5

From Vision to Action: Effective Ways to Support Grassroots Community Power Building

The fourth session of the workshop focused on approaches to power building that place relationships, community voice and self-determination, and the true transfer of power in the center of the discussion. The session had three objectives:

1. Become familiar with the community power-building ecosystem, developed through recent research by the Equity Research Institute of the University of Southern California (USC).
2. Expand the collective understanding of effective principles, research, or tools to advance community power-building efforts led by low-income Black, Indigenous, and people-of-color communities.
3. Learn how leading practitioners are partnering with grassroots communities to advance their long-term agendas for structural change.

Aditi Vaidya, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), moderated the session.

Vaidya introduced the session as an exploration into how community actions fit into a broader ecosystem of community power in changing the economic, social, and political conditions in neighborhoods. The session was designed to highlight effective principles, research, and tools used to advance community power-building efforts by participants with expertise across a range of domains, including funding, strategy, research, and community organizing.

COMMUNITY POWER-BUILDING ECOSYSTEM

Vaidya noted that the challenges of recent years, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, have been met with a rise of community organizing—particularly among low-income Black, Indigenous, and people-of-color communities. In recent years, successful power-building efforts have initiated changes targeting the root causes of inequities at the local level. In 2020, power building led to a visible amplification of demands for racial and economic justice and for voter participation, particularly among Black, Asian, and Latinx communities. Vaidya said power-building groups have played a critical role in protecting and helping local communities with immediate needs during the pandemic, from fighting evictions to accessing food and shelter.

Vaidya noted a rich body of growing research that supports community power building (Caring Across Generations, 2020; Han, 2020; Human Impact Partners and Right to the City Alliance, 2020; Pastor et al., 2020;

Speer et al., 2020; USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute, 2020). RWJF funded Lead Local, a collaborative effort that spent 2 years producing some of the most up-to-date research on how community power building advances health equity.¹ Manuel Pastor and the team at the USC Equity Research Institute have studied social movements and grassroots community-organizing efforts for more than 20 years, and they were partners in Lead Local. Using this body of research—which includes research led by community power-building groups themselves—RWJF has developed a definition of community power (see Box 5-1).

Power is a multidimensional construct involving an ecosystem of the strategies, processes, and partnerships that are required to build it, said Vaidya. The Equity Research Institute developed a model of this ecosystem. This model is rooted in the understanding that organizing and base building are central for historically excluded populations to have power, agency, and voice, but alone they are insufficient to gain influence over decision makers. Hence, power building requires an ecosystem of capacities. At the center of the model are the concepts of organizing and base building, with other components stemming outward from that center. These include

• advocacy and policy;
• research, both scientific and legal;
• communications, culture shifting, and narrative change;
• alliance and coalitions;
• leadership development; and
• organizational development, infrastructure, and funders.

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¹ More information about Lead Local, including full reports of findings, is available at https://www.lead-local.org (accessed March 2, 2021).

Quoting Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, Vaidya said “The power to define what is needed is the power to shape what is delivered.” Organizing for systemic change therefore involves supporting communities to define what they deserve and need, then working with them to build the infrastructure, accountability, narrative change, and organization required to obtain it. Research, resourcing, leadership development, and other functions are critical to supporting, organizing, and base building as part of the community power ecosystem, Vaidya added, and allies in various roles connect to this ecosystem in different ways.

PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN RESEARCHERS AND COMMUNITY GROUPS

Hahrie Han, professor and director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute and the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), discussed how problems of power require bringing the motivation and authority to make change into alignment. She described the role of research in supporting community power groups and outlined effective approaches to this research. Her guidance was informed by her work directing the SNF Agora Institute, which is dedicated to strengthening global democracy with a particular focus on civil society organizations, and the JHU P3 research lab, which is named for its focus on understanding how to make the participation of ordinary people possible, powerful, and probable. This research involves finding ways to harness the resources of the academy to help strengthen community organizers’ efforts to promote community power building and health equity.

Personal Narrative

Han recounted her family history and its influence on her career in power building. Her parents immigrated to the United States as refugees from North Korea. Growing up in Texas, she watched her parents try to “make it” in the United States, a concept they were trying to define in a foreign land. Wanting to become part of the American culture, they went on family trips to national parks, visiting sights such as Mount Rushmore, because they thought that was what Americans were supposed to do.

Han’s parents did not discuss politics, social justice, or social issues. However, she learned from observing her parents that transformation is not only possible, it is a way of life. She saw immigrants and people of all kinds remaking themselves, their families, and the world around them. She discovered politics in college through happenstance engagement with a student organization. When she completed her degree, Han

worked in electoral politics, seeing it as a pathway of transformation in society. However, one of the first lessons she learned in electoral politics is that policy is downstream from power. She wanted to work on issues like health equity, education justice, and racial equity that were pivotal in shaping her Texas childhood. However, she learned that in the political system, the issue of power precedes all policy matters. She shifted her focus to doing research that would enable her to learn with a variety of groups about how to exercise power for the outcomes most important to them; this led her to the field of power building.

Alignment for Power

A first step to understanding how to make social change is to clarify an organization’s theory of change, Han explained. She remarked that different kinds of social problems require different kinds of solutions. For example, some problems need technological solutions. When polio was a widespread problem, a polio vaccine was needed. Some problems need a shifting framework of incentive—for instance, some people believe that incentivizing people to go to the gym can address problems like obesity. Other problems are problems of information that can be solved when the appropriate alignment of motivation and authority exist. For instance, in the past, doctors advised parents to lay their babies on their stomachs to sleep, believing that practice was healthiest for babies. However, when the doctors’ understanding shifted and they realized it is actually healthier for infants to sleep on their backs, they created a campaign to raise awareness of these shifting health guidelines. The Back-to-Sleep campaign was effective in significantly reducing rates of sudden infant death syndrome over time.² Han remarked that this campaign was successful because the people who needed to make the change (parents) had both the motivation and the authority to do so. Once provided with information from their doctors about the needed change, parents were highly motivated to do what is best for their children and they had the authority to lay their children on their backs to sleep. Han suggested that problems of power exist when the motivation to make change and the authority to make change are not aligned. This occurs when people who are in great need of change—often frontline communities—do not have the authority to make change. Conversely, when people who have the authority to make

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² The 1994 Back-to-Sleep campaign increased the number of babies sleeping on their backs from 17 percent to 73 percent. Sudden infant death syndrome decreased from a rate of 4,700 U.S. infant deaths in 1993 to 2,063 in 2010. See https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/7-great-achievements/Pages/Reducing-Sudden-Infant-Death-with-Back-to-.aspx (accessed March 10, 2021).

a change are not motivated to do so, the result is a lack of alignment that constitutes a power problem.

Researcher Support of Community Power Groups

Han said that the “stickiest” social problems pertaining to equity are characterized by a misalignment of motivation and authority. These problems of power will not be solved by merely giving people more information, improving technology, or streamlining incentives. Instead, people must act together in coordinated efforts to achieve desired change. Both the P3 lab and the SNF Agora Institute study how to strengthen the processes of people acting together. The P3 lab works with community groups across the United States, including the AMOS Project in Ohio,³ Living United for Change in Arizona,⁴ New Virginia Majority in Virginia,⁵ and ISAIAH in Minnesota.⁶ Most of these groups act as statewide, independent, political power organizations focused on addressing multiple issues with particular constituencies. They work to elevate the voices of these constituencies and build power in the political system. P3 partners with these groups to sharpen their practice via research efforts, she added.

The role of a P3 researcher extends beyond evaluating an organization’s program, said Han. As researchers, they seek to tackle questions at the forefront of the organization’s strategic dilemmas and the minds of organizers. They also co-create learning systems with the organization, sharpening the organizers’ practice and informing an understanding of how community power relates to issues such as health equity. Additionally, the researchers try to make the organizers’ work visible in ways that enable learning not only for the organization but for the broader community. For example, researchers may map the organization’s power networks or examine the ways in which the organization has been building its constituency over time. These visualizations of the organizing help organizers to do three things: (1) identify where they have successfully built constituency and where they have not, (2) determine their place within the power networks in which they work, and (3) define the role these community power groups play in the larger ecosystem that was presented by Vaidya. Moreover, P3 strives to push the boundaries of strategic

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³ More information about the AMOS Project is available at https://theamosproject.org (accessed March 19, 2021).

⁴ More information about Living United for Change is available at https://luchaaz.org (accessed March 19, 2021).

⁵ More information about the New Virginia Majority is available at https://www.newvirginiamajority.org (accessed March 19, 2021).

⁶ More information about ISAIAH in Minnesota is available at https://isaiahmn.org (accessed March 19, 2021).

thinking, both among the community power groups themselves as well as among scholars. Han said that over time, P3 identified a characteristic that most differentiates the most effective community power groups from others: constantly operating in learning mode. Thus, she contended that researchers have an important role to play in cultivating, developing, and supporting learning within and among community partners.

Lessons Learned: Building Partnerships Between Researchers and Community Power Groups

Han remarked that being good allies to community power groups is challenging because it requires iteration over time to learn the best approaches. In building partnerships between researchers and community power groups, P3 has identified three lessons about how to provide support effectively. The first lesson is to focus on shared learning. When considering how research is approached, the researcher is often viewed as controlling the intellectual directions of the relationship. For instance, the researchers set up a research design, and may randomize subjects into treatment and control arms. A variety of researcher-controlled arenas can exist, which is complicated for organizations that are working in dynamic power environments in the field, she noted. Han and her team are intentional about simultaneously seeking to meet the highest standards of academic rigor to develop knowledge and learning, but also co-creating and sharing control across the entire partnership. Thus, groups working on the issue of power and the scholarly research community are both learning through a bidirectional flow of expertise. This understanding is fundamental to creating effective partnerships between researchers and community power groups, she added.

The second lesson is to place questions of power, race, and inequality in the center of the discussion. Han remarked that over the years, she has worked with a number of different groups that are each unique in their own ways. However, the commonality among them is that no matter what issue they are working on, which constituency, or what kind of a political arena, they are all operating within an uncertain, dynamic context. That uncertainty provides an important frame for the research. It is not by coincidence that these groups have historically struggled to build power within the political system, she said. This underscores the need to focus, from the outset, on questions about why systems have been structured to disadvantage certain groups, and how these groups are constantly navigating uncertain contexts. To support the work these community power groups are doing, the focus should be placed on issues related to power, race, and inequality; otherwise, it is easy for projects to move in tactical directions that are not necessarily fruitful.

Han described the third lesson using a quote from a twelfth-century Jewish theologian, Maimonides: “Hope is the belief in the plausibility of the possible, not the necessity of the probable.” If one looks only at the data on social change and the role of community power, the overwhelming response to any change effort in American politics is stasis, she said. The status quo is the most likely outcome whenever people, no matter who they are, try to make change. Effectively supporting community power groups to initiate change requires a shift from thinking about what is probable to envisioning what is possible, she said. Researchers can help groups imagine a different kind of future and then work to make that future a reality. Han added that the role of research and learning is to cultivate and sustain that imagination, as well as to substantiate it through learning partnerships.

CURRENT POWER-BUILDING STRATEGIES AND APPROACHES

Vaidya commented that the lessons highlighted by Han fit into the community power-building ecosystem model. As LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, and Ai-jen Poo, co-founder and executive director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, detailed in their presentations at the start of the workshop, this work is grounded in human value and addressing the erosion of human value. Practical research and technology have functions within the ecosystem, as do engaging local partners in shared learning and forming relationships across areas of expertise and varying roles, Vaidya maintained. Noting the variety of professional backgrounds present, she invited each of the remaining speakers to describe their sector or field and reflect on any ideas shared by Han that resonated with their own experiences.

Power Building at the State Level

Ethan Frey, program officer at the Ford Foundation, began his career as a political and labor organizer focused on workplace and electoral campaigns.⁷ He is currently part of the Ford Foundation’s Cities and States team, leading a grantmaking initiative. The program’s focus is supporting multiracial coalitions that are led by people of color and seeking to build statewide governing power. From states’ rights to President Reagan’s devolution revolution, U.S. states hold increasing political and economic

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⁷ More information about the Ford Foundation is available at https://www.fordfoundation.org (accessed February 28, 2021).

power over communities that is often out of reach for grassroots community organizers.⁸ States exert control over a range of issues including the minimum wage, Medicaid expansion, and various rights and protections for vulnerable communities. Therefore, in order for communities to have real power, they must attain power at the state level, Frey said. His team examines how grassroots organizations can most effectively build power at the state level.

Referencing Han’s point that policy is downstream from power, Frey commented that unless policy changes address underlying power dynamics, policy will eventually revert to its original condition. Thus, to create conditions for durable, lasting change at the state level, his organization’s strategy is to rearrange and reorganize state power dynamics. Working in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, it supports multiracial coalitions. These coalitions are accountable to organized constituency groups that have the ability to align other forces and capacities in their ecosystems around a shared strategy. Efforts to operationalize strategy through learning and building new infrastructure are under way in several of these coalitions.

Given his team’s focus on effecting change at the state level by partnering with grassroots organizations, Frey emphasized the importance of clarity around strategy and desired power shifts. For instance, efforts to build power via the narrative arena and by shaping policy through state legislatures require clarity about desired power shifts in those domains. Building the capacity within an organization to measure and learn from the changes initiated in those domains is challenging, however. Frey continued that funders and political donors often put pressure on organizations to measure easily quantifiable metrics such as numbers of contacts or activities, but these metrics are often disconnected from community organization strategies. He emphasized that funders should focus instead on evaluating an organization’s strategies, identifying the power they want to build, and being a good partner in that work.

Seizing the Transformative Moment

Mimi Ho, executive director at the Movement Strategy Center (MSC), has been a community and labor organizer for 20 years. She stated that the current historical moment warrants the abandonment of a siloed approach and a significant transformation of “business as usual.” To effectively address inequities and community disparities, people should

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⁸ The devolution revolution was a movement started by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s that involved the gradual return of power from the federal level to the states.

collaborate across fields.⁹ She noted that the knowledge and policy proposals needed for this transformation are in place: it is only power that is missing. Power must be transformed in concrete ways at the national level, in state houses, and in local jurisdictions, said Ho. Furthermore, to truly accelerate change and power in the present moment, a transformation of human values and human spirit is needed. This unique moment presents great opportunity to leverage both the disruption caused by the worldwide crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and the beauty of the human spirit that has surfaced in response. Capturing the cultural and transformative moment—and combining it with rigorous power-building strategies—can lead to true change. However, Ho posited that change at a magnitude that affects large segments of the population will only be achieved by combining the rigor of power building with connection to the dynamic human spirit.

Ho remarked that the wide variety of speakers at the workshop reflects a shift away from the silos that traditionally characterize this work. For example, community organizers are experimenting with narrative change and cultural change, while policy experts and researchers are leveraging their power in service to community. Furthermore, community organizing is shifting to true community power building. She said that community organizations need to center people within communities at a much larger scale. Pushing the boundaries of ambition would help to achieve the type and scale of power that is sufficient to accelerate change. She added that this change cannot be incremental—exponential change is essential right now.

The Role of Self-Determination and Ideology in Power Building

Julie Fernandes, associate director for institutional accountability and individual liberty at the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF), spent most of her career as an advocate before becoming a funder.¹⁰ She described herself as a civil rights lawyer who loves research for learning and who engages in a continual effort to improve her practice to better serve everyone. For years, she worked as a civil rights lobbyist in Washington, DC, supporting bills focused on people of color, women, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer), and other groups. Some of these efforts were

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⁹ Significant recent events at the time of the workshop included the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice and equality, the historic turnout for the recent 2020 presidential election, and the storming of the U.S. Capitol that took place on January 6, 2021.

¹⁰ More information about the Rockefeller Family Fund is available at https://www.rffund.org (accessed March 1, 2021).

successful, but others were not. In one case, while working on a big campaign, she felt confident that their efforts would be successful because her group believed that they had the answer to the issue at hand and the necessary allies in place. Still, the measure they were working on failed. While debriefing, she and her group identified a lack of power as underpinning that loss. In spite of having elite access in Washington, DC, her group was disconnected from the communities on whose behalf they purported to operate. Fernandes said without truly knowing what the communities needed, her group was not authentically connected to the work. This issue of disconnection made her realize she needed to dedicate time to understanding where real power lies. She asked herself whether communities have power, and if not, why not? If so, why was the power not resulting in change?

To answer these questions, Fernandes traveled around the United States, talking to groups in different states about what they did not like in the failed bill. If they did like the bill, they were asked about barriers that kept them from helping to ensure it passed. She gained valuable insights through this process, including the realization that policy is downstream from power. Her background in voting, democracy, and elections work has led to her belief that outcomes are determined by self-determination and communities. She noted that in conversations with progressives about democracy and power building in communities, she is often met with resistance. Some progressives express worry that their agenda may not pass using a community-led approach. However, the goal of passing an agenda developed without community input lacks the values of self-determination and community power. In contrast, an approach rooted in self-determination and democracy views the communities of color affected by the problem as those most intimately familiar with it; therefore, these communities would likely have the more effective ideas about how to solve it. Fernandes said her role is supporting communities with the tools needed to carry out solutions. Entities dedicated to constituent power building may need support in developing strategies to move that power toward achieving desired outcomes, she added.

Fernandes noted that narrative is a focus of her work with the Democracy and Power Innovation Fund at RFF. A major area of inquiry is understanding how people of color—African Americans, other Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and other groups—think about themselves and their power. This understanding can contribute to supporting people in recognizing their full power and helping them use it to make change happen via collective action. Fernandes said that when she talks to people in the Black community, she often hears questions such as: How am I going to change anything? What am I going to do when the whole system is not built for me? She suggested that people’s thoughts can make

them feel either powerful or not powerful. People can be more effectively supported to feel powerful enough to lean in, act collectively, and make change happen if efforts are made from the outset to understand their thoughts, including people’s political ideologies, beliefs, and assumptions that determine how they behave politically—not merely in terms of voting, but also in terms of civic engagement—to make change happen. Fernandes stated that in the work around democracy and elections, there is very little research about nonwhite people, yet many assumptions are made about how people who are not white think and operate. She and her team are working to break down these assumptions to arrive at true understanding, then use that knowledge to support organizing, power building, civic engagement, and the role of narrative throughout those processes.

Lastly, Fernandes highlighted the cultural aspect of organizing, which includes both narrative and ideology. Narrative comes into play both in terms of understanding the narratives people hold and in creating powerful narratives that operate to make change happen. Ideological assumptions are constructed over time and driven by culture. People adopt these constructed ideologies without even knowing it, she said. Power building involves deconstructing ideologies that strengthen the status quo, while also creating new ideologies that speak to people and bring them to a more progressive place. Speaking to the strength of ideology, Fernandes gave the example of the shift in understanding of the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution. She said that when she became a lawyer in the 1990s, most people did not interpret the second amendment as giving everyone the right to own any type of gun. The majority of people did not believe that protected gun ownership rights extended to assault weapons. However, for many people, that ideology has shifted to a belief that the second amendment does provide for the right to own assault weapons. Another example is the ideology that chief executive officers are entitled to the profits of their companies. Although all employees contribute to a company’s success, the default American ideology tends to be that “capitalists earn the money and workers just get the scraps,” said Fernandes. That sentiment is ideology, not truth, just as anti-Black racism is an ideology. Power building involves understanding how to shift ideology around who has value, what matters, what capital means, and how it influences the world, she maintained.

Fernandes asserted that the role of ideology and culture is well understood by the political right. She referenced seminars in which conservatives emphasize “winning on culture” because culture is ideology, and culture and ideology are, in turn, policy. She urged progressives to embrace the transformative potential of culture and ideology, because they are forces greater than individual policy wins.

Transformation and Forms of Power

Taj James, co-founder of Full Spectrum Capital Partners and co-founder, former executive director, and current board member of the Movement Strategy Center, described this discussion as reminiscent of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assertion that there will be no equity and no justice without a revolution in values.¹¹ King said, “When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered” (King, 1967). James remarked that the challenges we face are essentially spiritual and cultural challenges pertaining to fundamental questions of what it means to be human: What is the value of life? What is the nature of our relationships with each other? What is our place in the cosmos? He noted that activists Grace Lee Boggs, Michelle Alexander, and Reverend William Barber have revisited King’s tradition of centralizing the role of culture and values in deepening a broader transformation.

Describing himself as “a community organizer in recovery,” James served as co-director at MSC for many years, which was a role he shared with Ho. The focus of that work was to learn how to approach power building with a transformational perspective, as opposed to a transactional or siloed approach. The California Endowment collaborated with MSC to design and launch Building Healthy Communities, a 10-year initiative focused on health equity. He said that this decade-long process led to his realization that health equity is not simply an issue of public health or education reform; instead, power is the fundamental issue. When communities have power and self-determination, they can define problems, identify solutions, and carry out systems transformation. However, many different definitions of power exist, so developing a precise and rooted understanding of power building is important, he added.

James presented a model of domains of power that pertain to health equity: cultural power, political power, economic power, and, at the intersection of those three domains, integrated and transformative power (see Figure 5-1). Cultural power is the ability to define reality, political power is the ability to define the rules, and economic power is the ability to define relationships. In the philanthropy and social change sphere, emphasis is often placed on political power and, at times, cultural and narrative power are a secondary focus in working to change who the decision makers are. Although real economic power building is foundational, it receives little attention within the nonprofit, philanthropic

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¹¹ More information about Full Spectrum Capital Partners is available at https://fullspectrumcapitalpartners.us (accessed March 1, 2021).

infrastructure—this is problematic, because political power is reflective of economic power. Many wealthy individuals consider assets to be more important than equity, he noted. Given the power that assets entail, his work focuses what is owned, how it is owned, and who owns it. Power-building strategies should include an economic dimension while strengthening political and cultural power, he continued. While economic power is foundational, cultural power is primary and encompassing. Emphasizing Fernandes’s statements about narrative, ideology, and culture, James remarked that the political right has been effective in systematically focusing on narrative and cultural power, because those who define reality are more likely to be able to make rules and change policy. The community power-building ecosystem model presented by Vaidya also pertains to political power, he added. Other frameworks and approaches have also been developed that capture the complexities of cultural power building, economic power building, and integrated or transformative power (see Figure 5-2). He is currently working to use the strength and capacity built around political power as an anchor to integrate with cultural and economic power.

DISCUSSION

Vaidya commented on the wide variety of approaches to power building that are used in terms of frameworks, definitions, ways that people work together, and the relationships that are built. However, the values of self-determination and centering efforts on organizing and base building appear to be common throughout. The work is grounded in practical implications, determining what is working, what is not working, and the “hard stuff in between,” she noted.

Shared Learning Processes

A variety of professionals are working to drive community-held visions forward with action, said Vaidya. Although many multisector collaborations exist between researchers and the grassroots organizing sector, they are not always centered around organizing. Furthermore, the various collaborations do not necessarily work in concert with one another. She asked for practical ways that professionals can approach working together and building relationships with grassroots organizations.

Han provided an example from her collaboration with Faith in Action (formerly known as the People Improving Communities through Organizing or PICO national network), a national network of faith-based, community-organizing groups. Before becoming Faith in Action’s national campaigns director, Joy Cushman worked at the New Organizing Institute, an organization that supported community power building across the United States. While at the New Organizing Institute, Cushman invited Han to serve as an evaluator for a grant. They conducted a study, found results that showed the effect of the organization’s program, and learned about how to build partnerships. However, both she and Cushman left the partnership feeling their collaboration could have led to deeper learning if not confined by funder-imposed structuring. When Cushman transitioned to Faith in Action, Han and Paul Speer, professor and chair of the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University, agreed to co-chair a Faith in Action research council that would partner with organizers and federation leaders to create a shared learning agenda through discussions held over the following year. Creating this shared learning agenda began with aligning values, which was a time-intensive process of trust building throughout the team. Next, they identified questions organizers were grappling with that scholars also wanted to understand. These common areas—where learning could be advanced in both fields—became the agenda.

For Han, a turning point was the realization that studying the work of Faith in Action necessitated moving beyond tactical studies toward studies that helped understand if and how Faith in Action was challenging

fundamental assumptions about the way the political establishment should be structured. Some of these assumptions, for instance, got at the ways in which narrative power and cultural power were exercised in this work, she added. For example, if it is assumed that communities of color and low-income people cannot be organized or turned out to vote, the entire electoral system is set up in a way that leaves them out. Instead of designing studies that would help people learn about ways to incrementally optimize voter turnout, she and her colleagues developed studies seeking to challenge the fundamental assumptions about the voting behavior of low-income people and communities of color. Thus, the research focused on the fundamental assumptions that structure power in our society, and questions were constructed accordingly. Once these questions were in place, the group then determined how to set up the research to answer them. Han added that the process involved a combination of building buy-in and developing the ability to articulate the assumptions they wanted to challenge or query via research.

The Role of Funding in Power Building

Vaidya asked the funders on the panel how they came to be in their current roles. Furthermore, given the wealth and variety of ideas, she asked how the funders sift through proposals for seeding research, forging new power-building collaborations, and developing power-building plans to develop strategies that align with the focus of their respective foundations.

Fernandes worked in the U.S. Department of Justice under the Obama administration on voting rights and election issues and at the Open Society Foundation as an advisor to grantees on devising advocacy strategy. Realizing the power in money and structuring grantmaking, she began examining how grantmaking can support power-building organizing. She remarked, “How you do grantmaking is as important as whether you do it.” Fernandes highlighted the common disconnection between funder-driven work and the questions that are important to organizers. Although it can provide funders with a greater degree of control—which some funders wish to have—it also undermines the ability to advance this work in a meaningful way. Instead, she suggested that these efforts ought to be built around open dialogue about what grantees want and need. However, this level of openness can depend upon establishing a strong relationship, because fear of losing access to funds can discourage grantees from being open about their needs. Fernandes described relationships as the core of effective grantmaking. The grant maker should form relationships with base-building organizations, which involves phone conversations, video meetings, attending meetings the organizers attend,

and listening to understand what the organizations need and how they operate. Funders should also form relationships with people who have a thorough understanding of the field and draw from their expertise. Fernandes added that funders should be genuine in this process of relationship building and approach this work as a process of co-creation.

When the Democracy and Power Innovation fund was set up, the founders were intentional about beginning the work with groups they had previously established relationships with, said Fernandes. The fund has the flexibility to open to additional groups. In such cases, they prioritize discovering the group’s learning needs and focus on those needs, rather than the funders’ interests. The fund then connects groups with researchers to explore those areas. Fernandes emphasized this can be a difficult process, because organizers and funders are drivers who are more accustomed to directing than to co-creating. She reflected, “I am a lobbyist. I am a total driver…but you have to check yourself and walk with humility.” Fernandes said she is inspired when working with the groups she collaborates with, because “They know what they want. They know what the problem is, and they know they are in a system where they are devalued.”

Frey noted that using private capital to build public power can give rise to dilemmas. For instance, nonprofits are not inherently democratic. Leaders make internal design choices about structuring people and resources that shape power outcomes in the real world. This dynamic is instructive for grant makers in selecting projects while wading through the huge nonprofit industrial complex. Frey remarked that funders trade using their primary resource, private capital. In making selection decisions, he talks with organizations about who their leaders are, how they practice accountability to their leaders, and how this is reflected in the data they are tracking and the learning they are doing. He considers whether people are truly the primary source of the organization’s power, which is not a foregone conclusion. It is also helpful to distinguish scale from impact. For example, an organization may have large volumes of outputs and activities that are not translating to improvements. “You can do a lot more with five committed leaders than you can with a million contacts, as a lot of social movements have shown,” said Frey.

Cross-Sector Relationship Building

Vaidya highlighted several principles that emerged in the discussion. One is prioritizing shared learning over outcomes-driven, policy-driven conclusions. Another is the role of relationships in power and the value of spending time to build relationships. Despite using various frameworks and different definitions, the panelists commonly discussed grounding

their work in everyday people and organizing the base as core elements to power building. From that center, the work is then to determine the best ways to engage with organizing and base building. Vaidya asked the speakers to offer advice to people who are new to organizing and power building about how to build relationships with a sector and engage in shared learning.

James suggested adopting a holistic perspective in thinking about power and communities. One of the greatest barriers between communities and philanthropy is the disparity between the whole, integrated nature of life in community and the segmented, siloed nature of philanthropic institutions, he said. It is possible to avoid the resulting disconnection—which can harm the relationship even when philanthropic organizations have the best of intentions—by identifying a specific, shared focus between the institution and the community (e.g., adolescent health) and to collaborate in a holistic way. James added that philanthropy should increase its emphasis on economic power, treating a grant not as reparations but as a transfer of assets that puts the power of philanthropy into the hands of the community. A different set of health outcomes requires a power transfer; without a transfer of economic power within communities, for example, grants will not accomplish desired outcomes.

Ho stated that this moment requires institutions to leave their silos. Given the collapse of a variety of systems—climate, economic, health, and government—the time is ripe for innovation and building new systems, she said.¹² This can be achieved by building one-on-one relationships and convening across professional fields to center communities in the redesigning of these systems. Furthermore, experts should leverage their assets and positional power to create laboratories that cross sectors and serve a variety of stakeholders. She posited that the next four years will offer a window of opportunity for redesigning systems, with participants in this workshop being uniquely positioned to carry out the necessary change efforts.

Vaidya asked the remaining speakers to share a word or phrase regarding how to approach partnering in grassroots power building. Fernandes highlighted “humility,” Frey responded with “relationships,” and Han suggested entering into relationships with authenticity.

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¹² Multiple extreme weather events took place in the United States in 2020, which experts have associated with climate change. The U.S. economy shifted in response to the business shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of the workshop, the United States had the highest numbers of COVID-19 deaths and infections of any country worldwide. See https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html (accessed March 3, 2021). On January 6, 2021, rioters attempted to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election by storming the U.S. Capitol to prevent the confirmation of the electoral vote count.

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