asking every student to sign your petition, call, or whatever you think is best. This tactic makes sure that you are addressing the student body at large and escaping the preaching to the choir trap. It is also great practice for new activists to get used to talking to students they don’t know. Find buildings that you may already know some people and then have them introduce you to their neighbors. With a team of 4-6 people you can cover a decent amount of ground pretty quickly with a high impact conversation.
Compile Video interviews with affected students, faculty and staff into a 5 minute youtube video: Video allows you to post a more in depth message and really get the details of your message across clearly. By collecting personal stories you give yourself the ability to not only explain your demands in detail, but also provide a context you’re your actions. Having the reasons for your actions open and public helps to build credibility with the average student. If your lucky, and put in enough keyboard grease the video can go viral, dramatically increasing your exposure.
Data Collection/Information gathering: Some investigative journalism is always an effective way to escalate a stalled situation. By demanding public information be made public through FOI requests or other channels, you may come across all sorts of other information you never thought would be important. By compiling the numbers specifically relavant to your campaigns(Faculty cuts, specific dept cuts, ect) you can better illustrate the severity of the situation.
Donor Phonebank: Sometimes decision makers are just not concerned with public opinion. To these folks status and money play a much greater role in their decision making process. In these cases its important to analyze exactly who is paying who. Every school has a long list of high profile Donors that will range across the political spectrum. By focusing your efforts on the biggest donors, you may find a powerful ally along the way. This demographic takes some serious thinking to get right, but if your target is not budging, going after their funders will usually force a response.
Mass meeting with faculty and students: At some point any activist efforts must bring all the primary stakeholders to the same table. This moment will not only solidify the communication between groups but it will also energize all those involved and provide for new links and relationships to occur, further strengthening the ability for the coalition to leverage grassroots power in the most effective manner possible.
These meeting can be extraordinarily powerful, but also very difficult to organize correctly where all parties leave feeling heard and accomplished. The more voices in the room the less time that is for any individual to participate. Incorporating small break out groups, lunch caucuses, or physical activities will help break the monotony and give everyone a chance to contribute.
Rally: Group morale is the lifeblood of any effective movement for change. Rallies are a time to celebrate the small victories, enjoy a relaxing positive environment together with fellow activists, and give people a chance to make public statements and take their organizing to a new level. These events also gather a fair amount of press giving you a free chance to get your statement some exposure without a retort from the other side.
Protest: The less jovial and more serious public mass assembly would be the classic protest. Protests are effective at escalating a situation that may be at a road block or after all other communications have proven fruitless. Protests are especially effective during or around public events where decision makers will be appearing for public questioning.
Occupation of buildings: If public protests do not generate enough pressure to make the decision makers change their policies, then you must make it more costly for them to resist you than it would be if they just gave in to your demands. Disrupting the day to day action of an office may be enough to force a meeting, but only a sustained effort will force actual action.
you are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not. Isabel Allende