As y’all know by now, I’m a community organizer–yeah, just like Barack Obama used to be (we’re mirror twins: he quit organizing and I quit law school!) As such, I subscribe to a bunch of online organizations, trying to keep up with all that’s going on. Some of the list servs are decent, allowing for good discussions and sharing of information. On one such organizing site I recently found some great info. about public financing for supermarkets in low income neighborhoods ie: my next cause. (mad props to comm-org!)

But being an organizer and having an e-mail address also opens me up to the bane of my existence–what i refer to as the “urgent action memo.”

At least they are usually short and sweet–Urgent: we need you to call or e-mail Senator Whositz and tell him that he needs to immediately vote for Senate bill 1873-AT. The fate of the world depends on this bill, as it is INFINITELY superior to the House bill 2946278-HG which has commas in the wrong places, totally changing the meaning of the bill and dashing the hopes and dreams of all the good people that you and I work for.

Two thoughts:
1) This ain’t organizing, it’s non-profit spam.
2) Thank God for the delete button.

Most of these organizations’ hearts are in the right place, but they’ve allowed technology to replace human interaction. If you cannot mobilize actual people and feel the need to do all your work over the internet (and ask your e-mail contact list to do the same) you’ve crossed over from organizing to advocacy. It becomes a staff-driven project done on behalf of folks who have no clue what the bill numbers and the acronyms mean.

Good luck to all that, but I don’t find it at all urgent–at least not in comparison to the grueling, painstaking and frustrating job of building a strong organization of ass-kicking local leaders.