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What We Do

Organizing
Glossary

We’re in the business of creating a leadership pipeline for justice, raising up the next generation of community advocates and organizers. Use this tool as a resource to help deepen your understanding of commonly used organizing terms.

AllABCDEFGIMOPRSTW
A
Accessibility
Describes a place, practice, or event that meets the access needs of everyone involved, allowing for their full participation.
Advocacy
When you speak up for or against an issue or solution.
Ally
Someone who makes the commitment and effort to recognize their privilege and work in solidarity with oppressed groups in the struggle for justice.
Anti-Racism
The work of actively opposing racism by advocating for changes in political, economic, and social life.
B
BLAC
Black Appalachian Coalition
C
Campaign
An organized sequence of tactics directed at a certain target, which isdesigned to achieve a specific goal.
Campaign Strategy
A plan or theory and/or collection of plans, ideas, information, and analysis to make a campaign occur.
Canvassing
To go through (a district) or go to (persons) to solicit orders or political support or to determine opinions or sentiments.
Caucus
An intentionally created space for those who share an identity to convene for learning, support, and connections.
Coalition
Alliances or networks that stem from shared responsibilities and goals.
Colonialism
The practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another, to acquire and exploit resources.
Community
The way we as communities meet each other’s needs and prioritize wellness while living within systems of oppression that perpetuate harm. Self-care isn’t possible without community care.
Community Organizer
Someone who brings people together to act on their shared interests.
Community Organizing
Building power through leadership in people and communities that use their resources to create the change they want.
Constituency
A community that acts on what they believe in.
Culture
Characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts.
D
Direct Action
An area of activism in which participants act directly, ignoring established (or institutionalized) political and social procedures.
Direct Service
The action that happens in the presence of the persons, animals, or places we want to impact.
Discrimination
The unequal treatment of members of various groups based on race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, and other categories.
E
Environmental Justice
The just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other Federal activities that affect human health and the environment.
F
Facilitate
To help in a process.
Fenceline Communities
A community that lives immediately adjacent to highly polluting facilities.
Fracking
A drilling method used to extract petroleum (oil) or natural gas from deep in the planet. In the fracking process, cracks in and below the Earth’s surface are opened and widened by injecting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure.
Frontline Communities
A community that experiences the impacts of climate change “first and worst.”
G
Goal
The direction of a campaign.
I
Indirect Service
May not be in the presence of the person or thing you are impacting.
Institutional Racism
The underlying racial injustices that are embedded within institutions and organizations that maintain racial discrimination and inequity.
Issue
A specific challenge that is pulled from a bigger problem.
M
Movement Building
When people and communities working to address injustice realize that their struggles are related and that their shared vision is more likely to be realized by working together.
O
Oppression
The systematic subjugation of one social group by a more powerful social group for the social, economic, and political benefit of the more powerful social group. Oppression = Power + Prejudice.
Outcomes
The changes that need to happen to make your long-term goal possible.
Outputs
The tactics and activities of a campaign created to deliver outcomes.
P
Petrochemicals
A chemical isolated or derived from petroleum or natural gas.
Power
The capacity of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine who gets what, who does what, who decides what, and who sets the agenda. Power is the ability to achieve purpose. Analyzing power and power structures is at the heart of community organizing and campaign strategy development.
Power Mapping
A visual representation in recognizing who needs to be involved to fuel the campaign to be successful.
Project
A short-term deliverable with an end date and can be found within a project.
R
Race
A made-up social, political, and economic construct, and not biological. The term ‘white’ was constructed to combine various European groups against First Nations people and people of color in the struggle for resources. T o justify the idea of a white race, all institutions were used to promote the idea of white supremacy.
Racism
A system of advantage based on race. Racism = Race prejudice + social & institutional power.
Research
Finding out new information that informs or demands action.
S
Stakeholder
Organizations, Institutions, Groups, and people affected by the issue you are addressing.
Story
How we interact with each other about values; how we share experiences, counsel each other, comfort each other, and inspire each other to action.
Systems of Oppression
A system that dehumanizes and devalues groups of people in ways that result in violence, dispossession, disempowerment, and displacement; these systems require power and grant privilege, which also creates barriers for us in caring for one another.
T
Tactics
Actions that are short-term used to complete certain campaign outcomes.
Target
The person who is the decision maker in your campaign.
Theory of Change
How and why you anticipate change to occur.
Trauma
Informed Approach -acknowledges the need to understand a patient’s life experiences to deliver effective care and has the potential to improve patient engagement, treatment adherence, health outcomes, and provider and staff wellness.
W
White Privilege
Refers to the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits, and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally, white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it, because of the system that makes them seem normal. The system includes internal and external manifestations at the individual, interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels.
White Supremacy
The ideology that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to people of color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.