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Step 1: Stand Up
Recognize that the issues of concern to you are of concern to others, too, and make a commitment to connect with the people around you.

Step 2: Stand With Others

Go beyond your personal network of family and friends to intentionally meet other people for the purpose of building public relationships with them. This means carving an hour a week out of your many tasks and responsibilities to listen, face-to-face, to what another person in your community cares about and share what you care about with the other person. Not all of your one-to-one conversations will lead to specific actions on an issue. But if you meet a wide variety of people over a period of time and genuinely listen, you will build a network of relationships and enhance your ability over the long-term to move people into action on a wide range of issues.

Step 3: Build Bridges

Develop your ability to connect with and understand people who are different from you. Approach people of different races, religions, occupations, economic circumstances, family structures and sexual orientations and ask them what they see as the biggest challenges in the community. Try to see the world from their point of view as well as your own. Participate in VOP workshops on racism and sexual orientation to develop strategies for bringing diverse groups of people together.

Step 4: Learn and Practice the Practical Skills of Public Life

Be able to describe how power is distributed in your community and the state, and how it works in terms of the issues you care about. Learn how to find and sift through information to identify the key points that will help you move people into action. Too often, activists become so bogged down in the specific details of an issue that they scare other people away. Sift and refine your information so that anyone can understand it. Learn how to speak clearly in public, to raise funds by asking people for contributions, and to communicate with the media and public officials. Learn how to break a big job down into small tasks and ask others to help with them, and never stop asking new people to get involved.

Step 5: Be Strategic

Leadership takes commitment and hard work. Don't exhaust yourself by trying to do it alone. Work with others to develop a long-term plan for change in your community so you don�t get constantly distracted by every issue that comes up. Forge relationships with like-minded people beyond your local area to build the power needed for major improvements in the quality of our common life.

Reprinted from January 2000 issue of virginia.organizing, the news magazine of the Virginia Organizing Project.