Rural Organizing Project Action Plan
Turning the tide of authoritarianism will take all of us who are committed to a truly just and thriving democracy, and we will each contribute in different ways. One meaningful way to make a direct impact right now is to donate dollars. Please give any amount that is meaningful to you and help us accomplish this action plan.
Who We Are:
To overcome rising attacks on the most vulnerable among us and on democracy itself, we need to organize. We need that organizing to be local, long-term, and based on deep relationships. ROP has grown over 30+ years to include 95 volunteer-led, self-directed Human Dignity Groups in every rural county of the state and one tribal community. Our two community centers serve thousands of rural immigrant Oregonians. The ROP network offers critical local hubs for community protection and connection across rural Oregon.
We are organizing in every corner of the state to slow and stop authoritarianism while building and practicing what we need for the strongest and most inclusive democracy the USA has ever seen. As a network, we are loudly defying the notion that rural communities will sit back and accept scapegoating and violence while billionaires get special treatment.
How We’re Going to Win:
How big does a mass movement need to be to turn the tide of authoritarianism? Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen studied civil resistance movements worldwide. They found that nearly every time an authoritarian regime was successfully toppled, the movement that took it down included at least 3.5% of a country’s population engaged in ongoing, coordinated action to defend democracy.
In the US, 3.5% of the population is about 12 million people. In Oregon, it’s 149,450. You are part of a national movement of people actively organizing to get to 3.5%. From the ocean to the desert, ROP is working with local leaders to build and sustain action in their area. What is 3.5% of your county’s population?
To bring people in at this scale, we have to think creatively about who our allies are and how to connect with them. We aren’t going to get there by only building groups of people who mostly think alike. Nadine Bloch, a friend of ROP, recently said, “Do you believe that we should have a say in how we are governed? If so, let’s work together.” We’re going to build to 3.5% by creating all kinds of spaces rooted in community, joy, and a shared vision for the world we want. We are orienting around belonging that doesn’t first demand we share all the same beliefs. Then we’re organizing our tushies off for the things we can agree on. We all agree that everyone should have access to good healthcare and education, no matter where we live. We all agree that we shouldn’t have to work this hard and still be this broke while billionaires rake in the profits.
This is the Organizing Thermometer.
It’s a tool to plan organizing in all the different parts of our community where we can find common ground.
Authoritarians divide in order to conquer, and the deep division of this moment encourages us to believe that there are two camps of people: those we agree with and those we don’t, when actually, it’s a lot more complicated than that. People in each section of the Thermometer will be moved by different types of invitations. Our organizing needs to welcome each part of our community (cookin’, hot, warm, and chilly on the thermometer) and to warm them up (aka move them little by little to the left on the thermometer). We aren’t trying to win over ICE colds; we’re trying to outnumber them by bringing everyone else into our vision through meaningful connection.
Let’s Get Cookin’!
Your ROP organizer can help your group build to 3.5% of your county’s or community’s population by co-creating your plan to reach people in each part of the Organizing Thermometer. We’ve got tools, trainings, and ideas to help you along the way to help you organize around any part of this Action Plan:
Build (or Strengthen) your Local Group
As authoritarian threats grow, we are going to need each other more than ever. Whether it is militarized ICE coming into our communities, a lack of emergency response services, or huge shortfalls at the food bank, we need to work together with as many people as possible and skill each other up to turn the authoritarian tide. Strong, organized groups are more important than ever for bringing in new people to team democracy and working together. The good news is–that’s ROP’s bread and butter! ROP has training and materials on how to build a strong, healthy local group that brings in volunteers, grows the number of people participating, and gets a lot done. ROP can provide organizing training and peer mentorship, help you make a campaign plan, and resource your group as you build toward 3.5% in your community. One Human Dignity Group at a time, town by town and county by county, we are creating joyful movement that welcomes our neighbors and keeps people engaged for the long haul.
Talk to your Neighbors
(with the help of a survey tool)
ROP has created a tool for neighbor-to-neighbor conversations called The Cost of Living. This tool makes it easier to talk with community members, organizations, and institutions (like schools and local elected officials) and to identify shared values. Questions like, “Will you or someone you know be impacted by cuts to Medicaid?” get to the heart of what we are facing. The survey is a way to start a conversation and then build a relationship around needs in our community. It’s a way to talk about the direct impacts of the current regime’s power grabs and restrictions on personal freedoms, instead of leading with abstract concepts like ‘authoritarianism’ or ‘democracy.’ It’s also a way to build our groups by finding new members and helping move people along the spectrum of allies (see the image below!). The billionaires and wannabe kings want to keep us from working together. Through this survey, we can realign with people based on the issues that matter to working people. We immediately invite the folks who share our values (we label them as HOTS!) to join our groups. We invite those who are open to further conversations (WARMS!) to our next event.
Train Up Our People to Respond
One thing we’re hearing across the network is that people in our communities are in two camps: Either (1) they don’t have good information about what authoritarianism is, OR (2) once they know, they don’t know what to do about it. This is where Human Dignity Groups come in. If you’re eager to bring information to your community about our current political reality, there is a growing national network of trainers called Freedom Trainers teaching about collective noncompliance and mass noncooperation based on anti-authoritarian movements around the world. ROP can bring this training to your group and even train you to train others in your area so that as many of us as possible are prepared for moments of mass mobilization.
Create Systems for Rapid Response and Community Protection
As this regime ramps up the harassment, targeting, and kidnapping of our immigrant, BIPOC, and queer and trans neighbors (among others), communities across the state are coming together to support growing mutual aid systems and to build rapid response networks to protect one another from both state and community violence. From building communication systems to power mapping and training, ROP can help your group create a system that works for your area and is connected with the resources that exist around the state, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Weave Regional Resilience
We’re being faced with new challenges every day that our small towns can’t possibly take on alone, and that’s why strong relationships within and between regions of the state are vital. Most recently, Newport is facing an attempt by ICE to take over local coast guard facilities. People up and down the coast and across the state are springing into action to support the local community and say no to an ICE takeover. Meanwhile, groups across Congressional District 2 are organizing to hold Representative Bentz accountable to the needs of members in his district. People in Lincoln, Linn, and rural Lane Counties are coordinating a ride network for people who need accompaniment to immigration appointments in Eugene. As funding cuts for key resources like disaster response and healthcare continue to hit, groups are coordinating across county lines to push for responsive government and build the alternatives we need. If you, too, feel the urgency to connect with others across your region to assess existing infrastructure and what we still need to build, ROP can help support these connections and conversations.
Enforce the Sanctuary Promise Act
After decades of rural communities organizing to build safe and welcoming communities for all, we won a huge victory in 2021 by passing the Sanctuary Promise Act through the Oregon legislature. That law expanded on Oregon’s decades-old Sanctuary Law, which states that no state or local resources or law enforcement agencies can assist with federal immigration enforcement without a warrant from a judge. Human Dignity Groups have been central to strengthening and protecting Oregon’s sanctuary laws since then, and there’s a lot to be done at the local level right now to continue reducing the harm that ICE is inflicting on our communities. This might look like reviewing whether your county government or local jail policies are among the many that still don’t comply with state law, having a conversation with your local law enforcement to let them know that community members care that they are following state sanctuary law, or by making sure that key community members and leaders like business owners and school administrators, know the ways that state Sanctuary law can help keep your community safe. ROP can help you identify whether your local government policies are compliant with state law, share recommendations for stronger policies, and help you plan these conversations with local law enforcement.
Whether you’re already organizing or you’re looking for a group, ROP can support you in building a strategy tailored to your local community. Contact us at 503-543-8417 or office@rop.org.
