Tips for Helping to Organize and Maintain Multi–Issue Groups

  1. Get to know your ENTIRE community––organizations, government, institutions (religious, educational, other), businesses, labor unions, and other influencing factors––and the individuals and groups from these many circles that can support your efforts.
  2. Find places for meeting or events ("community spaces") that appeal to a broad cross section of the community or at least don't turn some people off (for example university campuses, some religious buildings, police headquarters, etc.).
  3. Sponsor a broad range of events where people come to you (film showings, speakers, celebrations) with a broad range of topics to help identify your friends and supporters. If your events focus on one or two narrow issues, the group may be stereotyped as working only toward those issues.
  4. Sponsor events or projects that appeal to a broad range of people and groups using themes or issues that cut across lines of race, class, gender, age, etc. and across areas of interest, such as Martin Luther King holiday events, making the media more democratic, or federal, state, and/or local spending priorities.
  5. Co–sponsor as many events, programs, and projects as possible with other community groups. That gives you a personal connection with those groups and shows that your group is a partner in the community, not outside of it.
  6. Organize events where people see how issues are related to each other . Encourage views of social change that are interconnected.
  7. Define a "critical mass" of active people that are required to keep a multi–issue group going and maintain an active core group of at l"east that many. That critical mass should represent many parts of the community being served.
  8. Have a plan for involving people with diverse experiences in the group and as part of its leadership.
  9. Promote an analysis of problems and solutions that is general to many issues, such as lack of economic and political power, a focus on democratic structures, and addressing root causes of problems and connecting solutions IN ADDITION TO specific problem/solution proposals. Examples of this might be an end to homelessness/build more affordable housing or cut the military budget/use nonviolent methods to end conflicts.
  10. Take advantage of the power of numbers of people working together to create a "culture of change" that is a respected part of that community. Having connections in many different parts of a community strengthen the power of multi–issue groups to achieve their goals.
  11. If multi–issue groups take on projects that no other community group is addressing, try to "spin off" that program to another organization or get it going on its own as soon as possible so the multi–issue group is not seen as especially advocating for one issue.
  12. Build a library or "clearinghouse" of information on a wide variety of issues and send that information out as widely as possible to those in the group and community.
  13. Develop resources that many groups can use, such as a library of magazines and books, meeting space, available office and technology equipment, and access to the media.
  14. Compile a large scale data base of people in the area from as many group contact lists as possible and code them by community or neighborhood, areas of interest, and other factors. The group can also link between those looking for a contact on a certain issue and possible contact people.
  15. Help various statewide single–issue groups by using the local multi–issue group as its contact or supporter for special projects or events.
  16. Like other grassroots groups, multi–issue groups can benefit from a small amount of money. Good sources of funds are individual donations from people in the community and from grants or sources outside the area being served. Funds from other groups in the area can be asked for, but should not be depended on because it may be viewed as "competition."
  17. Sponsor cultural events such as music, art, and theater to bring together people involved in various issues and make connections among those issues.

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