Community Organizing

• Marc Ambinder continues his question to educate us about the difference between VANs and VoteBuilders, Catalist and MyBo. Meanwhile, Sarah Lai Stirland at Wired thinks that all these databases pose a privacy problem for Obama supporters.
• Meanwhile, K Street Cafe has some interesting ideas on how Obama can continue to capitalize on MyBo/his supporters while in the White House. The most feasible option, according to the author, would be a leadership PAC.
• You voted. Now what? WireTap has the answers.
• The Christian Science Monitor notes the rise of a new kind of values voter:
  

  Nearly three-quarters of voters (and of religious voters) said people of faith should promote the common good, not protect their own views. Even groups most active in the religious right said a broader faith agenda would best reflect their values.

  Only 1 in 5 white Evangelicals and 1 in 8 Catholics said an agenda focused on abortion and same-sex marriage best expressed their values. A majority of both Evangelicals (55 percent) and Catholics (51 percent) opted for a broad agenda that also includes poverty, the environment, and the war in Iraq. The survey involved a nationally representative sample of 1,277 voters and had a margin of error of 3 percent.

  h/t to Zack Exley

• Does the Ohio GOP face a future without the youth vote? I think that's a question that all smart, conservative operatives are asking now.
• Nicholas Kristoff celebrates youth activism. As in 10 year olds.
• John Dickerson, Slate's political correspondent and host of the rather excellent Slate Political Gabfest, thinks that Obama's YouTube "Fireside Chats" are the opposite of transparent.

Bumped. --Mike

I would think that the introvert in me would love America's coffeehouses (when I use this term, I am referring to the shops that most Americans experience -- places like Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, Dunkin' Donuts). They're small, usually fairly quiet, lounging customers usually have headphones on typing on a laptop, and no one talks to you until you go get a cup of coffee or a refill. But I don't love them. Let me count the ways.

1.) When I describe them as "usually fairly quiet," that's ignoring the sound of making the lattes and smoothies which, at worst, can be severely irritating.

2.) I like being left alone to some degree, but in today's coffeehouses, I can't avoid noticing the missed storytelling opportunities. Each person has an intricately woven set of experiences that every other person in the world can learn from. Where else in society do we have the opportunity to organize these experience-based exchanges?

3.) These chain coffeehouses are usually surrounded by strip malls, big box stores and found on four lane highways. This restricts the building of any kind of community, and it deteriorates the economic health of our small town walking districts.

When I was first thinking about this topic, I consulted a book titled The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg. The book reviews the importance of the "third place" in our civic health, a place apart from home and work that allows us to relax and enjoy the company of others. In addition to coffeehouses, we do have other places like hair salons and taverns that serve as third places, but, as Oldenburg writes in the book, coffeehouses have always had the intellectually social side to them. Most of the chain coffeehouses that we have today do fit some of Oldenburg's "third place" characteristics.

But what if we tinkered with some things?

For example, what if the focus of the coffeehouse was not the beverage, but the conversation? What if the "coffeehouse" became a "commons"? Starbucks initially was started with its focus on the environment within the store (after realizing selling just coffee beans was a bit bland). Howard Schultz, the founder of the company, got the urge to start Starbucks when he visited the streetside Italian cafes, was impressed with their environments, and wanted to bring it back to the United States. But the difference between this idea and between Schultz's wish is the injection of interpersonal communication into this mission. This commons should be a place that welcomes everyone into the collective conversation. Oldenburg writes a bit about these qualities found in the London coffeehouses of yesteryear in his book.

In the era of its reign . . . the coffeehouse was often referred to as the Penny University. A penny was the price of admission to its store of literary and intellectual flavors. Twopence was the price of a cup of coffee; a pipe cost a penny; a newspaper was free. The coffeehouse of the seventeenth century was the precursor of the daily newspaper and home delivery of mail . . . Whether on a regular schedule or not, many Londoners dropped into the coffeehouse several times a day in order to keep abreast of the news. Customarily, the literate would read aloud from the house's newspapers, tracts, and broadsides so that the illiterate could digest the contents and discuss the issues of the day (185).

The focus definitely was centered on the dialogue. The conversation, as you read, was set up like a course (the Penny University). You got the news, but you also had the opportunity to digest it, to play with it, with other people just as interested as you. I emphasized "discuss" above because it was not enough even for the illiterate to know the news -- they were expected to discuss it too. The newspaper was free, so there was an obvious focus on substantive conversation. How much better could our society be if we had discussions about public events that happened more frequently? We'd be more educated, more prepared to perform our civic duties. And because the focus is centered on the dialogue and not the beverage, the fancy drinks of Starbucks and Caribou Coffee turn to a more quietly made coffee.

What if this outlet was more centrally located? What if it sucked more people into the plighted downtown areas many rust belt communities are stuck with? What if this "commons" served as an incentive to live in these areas? These commons could be the heart of "walking districts," the downtowns of tomorrow. With a burgeoning emphasis on green behavior, these districts could take off and restore the promise of smalltown America. Improved public dialogue and civic health could result in better school systems, as citizens become more involved in the town's institutions. Better education brings more corporations to these towns to set up shop. It also infuses energy into the town leading to entrepreneurs who are dedicated to the town's future.

I realize this is a very rough, brainstormy entry. But when we look at the "common good," I think we should start in our local communities. The "common good" can only be appreciated, targeted, and pursued when people are talking, and while we have these fancy technological tools (like this blog), the best communication continues to be face-to-face. Coincidentally, Mike offers this tidbit about Clay Shirkey's "cognitive surplus" thesis in a comment on the recent volunteerism entry. It fits in quite nicely with this discussion. This "commons" could find incentives that would enable us to get youth to take one more step and invest some of the time spent on the internet in these grounded, substantive conversations.

What do you think of this commons idea? Is there anything else we can do to reinvigorate the hearts and restore the civic health of our small communities?

Three things to check out today:

• The Youth Shall Set You Free: Cincinnati’s 2006 Person of the Year
• Five Under 35
• Are you getting shafted on student loans?

The first story is something I came across while checking out The League’s new website (which makes some pretty good, and consistent use of audio and video).

It’s about Gavin Leonard, the 27 year old executive director of Citizens Organizing Neighborhoods to Regain Our Liberation (CONTROL), the political arm of Elementz, a hip-hop community center in Cincinnati. What Gavin has done is pretty impressive, and its very much a realization of what Alex and I were talking about way back in the day when we wrote this: a plan for a dual for-profit/nonprofit concert space for independent music and progressive activism. He’s created a sustainable (financially) space that is rooted in local culture (the four pillars of Hip Hop), and which awakens and channels the political consciousness of its members for the betterment of that community. It’s a realization of one of the ideas we had while working at MFA, and what Fred blogs about all the time - third places.

Amazing.

Today, Campus Progress published my article about the unique pension plan program created by the National Organizers Alliance. NOA is an association for community organizers and non-profit workers, and the pension is its flagship project -- probably the only plan of its kind.

By pooling together the resources of its thousand-plus members, and scores of member organizations, NOA was able to secure a deal that's as desirable a pension benefit as any employee could hope to see. All members, regardless of their place on the staff ladder, have access to a employer-matched 5% contribution towards a secure and accessible savings fund.

When I spoke with Patrick Masterson, acting director of NOA, I mentioned that this seems to be a smart way to fix one of the market failures in the activist industry. Patrick laughed to hear the phrase "activist industry"--saying that he'd never quite thought of it like that--but it would seem that this is exactly the insight that prompted NOA to take up the plan. In the world of cash-strapped community work, employees' main benefit is "psychic income"--but while no one does it to get rich, those who do want to stay committed for the long-term often find themselves approaching a future that's actually financially insecure.

NOA's plan was not just about a sweet benny--it was a deliberate and measured reaction to a widespread problem among community organizers and activists: no matter how committed they were to the cause, most progressive organizations have been failing to invest in their future. Is yours?

You can read more about it in "Private Pensions, Public Good":

The notion that non-profit employment benefits should have an “ideological frame” is, in itself, somewhat unusual. "So often in social change work, we don’t practice what we preach,” [Cathy] Howell says. “We say right off the bat that we don’t have enough money, and what ends up happening is that we don’t cover people’s basic needs. [NOA] wanted to set a standard to show that it is the responsibility of social justice organizations to invest in their employees."

At the end of the article, Cathy shares a particularly interesting insight into the way that the mindset of social justice work has changed from the 70s (when it was first widely professionalized) to now (when the "industry" is led by people from that first generation, who might not be in tune with the realities of today's youth).

Update: I realize I should have given this a little more introduction. This podcast is about a book - Applebee's America - co-authored by a republican strategist, a democratic strategist, and a journalist for the AP. The book tackles the idea of "values consumers" and how corporations like Applebee's have exploited community values to lure in customers and create profit. It then extrapolates how the political parties can use these practices to reach voters. What it's really talking about isn't necessarily values in the Republican "Family Values" sense, but rather the idea that you need to talk to people where and how they live - in the communities and lifestyles in which they move and operate. This podcast looks at the book from the Republican perspective. (Take this description with a grain of salt. It's in the mail, but I've yet to read the book).

Hat tip to Kevin, who managed to send this to me even though he's vacationing in Turkey. Why he's reading GOP.com in Turkey is beyond me . . .

Applebee's America (10 minutes)

This podcast is complementary to Fred's podcast of a Robert Putnam speech (below), as well as a conversation the two of us are having about "Living Liberally," or organizing the progressive movement by lifestyle and community involvement rather than policy issues.

The podcast is sort of a mash-up of Putnam and Malcolm Gladwell. Its interesting to hear the conservative take on these new (or rather very old) social trends and organizing tactics. Especially since, in some quarters - voter datafile integration of "lifestyle" factors and organizing faith communities - they are way ahead of progressives.