ICPJ will be having a strategic planning retreat in late summer, and for once I’m not procrastinating thinking about this.
Overall, we’re in a good position: growing donor base, exciting programming, and a great new program coordinator.
And from this position of strength, we’re in a good place to thoughtfully address some of the upcoming big questions we face as an organization. There are three that gnaw at me:
1. Generation Transformation
One thing that a lot of our activists have commented on is that they are mostly, well, middle aged and older.
How important is it for ICPJ to recruit younger activists in their teens, twenties, and thirties?
If it is important, are we willing to make the changes we need to make to be welcoming for them? (No more generation bashing would be a good place to start.)
2. Transformation of the religious landscape
More people are leaving religious congregations and communities than are joining them. The mainline Protestant churches, our long-time bedrock for support, are hemmoraging members. How do we respond to these changes in America’s religious landscape? (more on this question here)
3. How much to focus our effort
Overall we’re very good at doing an okay job on 20 things. Would we be better off doing an amazing job at 2 things? With our energy spread so thin, do we have the capacity to make change on any one area? If we decide to focus more, what happens to the other projects? If we do or do not focus more, how do we ensure that we can respond to new issues, challenges, and opportunities?
Conclusion
We face many questions at ICPJ. Opinionated as I am, I of course have my take on these questions. But above my particular take on this, these are ICPJ questions and we will need broader community so that the decisions we reach are ICPJ decisions.
5 comments ↓
[...] ← 3 Upcoming questions for ICPJ [...]
First - I love the blog!
Second - I am with you on the generations bashing and will try to enforce the zero policy as well. I thank you for so eloquently bringing up this issue which is rather divisive in organizing and so dumb! I think it will take some effort to undo the lack of trust between generations, (remember “don’t trust anyone over 30″ … uh oh!) but it is important to start somewhere.
Third - the question of where/how/whether to focus ICPJ is SO hard. From what I have observed at ICPJ (from my brief and rather shallow involvement,) it seems like people want to have an impact, but they also won’t give up what THEY want to work on. This is the paradox and the difficulty of being a multi issue organization. I hope we (ICPJ Steering committee and members) have a chance to delve deeper into this important strategic decision.
Thanks for your thoughts, Abby.
Your comment on Focus has me thinking about the difference between organizing and activism.
With activism, you act alone.
In organizing, you work to organize others for collective action.
Both are important, but I think ICPJ’s role is organizing, which takes more discipline and focus than activism. It means both showing leadership and building leadership.
[...] the questions that face ICPJ is how we should deal with generation changes. In particular, ICPJ faces three questions about [...]
[...] issue ICPJ needs to address is how much we should [...]
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