Learning to Support Social Movement Power
By: Laura Lehman
Tags: Philanthropy, Evaluation, Social Movements, People Power, Learning

In November 2018, 150 young people staged a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi’s office to demand action on climate change. A few weeks later, 1000 youth showed up. In the year that followed, hundreds of protests and sit-ins were held, and the end of 2019 saw young people leading climate strikes around the world. In 2020, the words “Green New Deal” have become shorthand for climate action and the narrative of “a just transition to renewable energy” is gaining ground against the dominant narrative of fossil fuel inevitability.

What has caused this shift? A growing, youth-led social movement.

Social movements are purposeful and disruptive by design. Decentralized networks of individuals and organizations build public will and grassroots power through strategic, large-scale collective action. Using a multitude of tactics, movements reveal intractable problems that some portion of society is unable or unwilling to see, bringing these out into the light and envisioning a different world. They create space for new political and social realities by forcing conversations, shifting perspectives, and, ultimately, changing narratives, making the formerly impossible possible. As the movement training group Momentum says, social movements “change the political weather.”

To the outsider, movements may appear to erupt spontaneously — tensions rise around an issue and one day protests fill the streets without warning. In reality, movements are deliberately built over time by organizers and movement builders who develop a foundation of power from the ground up. This of course looks different among different movements, but no matter the focus or orientation, successful movements develop a strong grassroots base and engage the general public in order to demand (or resist) change. Social movements are led by and represent those most affected by a problem. Truly supporting movements means taking their lead.

What will it take for funders and evaluators to support the autonomy of a movement?

Over the last few years, the Social Movement Learning Project has been seeking to better understand the power that movements build in order to develop guidance for funders and movement builders to use evaluation and learning to support their work. To this end, we have researched, held many conversations with movement builders, thinkers, and funders, and thought deeply about what it means for funders and evaluators to support movements on their terms.

Movements depend on a wide range of support and resources. Philanthropic institutions play an important role in providing this support, but traditional philanthropy is fundamentally risk averse, and funding and outside influence can also be damaging to the autonomy of movements. Social movements cannot be created, managed, or defined by a funder. Historically, this outside influence has co-opted and channeled movement activity towards more moderate goals, shifted the makeup of movement actors by resourcing professionalized organizations, and re-directed movements to model themselves after capitalist structures.

Most funding structures are fraught in terms of power dynamics; evaluation can serve either to reinforce or to help disrupt these dynamics. Evaluating social movements and the power that they build can help funders understand how movements work and how to effectively support them, but only if movement builders are centered at each step of the process. While we are learning how to do this well, we aspire to live up to several core principles. Evaluation of movements must:

· Center the aspirations, needs, and goals of grassroots movement actors, especially those led by affected communities · Respect movement autonomy and self-determination · Value multiple ways of knowing and facilitate inclusive engagement · Acknowledge and adjust for power dynamics · Ground observations within political/historical analysis · Share ownership with movement actors

To achieve these principles, evaluators must view themselves as movement allies, collaborating with movement builders to understand how they work, how they define success, and how it should be measured. To this end, Innovation Network spoke with movement builders from five different U.S.-based movements to ask what success looks like for them.

How do movement builders define success?

While each movement’s history, strategy, and ultimate goals were very different, their definitions of success largely focused on building long-term, grassroots power and shifting narratives.

Building the capacity and leadership of directly affected communities builds long-term, grassroots power. Communities must have the space and resources to lead. While often less visible than narrative shifts, capacity within a movement — affected people taking leadership roles, rising numbers of continuously engaged individuals, ability to organize actions and protests — and alignment of disparate actors around common goals, despite having different strategies, are both signs of strength and movement success.

“We have directly affected leaders running things and making strategic decisions. Less of a flashy success, and harder to message to the public, but [having people in front of the statehouse telling their stories] is a big deal in a time when the Trump administration is telling people they need to hide. Taking that level of risk when people are told that repression is increasing so much feels like success in a different kind of way.” — Emily Bloch, Cosecha

Movement builders noted that if the people closest to an issue cannot imagine a different future, then they cannot engage in the fight for it. Movements must build “power within” individuals in order to have a base that is willing to take risks — whether that be to reputation, family ties, immigration status, or economic security. Movements create a structure for people to be involved — giving people ways to join, stay engaged, and increase their engagement.

Shifting narratives signal cultural/societal shifts and create the space to implement concrete change. From the ways that media outlets and politicians frame an issue to cultural icons and leaders speaking out, how issues are talked about is an indication of movement influence. For example, the Green New Deal is a much bolder vision than previous efforts for climate action, defined on the movement’s terms:

“Prior to the Green New Deal (GND) gaining traction, there was no shorthand for climate change like Medicare for All [for healthcare]. It was trapped in carbon taxes and cap and trade. The GND shifted the narrative nationally, now focused on economic and social and racial justice.” — Miles Goodrich, Sunrise Movement

The Movement for Black Lives is another example of a movement shifting narratives and opening space for new conversations. One movement builder spoke about black artists beginning to share their political views in new ways:

“Beyoncé sinking a police car in the bay in New Orleans. The reparations episode on Blackish. It is a significant cultural moment — these are mainstream and reach a wide array of people, across cultures. The Movement for Black Lives opened up a lot of space for artists to talk about issues in a different way.” — Kandace Montgomery, Black Visions Collective Minneapolis

Movement builders emphasized that shifting narratives changes the “political common sense.” Movements can shift the fundamental question being asked, e.g., not whether climate change is urgent, but what it will take to address it and build a sustainable future for all.

What’s next?

As we enter a new decade, we face multiple existential crises worldwide — extreme inequality, the rise of authoritarianism, climate change, mass migration — all interrelated and requiring efforts far beyond the tools and levers of policy change to solve. Social movements seek shifts more drastic than what many accustomed to the status quo deem “realistic” or even desirable. This is exactly why movements have historically led society to new possibilities: they demand that we live up to the true values of democracy.

If we want to solve societal-level problems, we must follow the lead of those closest to the issues. Movements try many different experiments to achieve transformative visions. Some work and some don’t, but all contribute to learning and moving forward. In 2020, we will continue to test and build out tools and resources to be used in service of what movement builders say they need.

Photo credit: Alyssa Kibiloski, Unsplash

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