In 1980, a few weeks after Ronald Reagan was first elected president, I answered a classified advertisement (remember classified ads?) in my local newspaper. The first word was Activist. 

I can’t remember the rest of the ad, but the idea was that I would be paid to work for social justice. I was adrift and anxious about the future, and this seemed to me a small, tangible miracle. 

My social change origin story

The next day I was sitting on a cracked vinyl sofa, waiting for my interview. The linoleum was streaked with dirt and a pile of dead office machines (remember mimeographs?) rusted quietly in the corner, but the atmosphere was electric. Phones rang, people ran in and out with picket signs, and a typewriter (remember typewriters?) chattered in the back room. I overheard an argument in which the word “tactics” played a big role.

I didn’t know what was going on, but I wanted in.

That night I started knocking on doors, asking strangers for money to fight the abuses of the electric company. I was – surprise! – a fundraiser. By the time I left Oregon Fair Share in 1983, I had visited thousands of homes and given my pitch 10,000 times. 

My fundraising skills, coupled with an abiding desire for justice, have kept me in the movement for social change ever since. As I think about it, my initial training also informed the arc of my career.

Training for canvassing

In a future post, I might share some canvassing stories. If you knock on enough random doors, random things start to happen. 

Today, I want to focus on the breadth and depth of the training we received. While gathering in the office each day, we went through the usual routine before leaving for the evening’s “turf:”

• Refining our “rap” or pitch, which varied as our community organizing issues evolved and changed.
• Practicing responses to various objections: I don’t have any money, I can’t talk now, etc.
• Role plays based on specific scenarios. For example, one spouse wants to join the organization while the other is ambivalent.
• Improving our time management. We had nightly quotas for “doors” (how many addresses we each visited), members recruited, and dollars raised. The primary time management skill was how to avoid getting sucked into long, unproductive conversations with non-donors.

Furthermore, we endured nightly pep talks (“trunk talks”) from our crew leaders. The classic summary/joke: “Have fun, make quota, don’t get killed.” 

Training beyond job skills

In addition to all these practical, raise-more-money exercises, we were given an informal political education. We read Saul Alinsky. A variety of people (some semi-famous) would discuss aspects of their work for justice and equity. 

If musicians or organizers were coming through town, they were recruited to talk to the canvassers and pump us up before we went out in the field. A few of the many, many examples:

• Folk singer Si Kahn taught us labor songs.
• Peggy Mathews, who later became a terrific fundraising consultant, shared stories of community organizing in the coalfield communities of Appalachia.
• The late Barry Greever, who invented tactical research for progressive organizations – digging up evidence of government and corporate malfeasance – shared some of the tools of his craft. Note: this was long before the internet.

As a 20-something, just-out-of-college kid, this parade of activists and organizers gradually blew my mind. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that social change was a profession and the people who worked in this profession were linked through larger, interconnected movements. And they were the cool kids!

Training for movement building

My employer had a practical reason for this approach. Oregon Fair Share was a small organization with few opportunities for advancement. One or two canvassers might be hired for other positions, but most would burn out and leave for other jobs.

Therefore, one training goal was to prepare us for positions with like-minded organizations. The leaders were consciously building a workforce for the broader movement, not only for their specific nonprofit. 

The strategy worked. I can think of many Fair Share colleagues who went on to successful, impactful long-term careers throughout the social change community.

Can we do this now? 

As a fundraising trainer, I often say: If you want employment security, learn to raise money. Once you acquire those skills, you can use them with many, many organizations. 

In that sense, developing professional fundraisers is a kind of movement building. And yes, there are wonderful groups like Training for Change that consciously train people serving many organizations and movements.

However, I’m asking a different question. How many nonprofits are consciously training staff for social change careers in addition to mastering their specific jobs? Can our nonprofits be that generous and mutually supportive? Can we invest resources – including staff training – to build movements as well as our own organizations?

What’s the 2024 version of my on-the-job, on-the-movement training from 40 years ago?

I welcome your stories and responses.