What's your strategy for overcoming pushback from powerful players?

1 Identify your allies and opponents

The first step is to map out the landscape of your issue and identify who are your allies, opponents, and potential supporters. You can use tools like power analysis, stakeholder analysis, or spectrum of allies to understand the interests, motivations, and influence of different actors. This will help you tailor your messages, tactics, and coalitions to reach and mobilize your target audiences and neutralize or isolate your adversaries.

2 Build relationships and trust

One of the key skills of community organizing is building relationships and trust with people who share your vision and values. You need to cultivate and nurture these connections through regular communication, mutual support, and recognition. You also need to establish credibility and legitimacy with the broader community by demonstrating your knowledge, expertise, and commitment to the cause. By building strong relationships and trust, you can create a solid base of support and leadership that can withstand pushback from powerful players.

3 Use creative and strategic actions

Another way to overcome pushback from powerful players is to use creative and strategic actions that can generate attention, pressure, and momentum for your campaign. You can use tactics like protests, rallies, petitions, media campaigns, or direct actions to expose the problems, demand solutions, and show the public support for your issue. You can also use tactics like boycotts, divestments, or sanctions to target the sources of power and resources of your opponents and make them pay a price for their actions or inactions.

4 Negotiate and compromise

Sometimes, you may need to negotiate and compromise with powerful players to achieve your goals or to avoid escalation or backlash. You need to be clear about your core principles, demands, and red lines, but also be willing to listen, understand, and respect the perspectives and interests of your counterparts. You need to find common ground, mutual benefits, or trade-offs that can satisfy both parties and move the issue forward. You also need to be prepared to walk away or escalate if the negotiation fails or the compromise is unacceptable.

5 Learn and adapt

Finally, you need to learn and adapt from your experiences and feedback. You need to monitor and evaluate your actions and outcomes, and reflect on what worked and what didn't. You need to celebrate your successes and acknowledge your failures, and use them as opportunities to improve your strategy, tactics, and skills. You also need to be flexible and responsive to changing circumstances, opportunities, and challenges, and adjust your plans and actions accordingly.