Regional Power Building: Creating Labor-Community Coalitions with the Power to Govern

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Regional Power BuildingCreating Labor-Community
Coalitions with the Power to Govern

• Civic Leadership Institute for Organizers
• Co-Sponsored by Community Labor United and UMass
  Boston Labor Center
• Boston February 7-8, 2008

Building Partnerships USA www.building-partnershi
ps.org
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CLIO Goals

1. Introduce Regional Power Building (RBP) as a way
   of thinking about deep coalition building
2. Discuss strategies for moving labor-community
   partnerships from transactional alliances to deep
   coalitions
3. Show how BPUSAs Civic Leadership Institute can
   be a tool for deepening coalition work, by
   creating shared vision and language

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Civic Leadership Institute for Organizers

• Session 1
• Regional Power Building and Organizing Strategies
  for Building Deep Labor-Community Partnerships

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Underlying Assumptions of Regional Power Building

• We are not a Presidential election away from real
  power.
• Taking back the Congress will not ensure a
  politics that puts the concerns of working
  families, women, immigrants and communities of
  color at the center for political
  decision-making.
• In spite of a global economy and the impact of
  freely-roaming capital, a range of political
  decisions are made at the local and regional
  level that have enormous impact on the economic
  well-being of our families and the social
  well-being of our communities.

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Underlying Assumptions of Regional Power Building

• The Labor Movement must be able to build sectoral
  and geographic power (these are not mutually
  exclusive goals)and must become an institution
  that represents the broad interests of all
  working people.
• Progressives can make great gains at the local
  level by creating new organizations and
  infrastructure, as well as new models of
  organizing and shaping public policy.

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Case Study Presentations

• How do they tell their story?
• What problems are they trying to solve?
• Pay particular attention to how they talk about
  issues in ways that represent a broad public
  interest.
• What groups individuals had to come together in
  order to be successful?
• Assuming that many of these same people were
  already working on these issues, what is
  different about todays approach?
• What will our region need to be able to do
  similar work?
• How will we know if we are successful
  short-term, mid-term and long-term?

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Case Studies of CCNE and CLU

• Lisa Clauson, Exec. Dir., CLU,
• Andrea van den Heever, President, CCNE
• Background/History
• How did the long-term vision for labor-community
  partnerships influence your programs and the way
  you work?
• What was the strategic purpose of the CLI to your
  work?
• How did you integrate research into your
  organizing programs?
• Challenges and barriers to the work

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Small Group Breakout 1 What is Regional Power
Building?

• How did CLU and CCNE define the ultimate goals of
  their regional work?
• Who did they bring to the table as core partners?
  How did the regional work redefine the
  relationship among these groups in ways different
  than what would have happened with one-shot issue
  or support campaigns?
• What kinds of resources did leaders pull together
  or established new?
• What challenges did the leadership face that
  might compare to situations in your community?
  How were these challenges addressed?

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Civic Leadership Institute for Organizers

• Session 2
• Building Towards a New Majority

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Small Group Breakout 2 How do we apply this to
our region?

• In small group breakouts, delegates from each
  region identify
• What is the goal of our regional work? Where do
  we want to be in 5 years?
• What capacities do we need to create to foster
  the relationships and what already exists?

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Building a New Majority

• means building organizations that are both
  strong and smart, and can
• Frame public debate
• Educate train a cross-section of leaders
• Promote proactive policy proposals
• Make a strong case for unions and an activist
  public sector

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Building Strategic Partnerships

• Building Coalitions within the Labor Movement
• (Shore up your own foundation before adding more
  floors to the building)
• Labor-Minority Immigrant
• (There isnt enough of uswe need to add more to
  our side)
• Developing a Sophisticated Approach to Employers
• (Its not smart to annoy everyone at once)
• Fostering bridge builders
• (We need more leaders capable of thinking outside
  of their silos)

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Case Studies, Part 2

• Lisa Clauson, Exec. Dir., CLU,
• Andrea van den Heever, President, CCNE
• How did you get key partners involved and keep
  them engaged?
• What is the governance structure of CCNE, CLU and
  why did you set it up that way?
• What are other challenges they confronted in
  building long-term core partners, choosing
  campaigns, capacity?

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Case Study Hartford

• Renae Reese, Director, CCNE-Hartford
• What does new coalition work in a low-growth,
  service dominated economy look like?
• Hartford CCNE is a start-up organization in a
  regional economy that has experienced significant
  decline
• Needed a way to create new space to build new
  types of relationships
• How the CLI was a part of their organizing
  strategy and what were some key outcomes
• Q A

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Small Group Breakout 3 Identifying Core
Partners

• In small group breakouts, delegates from each
  region identify
• Who are potential core partners that share a
  similar vision to long-term power building?
• What is a potential outreach strategy you could
  use to gather feedback about this long-term work?
  
• How could the CLI be a potential space to
  redefine coalition relationships and build common
  vision?

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Civic Leadership Institute for Organizers

• Session 3
• The Civic Leadership Institute as a Vehicle for
  Moving Community-Labor Partnerships from
• Shared Interests ? Shared Values ? Shared Power

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Key Goals for Session 3

• Show how each of the CLI modules connect with a
  broader power-building strategy
• Illustrate why modules are designed as they are,
  by presenting Module 1 for participants to
  experience directly
• Highlight importance of creating opportunities
  for leaders to get to know each other

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How the CLI creates strategic opportunities

• Understand how this is going to help your
  coalition move in a different direction
• How each module contributes to
• Relationship development
• Common understanding of the regional economy
  existing power relationships
• Recognition of shared interests and
• Ultimately, a foundation for deep partnership
  regional power building.

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Module 1 Understanding the Regional Economy

• Why regional thinking is so important
• Economic Issue Scan using Four Families
  Exercise
• Examination of regional employer group materials
  what they say about development priorities
• How we can develop our own language measures to
  frame the debate around issues that matter to
  working families

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What is a Civic Leadership Institute?

• Simply stated
• The CLI is a 6-7 week leadership development
  program that brings diverse progressive leaders
  together to learn about / from each other, and
  from other local experts on the regional economy
  and public policy mechanisms.
• However,
• It is not the typical individual leadership
  development program
• Of chief importance
• who is in the room
• what the CLI is doing for your organizing needs

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How the sessions create strategic opportunities

• Finally, the CLI must reflect your coalitional
  and organizational needs
• Outreach to leaders you want to bring closer to
  your work or to turn existing allies into your
  champions
• Research for modules can form the foundation for
  your framing report and build institutional
  relationships with academics who can help
  advocate for the work
• Potential or current campaigns can be explored
  through the Power Analysis

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Using the resources of BP

• Planning for a Civic Leadership Institute can
  deepen institutional relationships and enhance
  your organizing and research capacity

• Building Partnerships
• comprehensive training program for grass-roots
  leaders
• a road-map and materials for local
  implementation
• hands-on support in customizing to local
  organizing needs and
• help with strategic planning and outreach.

• Sponsoring group
• assigns staff to lead local roll-out
• invites key local leaders to participate
• recruits local facilitators and content experts
  to make presentations and
• produces research on regional economic trends and
  power structures.

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Connecting the Dots

• Civic Leadership
• Institutes provide a
• physical and mental
• space outside of
• day-to-day campaign
• work where grass-
• roots leaders can
• come together with
• New partners and
• allies, and begin to
• look beyond their
• traditionally separate
• interests and
• constituencies.