Consulting Services

If I had to reduce my consulting work to one concept, it’s helping people build and sustain high participation organizations. I believe participation is the key to every strategy available to social movement organizations. I help folks with strategic planning, staff and leadership skill development, how to understand and create a comprehensive campaign based on first doing a power structure analysis, negotiations and bargaining training, and lots of other ways to build high participation organizations.

If you are interested, please contact me.

Big Bargaining Teams

The photo on this page shows me during a caucus in a day of union negotiations. This is what I mean by “big bargaining teams.” We had over one hundred workers attend negotiations this particular day back in 2006. Collective bargaining, done in an open and transparent manner, can be a fully transformative and powerful experience for workers. That’s why the big business groups are attempting to abolish collective bargaining, it works.

Consulting Services

Strategic Planning

I work with leadership bodies large and small, elected and/or appointed, to develop strategic plans for the long term development of the organization and also for immediate or upcoming campaigns. This type of work is not a single day of work, it is ongoing work that can and should involve many people in the organization.

Power Structure Analysis Research

Key to winning is correctly understanding your power and the power of your opponents. Equally important is developing the plan to build the alliances you need and the relationships your opponent has that you need to disrupt. This training is at least a two-day training on research methods, including participatory aspects and deep internet based research.

Big Bargaining & Open Negotiations

Negotiations are about power more than words. To win in today’s challenging climate, we have to change the way we negotiate. I teach unions how to move from closed, low participation, staff-driven negotiations to large, open, democratic and participatory negotiations. Unions can hire me to negotiate contracts.

Developing High Participation

For progressives, the power to win rests in building and sustaining high participation organizations. This includes developing robust internal and external organizing programs, direct training for organizers (paid staff, members, activists and leaders), creating organizer assessment and development systems, understanding leader identification and structure tests, and, more.

Forging Powerful & Broad Alliances

Workers, through their unions, can and must connect the dots to their many community connections, systematizing deep ties that enable workers to win more. This is the essence of what I call “whole worker organizing.” Community organizations can use the exact methods to plot and build strategic alliances.