# 1:1 Conversation Guide

**Pair with:** `1-1-invite-text.md` (before) and `1-1-debrief.md` (after).

**Length:** 30–45 minutes. Hold to it. End on time.

**Format:** In person beats phone beats Zoom. Walk if you can — Septima Clark and Highlander taught organizers on porches and on the road.

**Posture:** You are listening 70% of the time. If you talked more than they did, the 1:1 didn't happen.

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## Before you sit down

- Bring nothing visible: no clipboard, no laptop. A small notebook is fine.
- Know one thing about them — what they wrote on the interest survey, what they said at the meeting, what made you ask them here. Open with that.
- Eat something. You can't listen well when you're hungry.
- Silence your phone, fully. Not vibrate.

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## The arc (45 minutes)

### Minutes 0–5 — Land

- "Thanks for making time. How are you, actually?"
- Let the small talk be real. Don't rush to the work.
- Order food/drink. Pay if you can — this is a relationship-building cost.

### Minutes 5–25 — Their story

This is the heart of it. Your job is to ask, listen, and ask again. Use the question bank below. Pick 4–5, not all of them.

**The opening question (always this, in some form):**
- "What brought you to [org name]? Like, really — what was going on for you when you signed up?"

**Story questions:**
- "Tell me about a time something in [the issue] hit close to home for you."
- "When did you first know this was something you wanted to do something about?"
- "Who taught you to care about this?"

**Power & agency questions:**
- "Where do you feel powerless right now? Where do you feel powerful?"
- "What's something in your life or community you wish was different — and what do you think it would take?"
- "Who else in your life is thinking about this?"

**Identity & community questions:**
- "Tell me about the community you came up in."
- "Who do you turn to when things are hard?"
- "What do you do for fun — outside all this?"

**Vision questions:**
- "What would [your neighborhood / your kids' school / your job] look like if we won everything we're fighting for?"
- "What's a moment from any movement — yours or someone else's — that gave you hope?"

**The agitation question (use sparingly, after trust):**
- "What makes you angry about [the issue]? Like, really angry, not polite-angry?"

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### Minutes 25–35 — Your story (brief)

This is where you give back what they gave you. Keep it shorter than theirs.

- Why you came to this work — in 3–4 sentences.
- One concrete moment, not abstractions.
- What you've seen this organization do that matters to you.

Don't pitch. Don't sell. Just be a person.

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### Minutes 35–42 — The ask

You've been listening for 30+ minutes. You know what's true for them. Now make the right ask — not the biggest ask, the *right* ask.

**The ladder of asks (use the rung that matches what you heard):**

| What you heard | The right ask |
|---|---|
| "I have an hour a week, max." | Come to one phone bank in the next 14 days. |
| "I want to do more but I don't know what." | Come to the next base meeting — I'll save you a seat. |
| "I'd host but my place is small." | Co-host a house meeting at a member's home in the next month. |
| "I want to be in deep." | Host a house meeting. I'll help you plan it. |
| "I've done this before, I know how it works." | Take a constituency team. Or join the leadership cohort. |
| "I'm not sure I'm ready." | Let's do another 1:1 in 30 days — I want to keep getting to know you. |

**How to phrase the ask:**
- Be specific. Date, place, role. Not "would you ever consider…"
- Make it concrete: "I want to ask you to do X by Y date."
- Be okay with no. A no this month is a yes in six months if you keep the relationship.

### Minutes 42–45 — Close

- Confirm the ask in writing: "Cool — I'll text you the details tonight."
- Ask: "Who else should I be talking to? Anyone in your life thinking about this?" (This is the snowflake — every 1:1 should produce 1–3 names.)
- Set the next touchpoint: "Can we check in in 30 days?"
- Thank them. Pay. Walk out together.

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## Within 24 hours of the 1:1

1. **Send the follow-up text.** Confirm the ask, with the date.
2. **Fill out `1-1-debrief.md`.** Don't rely on memory. Capture the story, the ask, the names they gave you, the next touchpoint.
3. **Tag in Action Network.** Constituencies, skills, time availability, relational ties.
4. **Reach out to the names they gave you within 7 days.** That's how the snowflake grows.

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## What to listen for (the four currents)

1. **Self-interest.** What's at stake for them, materially? A grandchild with asthma? A landlord raising rent? Name it.
2. **Story.** Whose story shaped them? Whose story do they want to tell?
3. **Capacity.** What time, skills, and relationships do they actually have? Not what they wish they had.
4. **Constraints.** What's in the way — work, caregiving, fear, past burns. Don't try to fix these. Just hear them.

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## What NOT to do

- **Don't sell.** A 1:1 is not a sales call. You are not closing.
- **Don't agree just to agree.** If they say something you disagree with, say so — kindly. Trust grows where realness is.
- **Don't ask for something they can't sustain.** A burned-out new host is worse than no new host.
- **Don't take notes during.** Notes after.
- **Don't make it about the campaign.** Make it about the person.
- **Don't extract a story.** If anything they shared could end up in a press release or grant report, ask for explicit consent before you walk away.

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## Why this is structured this way

- **Listening 70% of the time** is the Ella Baker discipline. She organized for 50 years and once said: "I have always thought what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others." That development starts with hearing what's already there.
- **Story before strategy** because people commit through stories, not slogans. Marshall Ganz built the public narrative framework on this; SNCC organizers practiced it on porches in southwest Georgia decades earlier.
- **The ladder of asks** comes from Hahrie Han's research on high-engagement organizations: the right rung matters more than the size of the ask.
- **The names question at the end** is how the base actually grows. Every 1:1 should plant 1–3 new ones. That's the snowflake.
- **Within 24 hours** because if you don't write it down, you don't remember. And what you don't remember, you can't honor.

— Module 3, *Base Building From Scratch*