Building Power & Making Change: Using Data to Build Trust and Strategic Plans

Our firm is founded on  the concept of “deep democracy”: an urban planning, political and social change tool kit that can support the paradigm shift necessary for a just transition. Critically, this guiding tenant—though applicable to electoral politics— also speaks more broadly to the planning and action steps needed at all levels of organizing, engagement, and activism to enact real shifts in the power structures that define America’s social contract. And it is social justice and movement building organizations that hold the tools, passion, and capacity to remake those power structures that have long been designed to maintain an unjust, unequal, and immoral status quo. To step into a space of building power and changemaking, social justice and change organizations  must assess their past, present, and future to collaboratively envision the path needed to achieve this long-term outcome. And it with this lens we engaged in a year-long strategic change management process with United for Reproductive & Gender Equality (URGE).

As a transformational and culturally radical reproductive justice movement-building organization, URGE centers the leadership of young people of color and LGBTQIA+ activists across college campuses in the Southeast and Midwestern United States. With organizational campus chapters in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas, URGE members are on the frontlines of the fight for reproductive justice and cultural liberation for those most often erased and weaponized in traditionally more conservative areas of the United States.

For URGE members and reproductive justice activists across these states, the need to shatter the power structure status quo is hardly theoretical. In 2019 alone, we saw government sanctioned attacks on reproductive rights across the entire nation. And some of the most egregious occurred in states in which URGE organizes, such as:

●      Alabama: In May of 2019, signed a bill into law that prohibits an individual from attaining an abortion under any circumstance

●      Georgia: In May of 2019, signed a bill into law that prohibits an individual from attaining an abortion approximately six weeks after conception

●      Ohio: In March of 2019, signed a bill into law that prohibits an individual from attaining an abortion approximately six weeks after conception

●      Texas: In June of 2019, signed a bill into law that prohibits local governments from conducting business with any provider of abortion services, including the use of tax-breaks, municipal leasing of property, or any inference of public advocacy or support for such providers.

This context only relays the immediate threats to reproductive justice and health as it pertains to family planning and abortion access. The bold intersectionality of URGE’s field, advocacy work and its member and ally constituencies places it at the forefront of several immediate legislative conflicts. This includes social justice movements in the policy realms of immigration rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, sex positivity, transgender and non-binary rights, amongst others. Like the restrictive abortion access laws previously referenced, the current slate of URGE states squarely puts the organization front and center at the crux of critical social justice movements and legislative battles.

At Rivera Consulting, Inc. we understand that we are simultaneously living in both today’s world as we know it and the one that is emerging.  This perspective makes us part of the transition team - we are dedicated to inspiring and enabling the political will and courage to operationalize 21st century solutions. Beginning in November of 2018, Rivera Consulting, Inc., engaged in an asset-driven strategic change management process with the staff, board, members, and allies of URGE with the goal of developing a five-year strategic plan and unified vision for who the organization aspires to become in the years to follow. It’s not enough to simply create an assessment tool that aims to produce or collect input or feedback. For research to matter to our clients and the social change sector overall, people-centered research is rooted in the co-creation and development of a tool that is in of itself an exercise in collaboration and values alignment that sets the standard for project participation at all levels of the organization.

For social justice movement organizations, engaging in an intentionally collaborative asset mapping process produces more than the typical outcomes of a standard internal strategic planning process. By reviewing and utilizing data that speaks to both internal and external assets and opportunities, groups like URGE can build consensus amongst diverse stakeholders while using social science to identify organizational alignment. . That consensus—formalized in a final strategic plan—strengthens the muscles of stakeholders at all levels of the organization, cultivating an environment that allows deep democracy to take hold. 

It is our mission and deep desire to see all in the justice movement space plan in a way that recognizes this critical moment and shared opportunity. By taking the time to methodically develop a collaborative assessment and future-facing vision, movement leaders can not only collectively re-write the playbook, but ensure that playbook is accessible for all who need it. It is this vision that will guide our work in 2020 and beyond. Stay tuned in 2020, as we deepen our client bench.