Are You Building Something?

A straightforward argument that “lasting and meaningful change only happens when people come together for a shared purpose, when they deliberate together, and when they act together, even when the future seems unknowable and the road uncertain,” because “structural change is rooted in people, human beings, and the power we can create with each other when we find values we share, and our capacity to turn those values into sources of power.” Ganz emphasises how “organising is about enabling people to speak for themselves. It’s not a charity project. It’s a justice project,” and “it’s not enough to just have campaign after campaign” we have to be “building collective capacity…and you can’t do that without structure.” He sees that there has been “a whole lot of mobilising, but it didn’t turn into building infrastructure, into developing leadership. And unless you’re building at the same time you’re fighting, you wind up with nothing.”