The holiday season comes only once a year, but in spite of political setbacks the progressive community must have been extra nice, because NOI’s RootsCamp is set to arrive for a second time!
This weekend's National RootsCamp--New Organizing Institute’s fifth—has a simple purpose. There is no pre-set agenda. RootsCamp is an ‘open space’ unconference driven by the people who attend to share, debrief and celebrate the tremendous work organizers did in 2010.
Organizers, fundraisers, and progressives alike will be there to share thoughts, ideas, and best practices on how political and nonprofit campaigns fared over the previous months and how we can work together to win important victories in the year ahead.
Attendees have posted a flurry of session ideas—over 100 so far—on their wiki site. Here is a handful that I’m looking forward to:
• "Let's Get together....Setting the stage for more inclusive progressive discussion" Progressives come in many niches, one of the things we haven't all figured out is how to bring together everyone under one tent...so how do we do that?" - Helen Adeosun, Washington, DC
• "The Tragedy of Advocacy: a candid discussion about what works, what doesn't work, and how/why campaigns and organizations succeed or fail at making the voice of their supporters actually matter to anyone in Congress." - Jake Brewer, Washington, DC
• "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 101: How the threat of unlimited corporate political spending threatens to undermine the voices of real people in our democracy, and what can be done to fight back." - Rick Claypool, Public Citizen, Pittsburgh / Washington, DC
• "Turning "It Gets Better" into Making it Better: An insiders look on how the It Gets Better Project took off and is transforming online organizing and the LGBT rights movement. Join us for this discussion and talk on where the movement goes from here." - Scott Zumwalt, It Gets Better Project, Washington, DC
• "Holding Obama accountable on progressive issues. President Obama told us all to hold his feet to the fire. On many issues that didn't happen. Discussion on how to pressure him on critical issues before election in this political climate?" - Liz Butler 1Sky, DC
• "Email: Is it dead? Is it alive and well? Is it a zombie? Let's talk about how email has changed over the past year - what's working, what isn't, and where email is going" - Lauren Miller, Blue State Digital
If you haven't registered yet, make sure to do so! At only $20 you should have plenty left over for your holiday gifts (and year end donations)!
We’ll see you at the unconference!
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