GEAR -- Getting Equity Advocacy Results
> GEAR Components > Organizing
The progress of equity advocacy is driven by several ongoing activities: organizing, capacity building, communications, and research.
Thoughtful, purposeful organizing must be in place at the outset of a campaign, and must be revisited throughout the campaign. It ensures that the community voice is loudly driving change, and that a strong infrastructure is available for ongoing advocacy and monitoring. It involves forming a collaborative of community members, their allies, and new partners early in a campaign to address a common problem. It requires ongoing work to maintain collaborative functioning and to ensure that campaign actions are guided by both technical expertise and authentic community wisdom. The identification of common objectives, collective assets, and shared power across a collaborative allows for the development of impactful strategy. The creation of a clear governance structure and the building of trust among partners and allies allows for smooth and efficient decision making and coordination throughout the campaign.
Examples of related benchmarks include:
- At the BUILD THE BASE stage:
There is a strong and ongoing commitment among collaborative members to one another and to advancing the community vision. - At the NAME AND FRAME THE EQUITY SOLUTIONS stage:
The structure of the campaign and the leadership of the collaborative are assessed upon selection of the policy change objectives and adjusted to ensure authentic community experience, diverse representation, and technical capacity. - At the MOVE THE EQUITY PROPOSAL stage:
Collaborative strength and capacity is sustained through respect to collaborative members’ non-negotiable elements, regular checks of members’ comfort level with strategies, and transparent governance and leadership accountability. - At the BUILD, ADVANCE, and DEFEND stage:
Opportunities for community members to learn about the equity issue and community conditions and to develop skills related to organizing, research, communications, and capacity building are more available and utilized more following implementation.