Virginia Organizing

The overall purpose of Virginia Organizing is to create a strong grassroots force for long-term change which has a diverse base and includes people who have not been active before.

Our long-term goals are:

1. To create new local community organizations throughout the state that are diverse, multi-issue and working for long-term social change.

2. To assist in making existing community organizations stronger and connected with other local and statewide groups in Virginia.

3. To enhance the skill levels of local community leaders of all ages.

4. To help community leaders understand, analyze, and, if necessary, change public policies.

Our job is to help Virginians realize their true potential as citizens in a democracy, and the promise that ordinary people and their concerns really do matter. Our goal is to help people create durable power - non-partisan power - they can use to fashion a more fair, just Virginia.

Virginia Organizing uses an intentional method of building one-to-one relationships among people of diverse backgrounds, identifying issues of concern, providing training in research and leadership, and implementing strategies that break down traditional divisions as well as achieve concrete results.

Community organizing at Virginia Organizing emphasizes both the need to address current problems and also the long-term need to build leadership across Virginia. Each organizational move strives to contribute toward building more strategic capacity. As we increase our leader, staff, intern and volunteer resources, as well as develop even stronger working relationships with other groups, we are in a position to go deeper in many more concentrated geographic areas. This should result in much stronger local groups, and will enhance our presence at the state level even more.

For the past 25 years, Virginia Organizing has established a solid community organizing track record in Virginia. Virginia Organizing has provided assistance in the development of new local organizations addressing social and economic issues in communities across the state and has created a growing network of labor, human rights, faith, housing, environment, education and other non-profit groups to work together to achieve concrete improvements. In the process, Virginia Organizing has built a solid organizational infrastructure for strategic campaign planning, communications, grassroots leadership development and fundraising.

With 16 chapters across the Commonwealth, a staff of 17, and solid working relationships with a growing list of local, state and national groups, we are proud of the long list of accomplishments that can be found at www.virginia-organizing.org.

Virginia Organizing uses a process evaluation approach. We work together to define specific goals and objectives and maintain an on-going analysis of possible outcomes. Using this method, we are able to evaluate our progress on a continuing basis and make modifications to our plans to facilitate successful outcomes.

Virginia Organizing's evaluation process includes the Virginia Organizing State Governing Board, the Executive Committee and Virginia Organizing staff.

During the last weekend of April, the board, staff, chapter leaders and key allies get together to determine who has power in the state and what it will take to change the balance of power so that we can be more effective in getting the changes we want. We use this opportunity to determine which constituencies, campaigns and geographic areas need more organizing support. This process allows us to set specific change indicators that can be evaluated each year.

Virginia Organizing holds an annual retreat for all Board members and key personnel in November. Our organizational planning includes: fiscal needs, technological improvements, communication standards, leadership and staff development, power analyses, representation in governance, and on-going evaluation of the organization.

Local chapters and statewide campaign committees (Environmental Justice, Social Security, Immigration Reform) develop written strategy plans and revise them as needed.

In addition, each staff person does a monthly workplan and the organizing staff has weekly conference calls and monthly face-to-face meetings.

Responsibility for overall program evaluation rests with the Virginia Organizing State Governing Board, which sets evaluation criteria and expectations for program results. Final program reports document program outcomes. In addition, Virginia Organizing has a system for tracking (weekly) the activities and accomplishments of organizing and administrative work to provide measurable reports. We keep detailed records of media coverage, workshops, consultations, action alerts and other activities.

Virginia Organizing publishes an annual report in January and a mid-year report in July.