Multiconstruct

– Adapted from The Practical Guide to Building a Better World, Bread and Roses Press, Spring 2025

With the election of Donald Trump and Democrats shut out of policy making nationally we see a shift in organizing activities. Once again people are focusing on “resistance” types of activities. As we consider the principal goals of protest activity, one of the most significant but least likely to be achieved is policy change.

Protesters want to stop projects, change laws, end war, fund programs, and save the world. There are many reasons why policy change is elusive. Obviously, the deck is stacked for the interests of those who have concentrated power. Money, resources, and entrenched power structures favor and support the status quo. There are also important factors regarding how activists play the hands they are dealt. Focusing on those areas is more fruitful as things that are under our control comprise our entire arena of action.

One of the great strategic community organizers was Saul Alinsky. He wrote the dated but still relevant Rules for Radicals and promoted activist training via The Midwest Academy and other community organizations. Before he was a bugaboo of the right and I was a field organizer for the Student Environmental Action Coalition, one of the critical tools we used was the Midwest Academy’s Strategy Chart. The strategy chart is a simple tool primarily designed to address a common activist problem: jumping to tactics without identifying a strategy that can result in policy change.

It’s a common error to see a problem and jump to tactics without really exploring what you would need to do to have a better chance of a positive outcome. Strategy charts are usually created in a group setting. It’s important not just to have a good plan but to involve as many stakeholders as you can in the planning. People are much more invested in activities in which they have a voice.

The first step is to identify what you want to accomplish. One of the reasons we may not have seen policy change commensurate with the level of protest activity during the most recent racial justice protests could be the lack of clear policy objectives. Movement leadership was dispersed and localized and, even within individual communities, there was a lack of a consensus on what we were trying to accomplish.
As the Roman philosopher Seneca said, “If you don’t know to where you are sailing, no wind is favorable.”

You can make long-term, intermediate and short-term goals if you are working from an existing organization, or immediate goals might be self-evident if you are rallying around a particular issue or objective.
When you are movement building, organizational considerations need to be taken into account. What kind and how many resources do you have to mobilize? What activities can move forward your agenda and build your organization? How does your organization/movement need to grow to achieve your mission?  What skills, reputation, and collaborative partners can our actions enhance?
Being thoughtful to ensure actions build up, rather than deplete, your group/community is smart organizing. The two ways to ensure your activism will continue into the future are building strong and lasting organizations and building robust and resilient communities of change.

You must be specific in a strategy chart. How much money do we want to raise? How many new participants or how many new leaders will there be? Lastly, you want to identify any internal issues that will need to be addressed to take on the issue you have identified.
The next step is identifying potential allies and stakeholders who you can activate to work with you. Who shares similar values? Who has worked on this issue in the past? Who is impacted by the issue you are trying to address? The more diverse the stakeholders you can identify, the bigger your potential change movement becomes.

After identifying what you want to accomplish, you determine who has the power to make that change. If you want to shut down a nuclear power plant that is an asset of an investor-owned utility, you might look at the Board of Directors or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On a smaller scale, if you wanted speed bumps on your busy road, your local Mayor and City Council or the City Manager might be able to give you what you want. It might take a little research or fact finding to get this step right.

Once you know who your target is, you identify what leverage you have over your target. In general, businesses and corporations respond to money and elected officials respond to votes. In our antinuclear power work, our movement sought to impact the Board of Directors through shareholder amendments and protest activity that drove up security costs and soured public perception of the company.

We did a “fold, mutilate, spindle” campaign when customers paid their bills. By taping pennies to their electric bill or stapling the check we forced hand processing of bill paying instead of the automatic bill processing that is the most cost effective.  This tactic served to drive up costs, as boycotting a utility is nearly impossible for most of us.

We largely sought to impact the Nuclear Regulatory Commission through public comment via public engagement and feedback processes. The first demand of protest groups is to get a meeting with leadership to facilitate negotiations and lend credibility to your organization. However, even with our dynamic tactics and public support, we were unable to get over that hurdle.

On a much smaller scale—the quest for speed bumps for example—you may learn that speed bumps are decided on by the Public Works Department and approved by the City Manager. Having no direct influence over the City Manager or Public Works, your campaign might focus on your City Council Members or the Mayor, who hires and fires the City Manager. Such indirect targeting is common, as many decisions are made by appointed, rather than elected, officials. After you know your target, you can assess whether you want to address them directly or focus on someone who has power and influence over that person.

Now we are ready to go to tactics. Continuing with the speed bump example, if you did some research, you might find an already established process in place. In Columbia, Missouri this process involves collecting petition signatures to show neighborhood support. After that, the city measures traffic counts and driver speed, and with that info and crash statistics, it generates a score. Then, the top three or so projects get built each year.

If your project was lower on the list but had a good case to make, you could organize protests and rallies targeting City Council Members or Candidates, especially if there is an upcoming election. You could write letters to the editor, show up at Council meetings for public comment, make social media posts, and get signs made. There is an art to being the squeakiest wheel, which tends to get more than its fair share of the oil. Focused strategic squeaking is even more likely to be successful.

Another reason policy change can be elusive for activists is that they’re coming to the issue too late. Frequently, people who oppose an issue don’t learn about the issue until the major decision points have passed. Trying to bring about change at the 11th hour is much harder than getting in early and engaging in public input processes. Also, activists sometimes bite off issues in which a policy win would require more participants than they can mobilize.

With good strategy your resistance activities can be more than a feel-good experience of speaking truth to power. Instead you can engage in resistance activities with movement and organizational building in mind to build relationships and accumulate power and influence to make effective policy change a reality.