Organizing Must Soon Begin for 2028
Thanks to those spending nights and weekends mobilizing and persuading voters. Phoning or door-knocking is essential. Intensive outreach leading up to November’s elections is the best available strategy for overcoming big money campaigns.
But think how much more effective this outreach would be if activists had built relationships with voters a year before the election. Or two years before. Or even longer.
Sound like a pipe dream? Barack Obama’s 2008 field campaign was launched by fall 2007. The United States used to have a network of organizing groups working in between elections to mobilize support.
That network has shrunk. Dramatically. And the negative political consequences are clear.
Most activists now knocking on doors and making phone calls lack a prior relationship with voters. Many of their targeted voters have already decided. Others are tired of being deluged by television and social media ads and don’t want to discuss the election with a stranger. A lot of resources are spent outreaching to people who are not home.
I connect the troubling election results in 2016 and 2024 to the steady decline in funding for ongoing community organizing. This decline has been steady since 2009. This decline is not fully compensated by massive outreach two months before the election.
I wrote a story for the new issue of Social Policy that lays out why organizing funding has sharply declined. I offer a strategy for revving up ongoing organizing for 2028. This effort should commence soon after the November 2026 elections.
My story is titled, “Can We Reverse the Decline in Community Organizing?” Social Policy is published by ACORN founder Wade Rathke. It is read widely by organizers, funders and activists.
Among other strategies I call upon organizers to organize and mobilize themselves for more resources. The stakes are too high to continue waiting for philanthropists and foundations to see the light.
Check out my story. See if you agree with the strategies I offer. And if you have other ideas for rebuilding community organizing, please send me feedback.
A likely blue wave this November lays the groundwork for ongoing organizing to begin in early 2027. That’s the best way to ensure victory in 2028.
