Atlanta Organizing Committee – USSF
- Evaluation – Summary
- Submitted September 1, 2007
Background & Process: Project South launched the committee in August of 2005 as the Local Host Committee and invited local organizations and leaders. The group remained open and met regularly to coordinate a Southeast meeting in January of 2006 and to plan towards the Southeast Social Forum in June 2006. Starting in August 2006, Alice Lovelace began coordinating the Committee and changed the name to match its function as the Atlanta Organizing Committee. The Committee as a whole met on the 27th of each month through June 2007. Following an overall strategic plan that Alice developed and facilitated, work teams met during the monthly meetings and outside the meetings as necessary in order to design and implement logistical, outreach, and working group plans.
Debrief & Evaluation Meeting – August 21, 2007
- Facilitated by Stephanie Guilloud and Alice Lovelace
What were the strengths in the Organizing Committee?
- Strengths of the committee lay in its openness and accessibility as well as strong communication structures. The committee reflected a broad range of people from all kinds of communities with a variety of skills and resources. The committee was not rigidly defined and there was still ownership of the process. The leadership on the teams and chairs of the working groups were enthusiastic and dedicated. All participants brought a willingness to work and an attention to detail. The consistency and flow of meetings helped. A core strength was the ability to attach the Organizing Committee to the Logistics Working Group, and in this way the Committee was able to achieve its goals and create a secure infrastructure for a well-organized Forum.
What were challenges to the process?
- Challenges included structural concerns: the City’s lack of support and response; lack of resources to hire sufficient staff; no ground plan to start; and difficulties in “housing” communication. The outreach work faced challenges like the lack of a specific and inclusive pitch and a difficulty in creating a message about the overall purpose of the Forum. Due to handling the bulk of logistical and organizing work, members of the Committee were not able to experience the Forum as much as hoped. The Committee needed more voice inside the national planning process to address concerns, share information, and coordinate plans. Specifically needing more coordination were the media teams and the outreach teams.
Who was missing in the process? Who needed to be there?
- It would have been helpful to engage folks in larger institutions like schools, churches, Grady Hospital, labor unions, and city workers earlier on in the process. Specific communities missing in large numbers were: the Latino community, the Asian community, immigrant and refugee community, faith-based communities, working women, low-income folks, and Black radical leadership. A more clear and aggressive organizing strategy would have helped to outreach to coalitions, networks, and organizations. Young people did not find the process to be accessible or enough entry points.
Recommendations for organizers in the next site of the Social Forum
- - Strong national staff should be flanked by logistics staff. Logistics Working Group has to be national. Resources should be leveraged for additional staff early in the process for the organizing and infrastructure building.
- - National outreach working group has to clearly articulate and build the tools for all the regions and local committees to adapt.
- - Create specific tasks, positions, and roles & play to the strengths committee members bring. Create more strategic entry points to engage people and decide what tasks need to be paid positions.
- - Volunteer recruitment and outreach overlap worked well.
- - Provide more spaces before and during the Forum for intergenerational crossover. EX: Children’s Social Forum connection to evening plenaries.
- - Do more training around the messaging and the purpose to help with outreach.
- - It was positive and productive to locate the Opening March planning in the location of the Forum. Led to good connections and solid logistical planning.
- - Strong anchor organization in location is necessary.
To be synthesized and attached to this report:
- - Evaluation Summaries of Work Teams
- o Health, Healing, and Environmental Justice Team
- o Atlanta Women’s Working Group
- o Opening March Team
- o Media Team