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Gamaliel Foundation Strategic Plan 2000 through 2010 INTRODUCTION
The historical conditions that have lead to the call for metropolitan strategies can be best, and most succinctly, described as “American Apartheid.” Since the conclusion of the Second World War, the American population has experienced dramatic shifts in migration patterns that have led to an ever deepening dividing of the American people by race, income and class in hundreds metropolitan regions in the country. This massive resorting of the American population into geographically separate and grossly unequal communities has been spurred by: a) the re-organization, relocation and too often the dissolution of manufacturing industries, b) the strategies of the real-estate and building industry to favor green field over urban redevelopment, and c) the national highway lobby. Tax incentives, huge federal highway expenditures coupled with federal housing and urban renewal policies of the last 40 years have made the federal government a primary participant in the continued segregation of the nation by race and class and the deterioration in central urban cores. There has been a mass exodus of white collar and professional families out of the cities and older suburban communities. But even these groups are being divided as the most affluent white families move into exclusive, restricted communities with elaborate security, and in many cases, gated and guarded. Middle and working class families are left to support struggling suburbs threatened by the poverty of the deteriorating and crime ridden cities. Since the early seventies suburban blue collar families have experienced a consistent erosion of their standard of living, as the security and income generated from steel, auto and other unionized industry began to abruptly disappear. Over the last 20 years workers in these industries have seen their incomes decline by at least 20 percent. Between 1980 and 1995 workers in construction saw a 17% drop in weekly earnings, 16% in transportation, 7% in manufacturing and 22% in retail. The richest one percent of the American population, meanwhile, has doubled its wealth since the early 1980s and the richest 20% now receive half of the nation’s total income. At the same time, nearly 80% of the American people have seen their real wealth and income stagnate or decline since the early seventies. It is this “majority” of poor and working class families who reside in the cities and older first ring and declining suburbs, while the richest fifth have been disappearing into gated communities, exclusive subdivisions and urban fortresses. It is the poor and working class majority within each region that must be organized together to insure that their communities are restored.
It has been in this environment that community organizations have struggled to impact local policy and encourage reinvestment in the inner cities. Unable to reverse the overwhelming tidal wave of abandonment, neighborhood deterioration and human degradation, some organizers used a deeper and broader analysis to understand the dynamics of the, so called, “urban problem” from a regional perspective. Such a regional analysis exposed the class and race based patterns of segregation and fiscal inequality by geographical boundaries. While other organizers embraced a social analysis only to abandon mass based organizing, Gamaliel organizers took up the regional analysis as the challenge to build metropolitan organizations capable of impacting the regional inequities that are destroying the inner cities and the lives of thousands who dwell there. For Gamaliel organizers, the metropolitan analysis became the tool for agitation, the road map for recruitment, the compass for creating meaningful issue campaigns and the vehicle for building real power. Metropolitan Organizations in The United States In the last ten years, a new kind of peoples organization began to emerge in key urban regions in the Midwest. In the metropolitan areas of Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Northwest Indiana, Milwaukee and Minneapolis, thousands of people from hundreds of congregations in the cities and working class suburbs began to organize themselves together in unified mass-based organizations. These regional organizations began to agitate around tax base inequity, transportation, housing and regional investment policies that were draining the cities and working class suburbs to subsidize the new and growing rich communities. In 1997, leaders and organizers from these regions held their second National Leadership Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri. The nation’s staggering income and wealth gap was presented and understood in the context of the growing inequality, stratification by income, and concentrated poverty that exists today in each of these metropolitan regions. Leaders and organizers declared their intention to intensify the struggle against deepening inequality, the erosion of the middle class and the assault on the poor through the construction of massed based metropolitan organizations.
Political and Strategic Vision of the Gamaliel Foundation
Only through geographically based organizing at the metropolitan level can enough power be built to transform declining cities in our country. Only through the organization of independent, community-based institutions, can people find the integrity and freedom to challenge entrenched interests and fight poverty, inequality and oppression effectively. Spatially based, regional organization allows people to organize across the artificial lines of race and political jurisdiction that have been created to insure that people remain divided and ineffective. The Gamaliel Network will seek to build a Metropolitan Organization in every major population center in the nation within the next 10 years. They will be autonomous, locally controlled and leadership driven, yet, they will be linked together through a national community of committed staff and leadership. They will have power to generate resources and fight injustice at the local region, yet they will have the ability to impact policy at the state and national level through its ties to the Gamaliel Network.
In 2000 the Gamaliel Network will initiate its 10 year plan to transform America. It will organize its central staff and leadership structure to support the following major strategic objectives. Its major 10 year objectives include: • Establish 100 Metropolitan Organizations • Raise 50 million dollars collectively with a 5 million dollar central budget. • Recruit 200 professional organizers (20 organizers per year) • Build powerful alliances with all major denominational leaders • Diversify base to include significant allies and institutions in addition to congregations. The strategies for carrying out these objectives include the creation of the following network priority projects and initiatives: • Expand Recruit and Consolidate Existing Metropolitan Efforts • Financial Development Campaign • Organizer Recruitment Program • National Leadership Development & Training • New Organization Campaign • Organizer Development Program • Judicatory Leadership Development These priorities will become the business of all levels of leadership within the Network, including: the Board, the Executive Director, the Senior Staff, the Clergy Caucus, and the National Leadership Assembly. Each of these bodies will be expected to develop and carry out internal strategies, programs and initiatives and to achieve results consistent with each of these objectives. The Senior Staff, as a body, will be charged with the responsibility of carrying out all national objectives and in seeing that all national objectives are integrated into regional and state priorities. The Senior Staff will meet monthly to evaluate ongoing progress and to insure accountability in each area. This will be the purpose of the Senior Staff meeting. it is needed, a senior staff member will be assigned to develop a program and plan and to support staff and leadership in carrying out each of the major national objectives at the local and network level. • Expand Recruit and Consolidate Existing Metropolitan Efforts All existing organizations are attempting to achieve metropolitan status. This means a membership base that is city and suburban and meets the criteria described in “Description and Purpose of Metropolitan Organizations”. All existing organizations are striving to strengthen their existing membership base, their dues base, as well as their staff and leadership to meet that criteria. • Financial Development Campaign This means significant breakthroughs in how we raise money and how much of it we raise, both locally and nationally. It also corresponds to increasing, significantly, the amount raised from membership and membership related institutions. Currently, most of the Network’s money comes from affiliate organizations. There needs to be a development director responsible for coordinating efforts by the board and staff to raise funds. These efforts should be institutionalized and expanded to include the development of new foundation and judicatory funds as well as the development of new technologies and innovations for local membership fundraising. A new affiliate dues structure must be imposed that significantly increases the revenue from the regional projects and creates a pool of money for new organizers and new projects throughout the country. • Organizer Recruitment Program This is a central priority that will need much more attention than it is currently receiving. New avenues need to be discovered and explored for seeking and recruiting experienced and potential organizing material. The need for minority organizers will continue to be a critical part of this priority. It is doubtful that there are enough experienced organizers out there to realistically fill all the positions that we are attempting to make available through expansion the creation of new projects. Therefore, inexperienced, potential organizers must become as much if not more of a priority as our efforts to find and recruit experienced organizers. Currently, there is a Senior Staff member in charge of organizer recruitment. This is not enough. A person must be hired that is focused on recruiting organizers. • National Leadership Development & Training Programs Leadership development (through training) is one of the best and most established programs within the network. It is the best strategy, so far, for furthering the cause of leadership development at the central network level. The National Leadership Training Program, Advanced Training, Clergy Training, and Ntosake must be utilized to the fullest extent possible. The NLA has emerged as a new and powerful way for leaders (and organizers) to further their understanding and sophistication. More can and should be done to increase our capacity to train and develop leaders. We should use the national training programs, the NLA and other central and local events as opportunities to do this. • New Organization Campaign This should answer the question of how and who will create 100 metropolitan organizations in 10 years. Right now, only the Executive Director creates new projects (with only a few exceptions). This will need to change if we are to reach the kind of capacity that we are describing in this plan. A new vehicle to expand to new territories must be created. • Organizer Development Program If the Network is able to recruit the numbers of organizers that is anticipating, it will need to have a comprehensive strategy and program for training, developing and retaining talented organizers. There must also be a clear path for organizers to aspire to and a path their development and advancement within the metropolitan structure as well as the within the larger network . Currently, this is the domain of the individual senior staff and the Executive Director and not within a well coordinated structure or strategy. There is no senior staff member responsible for development is this area. • Judicatory Leadership Development This is an area that must be developed, expanded and coordinated in order to advance and facilitate the expansion of projects, the creation of new projects and the securing of new and increased funds. It is currently the responsibility of the individual regional project to develop and secure relationships with local judicatory leaders and that will continue to be the best way build a base of credibility around our work. However much more can and should be done to leverage the relationships that already exist. Recently, the Network Clergy Caucus has accepted some responsibility in this area as well as the Senior Staff Manager.
PURPOSE AND DESCRIPTION OF METROPOLITAN ORGANIZATIONS A metropolitan organization is a mass based, multi-institution, people’s organization that exits for the purpose of amassing and exercising collective power on a local and regional level to address inequality, injustice, poverty and oppression. Its job to bring together poor and working class urban communities with suburban communities. Metropolitan Organizations will seek to influence public policy decisions without direct engagement in electoral or partisan politics or through purely legal means. Instead, it will rely on the real power of numbers and strategic action to win major issue campaigns. Ultimately, these Metropolitan Organizations will be linked together by their staff and key leadership and will have the power to exercise greater influence on a national scale. If enough regions are transformed, America is transformed. a. Constituency Metropolitan organizations will seek to organize the poor and working class people of the region. It will seek allies, relationships and resources from all strata of society. b. Member Institutions Metropolitan organizations will continue to organize people through local religious institutions. However, organizers and leaders will look to expand and deepen the metropolitan base by aligning with labor union, with significant regional organizations such as Metropolitan Planning Councils, Local Civil Rights and environmental organizations. c. Leadership The leadership of a Metropolitan Organization will emerge or be recruited from local institutions. Leaders are people who have or who develop a following amongst the constituency. They are institutional leaders and not staff. All corporate structures of the organization are governed exclusively by local leaders and not professional organizers. The Metropolitan Organization must have an ongoing and intensive program for the development of existing leadership and the recruitment and development of potential leaders through training, one on one mentoring and through action. d. Size (number of institutions and capacity) A metropolitan organization will have at least 50 to 100 institutions for second class city metro areas and 100 to 200 member institutions for major metropolitan areas and be able to organize events of 2,000 to 5,000 people. e. Territory Boundaries of the organization will encompass the entire metropolitan region. This will frequently (but not necessarily) reflect the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Decisions on territorial boundaries will consider the local perception of the region, the commercial, economic and communication ties, political spheres of influence, denominational boundaries and other relevant factors. Multi-state regions will be consolidated where and when it is determined strategically necessary or desirable. f. Money All Metropolitan Organizations will secure enough money to support an appropriate sized staff team and for the resources and activities needed by the organization to carry out its local objectives. A third of its income must be raised locally through membership dues, a third organization controlled fundraising and a third through foundations and judicatory support. g. Staff Each Metropolitan Organization will seek to have one organizer for every 25 institutions. An organizer will be responsible for building and maintaining a leadership team in each of the member institution through recruitment, training and action. Each Metropolitan Organization will have a designated Regional Organizer. The Regional Organizer will be responsible for overall strategic decision making, recruitment of new institutions and the development, training and supporting of all organizers in their region. h. Leadership Structure Each Metropolitan Organization will be lead by representatives of the member institutions. Each member institution will have a team of leaders connected to the regional organization and will engage in action at the local and metropolitan level. Each organization will have a representative on the National Clergy Caucus and will send a leadership delegation to the National Leadership Assembly.
STATE-WIDE NETWORKS Purpose of the State-Wide Network All Metropolitan Organizations working within the same state may form state-wide networks. If there are not multiple organizations in a state it is the responsibility of the Senior Staff of that state to develop new organizations in all metropolitan areas of the state. State-Wide Networks are the staff collective within a state organized to enable collaboration on technical support, leadership training and organizer development though joint staff meetings and organizing assistance. It may also be a collective of leadership organized to enable joint activity around state wide issue campaigns or to foster support and solidarity for regional campaigns. Staff for Statewide Networks Each state will have two senior staff members. One will be the Senior Regional Lead Organizer in the state and one will be the State Director. A State Director may also be a Regional Lead Organizer. However, each state will strive to create a full time position for the State Director. Leadership Leaders will organize into state-wide coalitions when it is deemed necessary or strategic to do so. A permanent state-wide structure or organization will not be mandated nor encouraged by the national network.
NATIONAL NETWORK Purpose of the National Network The Gamaliel Network will become a national organization of Metropolitan Organizations. The National Network will exist to provide centralized support and assistance for the creation and development of Metropolitan Organizations. The National organization will exist to allow for the collective power of Metropolitan Organizations to impact national public policy. Central Staff Central staff will be recruited to work directly for the Gamaliel Foundation. These staff will work with the Executive Director to implement the strategic plan of the network. The Senior Staff The Senior Staff is composed of the Senior Regional Organizer and the State Director from each state. Each Senior Staff member is responsible for the development of existing Metropolitan Organizations and the establishment of Metropolitan Organizations in each major population center of that state. The Senior Staff is involved and/or consulted in all major decisions and operations within his or her state. The Senior Staff, as a body, provides ongoing strategic direction for all central network operations and strategic decisions such as expansion into new territory, central staff assignments, network programs and priorities and expulsion from the Senior Staff. The Senior Staff is charged with coordinating the work of the regional organizations to achieve the strategic objectives as defined by the Gamaliel Board and ratified by the National Leadership Assembly.
CENTRAL STAFF ROLES National Director
Chair of Senior Staff Responsible for planning and facilitating Senior Staff meetings. And for coordination of senior staff activity. Director of Pastoral Development Responsible for planning and executing National Clergy Caucus and Clergy Training. Development and direction of national clergy recruitment plans and strategies. Director of Recruitment Responsible for the designing and directing of the organizer recruitment program. Will coordinate recruitment efforts of all senior staff members and will carry out central recruitment effort. Will make recommendations to senior staff for placement of new organizers and interns Director of Leadership Development & Training Responsible for coordinating, directing and developing week long training, advanced training and pastors training. Coordinate scheduling of local training’s and coordinate the assignment of trainers for local training’s Director of National Leadership Assembly Responsible for the planing and staffing of the National Leadership Assembly. Lead staff organizer of the NLA planning committee. Financial Development Director Financial Development Director will develop a plan for significant expansion of central budget and assistance to Metropolitan Organizations in developing expanded funding base. Director of Organizer Development Responsible for ongoing organizer development of programs including coordination and design of general staff meetings, staff retreat and new organizer development and internship program . Director of the Department of Regionalism
NETWORK LEADERSHIP Leadership structure will be reorganized to reflect and better support Network objectives and provide coordination, communication and accountability throughout the national organization. National Leadership Assembly The National Leadership Assembly is the most broadly represented leadership body within the Network. It is composed of Leader Delegates selected by each Metropolitan Organization and staff organizers. It is this body that ratifies and provides vision and general direction for all major, long range objectives and strategies. It meets annually to report and evaluate past year’s activity, and to ratify, alter or adjust annual objectives and strategies.
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