How might we...
- Base Building: How might we improve our engagement with our members/base to build power?
- How might we cultivate culture as a way to create deep bonds among our members and inspire confidence among our leaders to take on roles and ownership in our organization?
Hypothesis
If we weave in key cultural practices/moments in our work with our base/potential base then we can build depth and scale in our base.
Design
For the next 2 weeks, we will consistently use “culture as a weapon” in our meetings and member spaces (& see what happens when we do that). Include reflection after what’s been presented. Possible activities to undertake:
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- No staff call in the immediate future.
- Mental health check-ins (not business mtg)
- Monthly potlucks
- Start meetings with 3 minute dance party
- Meet as BL team group w/o external facilitators to process all that is going on
- Examples where this is already happening:
- Ex. member meeting tonight and culture is already in it.
- Ex. Organizers meeting and culture as a weapon is brought in.
- Ex C4 Digital
Metrics
Observations of member/organizer relationships in spaces
Observations of meeting attendance or member participation
Success: An increase in participation and recurring attendance; attendees/members/organizers feeling more connected to the space or to each other; folks picking up the practice of weaving cultural moments into these spaces themselves, people having fun
Minimum standard: we continue to learn what isn’t working, collect information to help us tweak our experiments further
Failure: failure to implement/carry out the experiment; disappointment in our results or our implementation, Lack of participation – people not wanting to use culture as a weapon being done or people not reacting/responding to things we’re trying
Learnings
People are uncomfortable sharing their cultural experiences due to a lack of understanding of what culture is.
Sharing your cultural experiences by yourself is stressful – it’s easier to do it in a group of people.
-Sharing = vulnerability
-Pressure around the definition of culture
-But culture is anything that makes you happy (Joaquin, 2021). No pressure around it (decolonize this?).
– “Anything that makes you happy is culture” – Joaquin
- Everything that makes you who you are is culture – it doesn’t need to be art or literature
- Different cultures have things in common, use those commonalities to create a communal cultural experience
- Shift framing from “teaching” to “learning” – aka less about person teaching and more about everyone else learning together
Decisions
Questions
How might we make people more comfortable sharing their culture?
HMW decolonize our understanding of what culture is and share that with members?
How do we reframe “culture” as XYZ