Like many of you, I’ve spent this winter and spring trying to figure out what to do in this political moment. I’ve spent over thirty years evolving my personal theory of change, as my knowledge, understanding and experience of using different tactics grew. For most of that time, my theory of change has looked something like this:
The things that notably were added to my own theory of change over time were “provide mutual aid” and “increase joy.” As someone who started her adult life as a queer person coming out during the early days of the AIDS crisis, and one who worked early on in the anti-nuclear movement, I’ve always recognized the power of direct action, and I’ve never been comfortable working in an organization where that tactic isn’t part of the theory of change. Direct action is not just about mass mobilization or giant protest marches for the sake of marching–it also includes things like the burning of draft cards, or spilling blood onto nuclear facilities, or occupying government buildings just to say “we’re here and you can’t ignore us.” And to me, there is no greater joy than working with workers and member leaders to develop as activists, through the process of base-building.
Over the course of the past few months, I’ve recognized that my theory of change no longer makes sense to me, in the context of the US’s slide into authoritarianism. For example–I’ve spent many years of my life working to engage people to participate in elections, and to engage in legislative and policy-making spaces, but I’m no longer convinced, with the time I have left, that those are as important to me personally.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop voting, or working with organizations that participate in electoral politics–but I’m having a hard time imagining saying, “they’ve got the money but we’ve got the votes” in a system that is entirely captured by money.
I developed this workshop to use with my own team and clients, to start to investigate how our own personal theories of change are evolving in this moment. I’ve decided that it’s useful enough that I’m sending it out to our list for use in other movement organizations.
Like many of you, I’m not yet ready to revise our organizational theory of change–but I’ll be thinking more about that this summer & into the fall. If you’re interested in talking about that, hit me up via email to set up some time to talk. And if you do use this workshop, I’m curious to hear how it goes with your staff or volunteers, so feel free to email me about that, too. If we get positive feedback from this, we’ll do a similar workshop with an organizational theory of change focus later in the year.
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