Our Theory of Change
In an address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC’s) 11th Convention in 1967 titled “Where Do We Go From Here?” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. confronts the central issue required to make change: POWER.
To make change, ordinary people with a different vision for their communities must build power—it is the primary currency of the political and economic arenas. No change can happen without it. The issue of power, who has it, who does not, and how ordinary people can organize their own power to make change is fundamental to IAF organizing. Change cannot be achieved through government or foundation-funded or university/nonprofit-sponsored programs because these programs generally provide services to people and do not develop them as leaders. This violates IAF’s iron rule of organizing: “Never do for others what they can do for themselves.”
Renowned civil rights organizer Ella Baker provides IAF organizers and leaders with our ongoing charge: “Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it. ... I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.” To build, wield and maintain power, ordinary people don’t need activism, they need organization in the form of a union, a broad-based organization like those the IAF builds, a cooperative, a credit union, a political party, or a PTA, to name a few.
Organizations and institutions, by and large, are generational, which is the timeframe for deep change. At their best, they can bring people from different backgrounds and interests together into a new organization that they lead and own to build and exercise power so they can practice politics and win.
Politics is the art of engaging with people with different interests, arguing with them, fighting/wrestling with them, negotiating with them, and compromising with them on a path forward to make change that serves to the best extent possible these diverse interests—more or less. This broad-based power building militates against the factions that James Madison warned about in The Federalist Paper #10. It also prepares us for politics in larger arenas, where it is a combat sport that ultimately requires engagement and compromise.
The absence of politics is what we have now at the national level in the U.S. The extreme absence of politics is violence (1). Fortunately, politics grounded in a place—a local community, a metropolitan area, a state—to which people from diverse backgrounds generally have a shared commitment is still possible and can be a laboratory for experimentation that can yield answers for our larger and deeper national challenges (e.g., the IAF secured Romney Care in Massachusetts, leading to landmark federal health care expansion).
In these dark times, the light, which Hannah Arendt, the renowned historian and philosopher, argued is required and which IAF organizing helps produce, originates not in theory but in the practice of organizing rooted in local leaders’ experiences, aspirations and wisdom. Doing politics and winning on issues at the local and state levels provides hope to ordinary people that they have agency and can make change, and that politics is essential to a meaningful, prosperous and enduring life and democracy.
(1) See Bernard Crick’s In Defence of Politics for deeper reading on these points about politics.
What We Believe
These are our core values and beliefs:
We believe that every individual possesses the ability to contribute to our society and that most people, when given opportunities, do the right thing most of the time. We, therefore, believe in the rule of the people—democracy—and we know that democracy is strengthened by broad participation and co-ownership, and weakened by excessive concentration of power and by the exclusion of any group from power.
We see democracy as a way of life involving more than just elections. Meaningful democratic participation requires organization, coalescing around shared interests and advancing those interests through ongoing collective action. It requires organizations that know how, when and with whom to create productive tension and conflict, as well as how and when to stop fighting and reach a deal that improves people’s lives. And it requires leaders who are willing to fight for the people and places they care deeply about.
We know that sustained relational connections between people form the basis for organization and that democracy requires continuous investment in open-ended, reciprocal public relationships. Knowing another person’s interests requires listening to and understanding their stories, passions and through- lines. We reject any substitutes and shortcuts for that critical work.
We reject narrow conceptions of self-interest. We find that most people resonate with the Book of Jeremiah: “Seek therefore the shalom of the city, for there you shall find your own shalom.” But we also recognize there are exceptions and that a central struggle of our time is defending the shalom of the city from unchecked greed and power.
We value people’s institutions, places where they gather on a regular basis to relate, learn, worship, work and find meaning. These institutions bind individuals together and can provide not just refuge from isolation, but a check on larger economic, political and cultural forces.
We know that our democracy is nourished by a mixed multitude of traditions; of faiths, races and ethnic backgrounds and meaning and culture; of struggle for freedom and justice; of political thought and expression. No single framework or way of thinking provides all the answers.
We are adamant that most individuals can and should speak and act for themselves and that when others speak and act for them rather than with them, they deprive people of opportunities for growth and development.
How We Act
IAF/Metro IAF helps citizens and aspiring citizens build and sustain organizations and institutions through which they can participate productively in public life. Most of this work is voluntary and done through groups of members from places such as religious congregations of all faiths, labor unions, schools and parent organizations, youth and student groups, tenant and homeowner organizations, small businesses, and environmental and health groups. We bring these peoples’ institutions together in local or regional organizations that provide their leaders with the power they need to act effectively on their shared interests. Each of these broad-based affiliates is a separately incorporated nonprofit with its own locally determined organizing priorities, leadership and budget.
Each IAF/Metro IAF affiliate strives to be:
- Diverse: We reach across the divides in our > communities to invest in developing and sustaining relationships that intentionally cross lines of race, class, faith and political party.
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Nonpartisan and nonideological: We are independent from political parties, candidates
and officeholders, and don’t belong to one “tribe” or another. -
Dues-based and owned by member institutions: Our affiliates’ most important source of funding is dues paid by member institutions, usually 1% of their operating budgets, ensuring that
the organization is accountable to its members and that member institutions fully own the
organization. - Collectively led: No single charismatic leader speaks for our organizations. They are led by diverse teams in terms of gender, race, faith, and so on. Leaders cycle in and out, as do the professional organizers who staff the organizations.
- Committed to investing in public relationships: Our most important day-to-day tools are one-to-one and small-group meetings where participants listen to one another’s stories and concerns and find shared interests. We use these tools to build productive, mutually respectful and accountable relationships with powerful actors from both the private and public sectors of society.
- Multi-issue: Our affiliates’ agendas reflect a range of concerns in our communities and focus on issues where we have the power to win real change and that matter in people’s lives, like affordable housing, jobs, education, safety, health and just treatment of all. We develop pragmatic, creative solutions and move them to fruition.
- Focused on action: We bring forward specific, well-researched proposals to achieve meaningful change and act to get power players to respond. Large, disciplined public assemblies often prove to be the best way to win the recognition, respect and accountability needed to produce real, tangible results.
- A “university of public life”: We conduct regular and ongoing leadership training in many forms. We research and analyze problems in our communities, engage practitioners and experts in wide-ranging fields, and create and implement solutions that work. We evaluate our actions and strategies. All of this builds a culture of learning in which leaders emerge and develop. That development is our chief product.