New Organizing Institute

Before I begin, I wanted to thank Mike for inviting me to post here and share my my experiences at the NOI program. I'm a 17-year old from Santa Cruz, California, who will be cross posting these entries on my small progressive blog Got Democracy.

The New Organizing Institute was founded in the summer of 2005 by a group of campaign staffers that had experience doing grassroots mobilization in the '04 cycle, and realized that progressives need to seriously invest in training future young staffers in the technology aspect of campaigning. Their first "boot camp" was organized by Zach Exley and Judith Freeman in the winter of 2006. Earlier this year, my friend Barak Wouk and I were both accepted into the NOI's 8-day Summer Campaign Boot Camp from July 1st-8th in Washington DC.

Barak and I arrived in DC a few days early to explore the city and melt in the crippling heat and humidity we were forced into. But, yesterday things cooled down considerably as we made our way to George Washington University for the first day of the NOI Boot Camp. At 3:00 we arrived, and checked in to our dorm rooms along with the 60 other young trainees (mostly recent college grads). In the evening Zach Exley introduced the NOI program to us, gave his story of how he got involved in politics, and told us what he hopes we will bring into the political arena when we leave at the end of the week. It was an inspiring speech that got everyone fired up about the program and our ability to create change.

The main point of Zach's talk was that the internet has brought about a fundamental shift in the people, on a scale similar to the changes that occurred when writing, telephones, and televisions were each invented. He told us that he began his work in the organizing field shortly after college as a union organizer. After years of frustrating experiences and many defeats he quit that job and became a programmer. When George W. Bush first ran for president, Zach gained instant fame for a small parody site (GWBush.com) that went viral after the Bush campaign got nervous and blamed his site for Bush's cocaine rumors. The storm of attention that swirled around his site was only possible because of the internet. Zach then went on to tell the story of how the Dean campaign discovered the potential of this new medium, and compliantly revolutionized the way modern political campaigns use the internet. Apparently the decision to set high fund raising goals (as Joe Trippi advocated) was a dangerous risk that faced a lot of resistance. Zach stressed that tension within campaigns always happens and is a very important process. He asked us all to fight those battles to take greater risks, because progressives can only win when we are willing to take chances and raise expectations.

Then Zach explained how the mock campaign, a major part of the training, will function. The 60 trainees were split into groups based on colors. Then each group was randomly given a Simpsons character (or the one Family Guy character that was tossed in) which they now have to run a presidential campaign for. Each group will create unique websites that will be completely open to the public. The goal of the completion is to get as many sign-ups on our email lists as possible, and get as many people as we can to attend a Live Earth MoveOn party here in DC. I'm on the pink group, and our character for president is Stewie from Family Guy. It should get interesting.

More from the NOI training later this week...

Two interesting opportunities:

• The Nation is running its second annual writing contest. All high school or college students are eligible. Contestants must submit an 800 word essay on "the most important issue facing young voters in the 2008 election." 5 finalists will receive $200 and have their essays published on The Nation website. The winner will receive $1,000 and have their essay published in the magazine. Apply here.
• The New Organizing Institute is accepting applications for its summer boot camp. This is a one week, all expense paid boot camp in political campaigning. I've attended an NOI training myself. This is really something to do if you can swing it. Applications for early admission are due April 9th. Regular admission deadline is April 30th. Details here.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending RootsCampDC (put on by the New Organizing Institute) along with Mike and a few hundred of our friends/colleagues, and I thought I'd offer a few of my thoughts and experiences from, what I thought to be, a really great conference.

Mike and I drove down to DC from Philly on Saturday morning along with our friends Fred Dereau, from Living Liberally and Advomatic, and Franz Hartl, from outerspace (as well as Music for America and Advomatic). We arrived a little late--around 11am-- which meant no mimosas for us, though we did catch the first session- a huge introduction led by Zack Exley, where everyone in the room said their name, what they did during the campaign season, and something interesting they wanted to talk about. Zack also explained the ground rules of the conference--it was an Open Space Technology event, modeled after BarCamp, where anyone could host a short session (between 30 minutes and one hour), and where everybody was expected to participate. This had the potential, in my mind, to devolve quickly into a "feel good" event, where little of substance would emerge. But, this cynicism was short lived; given that most of the 400 or so people in attendance were organizers and leaders, almost all of the sessions I went to were interesting and informative.

Reporting for Personal Democracy Forum, activist/writer Greg Bloom, whom Alex has quoted on this website for his work covering the "strip mining of the grassroots," recently attended a training session by the New Organizing Institute.

The New Organizing Institute is a unique grassroots program that trains young, technology-enabled political organizers to work for progressive campaigns and organizations. The Institute is being created by experienced online organizers in conjunction with MoveOn.org to fill an urgent need in progressive politics.

The mission of the NOI is:

• To train and support a new generation of technology-enabled campaigners.
• To consolidate and disseminate knowledge gained in the field of political technology and online organizing.
• To conduct new research and post-campaign investigations that employ results-focused, systems thinking to make progressive campaigns and organizations more efficient.

Greg hones in on what was good and bad about NOI and its training sessions. Well worth the read.