Power: what it is, where it lives, how you build it

Power is the ability to get a decision-maker to do what they would not do on their own. Base building is power-building, full stop.

Saul Alinsky said there are two sources of power: organized people and organized money. Movement workers without trust funds are in the organized-people business. Your base — the network of people who will return your calls, show up to meetings, and take action together — is your power.

Power is relational and contextual. A church pastor with 80 trusted members has more power on a local zoning fight than a national group with 80,000 emails. A tenant union with 60 households organized in one building can shut down a landlord; a coalition of 600 supporters scattered across a city often cannot.

Three power moves you will keep coming back to in this course: (1) shift the spectrum of allies — move neutral people one step closer to active support; (2) develop leaders so the group does not collapse when you burn out; (3) build infrastructure — meetings, lists, training pipelines — that can outlive any single campaign.

Christens and Cooper's review of the community organizing literature finds that the strongest bases share six traits: local leadership, small-group structure, relational recruitment, coalition capacity, a shared frame, and repurposable infrastructure. We will return to these six every module.