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Core Group Member Orientation

Share the Core Group Member Video Orientation -- http://vimeo.com/12004475

Getting ready for the core member orientation

Before beginning the orientation, talk through your motivations, goals and the expectations for the work of a core group member to prepare to be successful Core Member.

This orientation can take place one-on-one between the Council Coordinator and a new Core Group Member, between a trained Core Group Member and a new Core Group Member or with a group of Core Group Members.

Note: The Core Group Member should be given and asked to read the following materials before the orientation:

Core group member Job Description -- http://www.moveon.org/team/members/corejob.html
Link for their local Council Page -- http://www.moveon.org/team

Goals:

Get to know the new Core Group Member and their reasons for doing this work.
Learn about the History of MoveOn
Understand the Core Member Role
Discuss how to work well with your Council

Here's a detailed outline for your orientation:

Introductions -- 10 min

Kick off the orientation by talking together to get to know each other's motivation for your work with MoveOn and what you're excited about for your role. Here are a few questions to get you started.

Why are you a member of MoveOn? What motivates you to take action?
Do you have much experience with political work? Do you work with other organizations?
What have you liked about events that you've participated in?
What do you do for living? What's your family like?
What excites you about our MoveOn approach?
What have you noticed about the Council's organizing so far?

History of MoveOn -- 5 min

What do you already know about the history of MoveOn? What's been your experience?

MoveOn Started with Clinton impeachment in 1998

Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, two software entrepreneurs, were frustrated about Congress focusing on impeachment.
It all begin with an online petition. They created a website with a petition "Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation."
They emailed it to their friends, who emailed to their friends, etc. After a month 300,000 people signed their simple petition and MoveOn was born
In 2001, Eli Pariser independently created another online petition calling for diplomacy after September 11th. This petition similarly garnered hundreds of thousands of signers. Soon afterward, Eli joined forces with Joan and Wes to make MoveOn what it is today.

Today, MoveOn's mission is to bring real Americans back into the political process.

For too long only the rich and well connected have been able to make their voices heard
Technology is offering us new ways to do this. Technology has offered new ways for busy but concerned folks to make a real difference—and it's even stronger when we're all doing it together

MoveOn is different from most other groups.

Outsider grassroots power: Not part of the DC establishment or beholden to the Democrats. Get our power from our members. From thousands of small donors, not big checks. Will go after Democrats or Republicans if they cross the line.
Member service: Primary goal is to provide a service for our members. Folk want to engage on the issues they care about, but it's hard to know how. So we provide that service. Means that we also only do things that our members want us to.
Multiple national issues: Work on the national issues are the priority for our members.

Our local Council:

What's our local council history and experience?
What events have we held recently?
How have we been successful, and what have been our challenges?

MoveOn Council Story and Current Campaign-- 10 min

What are MoveOn Councils?

MoveOn Councils are local teams of committed members who organize in their community and build leadership among MoveOn members.

MoveOn Councils work together on national campaigns to push for the progressive change that our country needs. We are a strong, independent voice to keep Congress and the President honest when lobbyists and corporations stand in the way of progress. We:

Shape the political playing field on the big issues by organizing in our communities, doing direct advocacy with elected officials, and getting our message out into the local and national media.
Put direct pressure on Congress to win key victories, like our recent victory for health care reform. We lobby our elected officials in their hometowns, pressing them to vote for a progressive legislative agenda.
Organize broader, deeper, and smarter than ever to build long-term power and achieve real progressive change. We build the leadership and train the grassroots base of the progressive movement.

Please join thousands of other committed MoveOn council members in leading our Council network in the major fights ahead in 2011.

Election 2010: Stop the Takeover

Corporate interests and their right-wing allies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to take over Congress. If they succeed, then goodbye health care and environmental laws—hello, tax cuts for the rich and Wall Street deregulation. And they're targeting progressive heroes like Alan Grayson and Russ Feingold in particular.

This fall, we need to stop corporations from defeating progressive candidates and putting the Republicans back in charge. It won’t be easy—many voters are demoralized and the Republicans are pulling out all the scare tactics they can think of. That’s why we have to organize more powerfully than ever before.

MoveOn Councils will be on the front line, leading the fight to stop the takeover. We’ll have two goals: to make sure every voter in targeted areas knows that this election is about stopping the corporate takeover of government by the Republicans, and to mobilize as many members as possible to volunteer in the crucial races.

Here’s what's ahead:

Six Weeks to Win Parties: We’ll start our election season organizing with “Six Weeks to Win” planning parties on Tuesday, September 21, where we’ll plan our Council’s strategy for the rest of the election season. In non-target areas, we’ll call members and ask them to sign up to host a call party during the month of October. In target areas, we’ll map out our birddogging and earned media strategy.
Stop the Takeover Birddogging Program: In target races, we’ll make sure that the voters know which candidate is fighting to stop the corporate takeover of politics, and which candidate is a corporate puppet. We'll birddog candidates and hold other earned media events, focusing on the corporate candidate, with a message that they are the "RepubliCorp" candidate. We’ll also volunteer directly for the campaigns and turn out other MoveOn members in our communities.
Stop the Takeover Call Parties: In areas where there is no target race, Councils will be the recruitment engine of MoveOn’s member mobilization program. We'll organize call parties every week in October to recruit members in target districts and states to volunteer with the candidate’s campaign directly. Specifically, we'll ask every core member to help organize a party every single week in October by recruiting multiple party hosts.

Council Coordinator Job Description -- 10 min

For the most updated version, click here:

http://www..moveon.org/team/members/corejob.html

Now, it's important to discuss more about what we mean by leadership development.

In general, leadership development is always part of being a good organizer. Here are some general principles about leadership development:

Leadership development is about developing members to be organizers-- when members have the skills to organize locally, we increase MoveOn's capacity.
Leadership development is different then training leaders. Training is the first step in the process. Developing implies that we build skills by sharing our knowledge and experience in ways that foster self-reflection, critical feedback, confidence and growth.
Leaders at all levels have a responsibility to develop each other: Everyone has an important role to play to develop the leadership of those "above", "below" or at their own "level". Work to develop all the leaders around you.
Leadership development it is a fundamental part of Council culture-- it should be a fundamental part of all of our events and our organizing.
Leadership development is movement building -- MoveOn leaders will not only lead MoveOn's campaigns, but also be leaders in the larger progressive movement.

Here's some questions for the Core Members to discuss:

What questions do you have about the role of the Core Member?
What excites you most about being a Core Member?
What are you nervous/ will you find challenging?
How can the Council Coordinator best support the work of the Core Members?

Core Group Principles (5 min)

Commitment: You can expect to spend between 6-10 hours a month doing the work of the Core Member. This varies depending on the actions that we hold over the course of the month. The Core will regularly take responsibility for one key task before an action and involve others in their organizing.

Communication: The Core is the leadership team. It's important that the team work together. Members must have frequent contact with their Council Coordinator and each other to plan upcoming actions, report back on Council actions. Approximately 1 check in per week! What are the best times to reach you? The best times to reach me are _____.
How can we best set up communication between our entire Core Group? Can we set a regular time to check in?

Training: We strive to build a culture of learning and improvement, and so participating in and helping run trainings with your Regional Coordinator and Council Coordinator will be a big part of our working relationship. In our experience, we've found that doing lots of practice or role plays is something that truly works. Does that make sense?

Delegation and Leadership Development: Core are responsible fore developing a plan to strengthen the Council. That means consistently asking new people to step up into leadership by taking on responsibilities. And the core team must support these new leaders to succeed. Core group members also participate in the Core member orientation and ongoing trainings to support their own leadership development and that of other new members.

Inclusivity: The most powerful organizing only happens when we are able to do two things: to bring our full selves to the table, and to welcome the full breadth of the communities our Councils represent. To that end, we regularly evaluate how societal power dynamics (racism, sexism, homophobia, age-ism, able-ism, etc) play out in our organizing- and we work to ensure that MoveOn Councils are safe, respectful, welcoming spaces for progressives of all backgrounds (and ages, sexualities, genders, races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, etc.)

Web tools -- 10 min

Core Members have access to a web page to manage their Council.

Your Council Page:

This is how Councils stay in touch and work together locally. It's important to keep it updated, so let's make sure you understand its function. Here's how to: (walk through each section of the page together)

Add Members to roster through the admin function on the Council page
Add and change Members' roles
Email our Council: for example, sometimes we only send emails to Council Coordinators, Core Group, or just Council Members. If these folks aren't marked correctly on this page, they won't get the email.
Find events listings
Sign up to host an event
Access Event Guide

Next Steps: 10 min

Next steps in the campaign-- what's your vision for how the campaign should move forward?

Training: What trainings have you already participated in, and which should you participate in next? For example, recruitment, media, delegation, facilitation, accountability?

Responsibilities: Talk through the next steps in the campaign. What are the responsibilities that you're committing to as a Core Member? What role can you commit to?

Leadership development: Fill out the leadership development worksheet together, identifying the skills that the Core member is focusing on, and how they'll use those skills in the next steps in the Council's organizing.

Click here to download the Core member Leadership Development Worksheet