People’s Action kicked off a ‘Training Tornado’ this February, part of our push to train thousands of organizers across the country. 56 people from 17 People’s Action affiliate groups in 15 states gathered in Florida to sharpen their organizing skills at “Training for Trainers,” or T4T.
“Training can be a super-transformational space,” says Christian Parra, People’s Action’s basebuilding and leadership development director. “It’s where we learn how to show up in ways that are authentic to our leaders, then practice those skills.”
Training is the essence of how we build strength together through the Organizing Revival: by helping leaders develop skills and confidence they need to build their home organizations and grow collective power together across our network.
They committed to some of the Organizing Revival’s most ambitious goals: to train 1,480 members in the fundamentals of organizing by the end of this year, and 75,000 new organizers over the next ten years.
Each of the groups which attended now also has their own ambitious goals to train and expand their base, with local trainings based on People’s Action’s powerbuilding approach planned nationwide.
“Trainings like this are going to give us the chance to not only build the base we need, but also to deepen that base and invest in our leaders, said Em Perry from Michigan United. “That’s what got me to T4T: the hunger to invest in people, and to get some coaching and support.”
“It was super grounding for us,” said Ana Salazar from Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N) in Massachusetts.
The Florida T4T was Ana’s second. After her first in Ohio last July. After Ohio, she set out to create a kickass in-house training program for N2N.
“We have an amazing base,” says Ana, “but there was a deep gap in our ability to develop them because we didn’t have a solid training infrastructure. So II started having conversations with different organizers and staff about what does it actually look like to build out a training program? Not just a one-off, but a system and infrastructure to build power.”
With help from Christian, Ana and N2N’s Katie Tolbert developed a two-day powerbuilding training for N2N based on People’s Action’s methods. So for Ana, Florida was her opportunity to test-drive and refine these techniques.
“It’s incredibly helpful to get supportive feedback from people who have seen hundreds of trainings, and who can agitate you to grow and to become the most powerful trainer you can be,” she said.
N2N’s two-day training, hosted by Ana and Katie right after the Florida N2N, was a huge success: Leaders came to Holyoke from across the state, expanding N2N’s footprint.
“Our leaders are now so clear about their ownership of our organization, and the success of our work,” said Anna. “They are having one-to-ones constantly. They’re all developing their own leaders and taking on ownership of roles in ways that didin’t even exist before.”
Reginald Brown, a People’s Action board member and leader from VOCAL-NY, also plans to build a robust in-house training program for his organization, which in fifteen years has expanded from a handful of volunteers into a multimillion dollar organization with chapters across the state which has inspired new organizations to start up in Kentucky and Texas.
“This training is something good. And when I have something good, I want to share it with others, said Reginald. “Because that’s the only way we can build power.”