Whether you’re organizing for a campaign, a group or just an issue you care about, there are three areas where it pays for conservatives to focus their time. And each area has different benefits and challenges.
1) Precinct Organization
Organizing by precinct is more geographically focused and as a result can have a more direct and greater potential impact on a specific area.
Political power in American flows from the precinct level upward, because precincts are the building blocks of the American political system.
Virtually every election district, from the school board on up, is a combination of various precincts. They’re like the small pieces in a bigger jigsaw puzzle, which means that if you’re organized in the precincts you can influence an election – or have influence on an elected official who is interested in running for re-election.
2) Church Organization
Organizing in churches allows you to work with people you’re probably more familiar with, and are likely to have more in common with. As a result, you may be able to get things moving more quickly.
Since a typical church’s membership may be spread across multiple precincts, focusing on churches also has the benefit of helping you “sow seeds” of activism in more than one area, (which means church organization can quickly feed “precinct organization”).
3) Online Organization
Online organization can exist on its own or as a compliment to church and/or precinct organization, (ex. online “groups” via Yahoo, Google, Ning or Facebook; or online petitions and campaigns at AktNow – or a combination).
And when you organize online, you make it easier to share information with others and for others to find you.
Online organization is also a great way to being to build a list of supporters that you can contact and keep informed.
Where to Focus Your Time?
In order to determine where you should focus your time and efforts, ask yourself the following questions:
- What specifically do I want to impact or accomplish? Is it more educational and/or issue related, or is it more political?
- Where do I know the most people who think like I do, and who are willing to help? (Hunt where the ducks are!)
Whichever type of organization you plan to focus on, remember that it all comes down to people. Politics is people. And when you get enough people together with a common purpose, you’ve got grassroots organization.
Real grassroots organization leads to political impact!
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(You can find tips like this and much more in my “Grassroots 101: Grassroots Training Series“.)
Social tagging: Grassroots > Organization