What relational organizing looks like — and what it doesn't

Relational organizing in historically under-resourced communities of color has specific shapes. It is also commonly counterfeited. Both matter.

What it looks like, in practice: (1) the organizer is, or is in deep partnership with, people from the community; (2) meetings happen in spaces the community already trusts — churches, barbershops, community centers, kitchens; (3) language matches how people actually talk, not foundation-speak; (4) the campaign's first ask of someone is small and reciprocal; (5) the organization shows up year-round, not just at elections or crises; (6) leadership development is visible and explicit, with people named and credited.

What it isn't: (1) showing up six weeks before an election with a script and a stipend; (2) treating Black communities as a turnout problem to be solved; (3) asking under-resourced communities to host meetings without compensation for childcare, food, and the host's time; (4) extracting stories for fundraising decks without consent or follow-up; (5) parachuting white-led national orgs into majority-Black geographies without local partnership; (6) calling something 'community organizing' when it is actually paid canvass labor.

Hahrie Han and Jane McAlevey both make the same point from different angles: deep organizing in communities of color requires that the organization be willing to be changed by the base, not just to use the base. If your strategic plan never gets revised by what your members want, you are running a transactional operation in a relational costume.

This is also a question of resourcing. Communities historically under-resourced — by redlining, by disinvestment, by underfunded schools — cannot subsidize your organizing with their unpaid labor. Pay the host. Feed the meeting. Compensate the leader. Build that into your budget from day one.