Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D.I.Y.ers! For those who tune in, welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. Each week we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns. If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
This July, we started off our new series looking toward growth and maintenance of activist organizations. Because these organizations are formed mostly out of the willing who decide to show up, you can’t control who attends or who participates.
That, however, means that you can occasionally run into members who are trouble. There are different kinds of trouble, though, and different ways to deal with it in your organization. This week, we’re going to look at problem members and how you can help your organization succeed.
Before you begin, create a policy.
Every organization has some set of bylaws or rules. While this can seem like a lot for your pop-up organization, one of these elements is the expectation of duties and values. It is hard to deal with problem volunteers or board members if you don’t have a policy that labels certain actions and behaviors problematic.
Democratic organizations should lead with a statement of shared values and expectations that match our goals for the organization. Even volunteer organizations adopt policies that define behavior expectations to exclude real problems: harassment, bullying, sexual harassment, and so on. If you define these expectations at the beginning then you make sure you have grounds to remove members if they are a real problem.
Most organizations that form quickly aren’t thinking about a way to boot members out at the beginning, but part of what defines all organizations is who you accept—as well as who you do not. If your organization is willing to accept those who operate in a way contrary to your values, you’ll find attendance starts dropping and people form a bad impression of your efforts.
Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.
One of the activists we began following in July, Tim Smith, knows a little something about problem members. As a school teacher, he’s had more than a few students who were difficult. Unlike an organization, though, his classroom didn’t allow for him to tell the problem individual to go away.
His training in a classroom also taught him one of the key lessons in dealing with problem individuals: ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away. Too many organizations with volunteer members often find themselves tolerating problem members because they adopt the philosophy that it will remedy itself over time. Maybe ignoring the bad behavior will give them less reason to act out, they reason, and the problem will go away.
In a Democratic organizational meeting, a potential member stood up and explained that while he was a lifelong Democrat, he was also a Trump supporter, hated President Obama, and thought maybe it was time for the Democratic party to become a lot more “conservative” and go “back to their roots.”
Problem member? Certainly. It is tempting, though, for the organization to simply say: well, let’s just ignore him. If he keeps showing up he can sit in the back and maybe he’ll join us later or he will just stop coming.
This method—ignoring the problem—simply doesn’t work. It is just as likely that your problem member will get more problematic as time goes on.
Confrontation isn’t something a lot of us enjoy. Tim certainly doesn’t. But his experience also tells him that if he lets a problem stick around unchecked, people will have a lot less interest in showing up.
The Bad Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Eeyore Problem
Not all problem members run counter to your values. It is difficult to eject members who advocate against your end goals at times, but dealing with Bad Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Eeyore problems can take over your efforts before you even notice.
As organizations form you often develop members who fit the bad boyfriend/girlfriend model—difficult, but you are confident you can fix or change them. If only you can change them, you think, they will be fantastic members of your organization.
Your organization, though, doesn’t have the time nor reason to try and change an individual and their behavior—it simply isn’t your job. Attending a meeting a few years ago, an organizer said of these problem members: “They may be salty now, but given the right environment, salt water helps produce a pearl.” Well, it also produces remoras and jelly fish stings.
Your efforts in activism are about sending out a positive social message and helping to build an operational base for candidates. The more time you are spending trying to fix behaviors of people inside your organization, the less time your organization is doing what it should be doing.
Eeyore volunteers—those who are always either gloomy, doubting, or second-guessing every action you take—can also be a drain on your resources. If you find that you have too many Eeyores, you’ll quickly drain the interest of members, because they don’t want to be placed on an activity or task with someone who is constantly negative about potential outcomes.
Minimize the number of activities you place these members on. If they come willing to work without the drama or Eeyore behavior, then welcome aboard. But as long as bad behavior continues, don’t reward it by thinking you can fix it.
Final Thought: All of these efforts require one other piece: Document what happens and what you decided. Don’t ever let your organization get caught flat-footed later on when members return and no one remembers why they left or were ejected. Don’t let volunteers or members tell you things have “never” happened before, just because you don’t have a record of it.
Your organization doesn’t need to document every petty incident, but major incidents that result in some action? You need documentation. Keeping track of what is going on provides safety to your members and it helps to ensure it doesn't happen over and over again.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: Friendship, rewards, and downtime—Protecting your mental health.
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Nuts & Bolts: Building Democratic Campaigns
Contact the Daily Kos group Nuts and Bolts by kosmail (members of Daily Kos only). You can also follow me on twitter: @tmservo433
Every Saturday this group will chronicle the ins and outs of campaigns, small and large. Issues to be covered: Campaign Staffing, Fundraising, Canvass, Field Work, Data Services, Earned Media, Spending and Budget Practices, How to Keep Your Mental Health, and on the last Saturday of the month: “Don’t Do This!” a diary on how you can learn from the mistakes of campaigns in the past.
You can follow prior installments in this series HERE.