Entries Tagged 'ICPJ' ↓

New Years are always a good time to look ahead. So what do I see in the future for ICPJ?

• Stronger member follow-up. I think one of the major areas ICPJ can grow in is following up after someone signs up or comes to an event. If we consistently thank people for coming, listen to their interests, and invite them to get more involved, I believe it will yield more members, more money, and more impact.
• Open to grassroots initiatives: ICPJ should strengthen its culture and structure so that we are open to people coming in to lead new initiatives, with clear agreements to how we can support and nurture them. Not all innovation can or should come from the Board or staff.
• A commitment to build grassroots leaders. All our program committees should be empowered to lead themselves in their programs that support the ICPJ’s mission as a whole. This means that staff may need to do less doing and more teaching so that our members have the skills and abilities to organize campaigns, work with the press, lead lobbying efforts, run meetings, and so on. This training component is essential if we are to be open to new initiatives. Without it, we are setting people up for, if not failure, at least mediocrity.
• Increase our reach and diversity. I think we have growth potential getting out of our comfort zone and building ties with communities of color, evangelicals, Ypsi, Western Washtenaw, and other religious groups.
• Results-focused campaigns. This one is controversial. ICPJ has a grand vision of a world free of war and injustice. I think we can do a better job of identifying the campaigns that will take us there and that will let us look back and see how we’ve made progress. Let’s identify some changes we can win, then dedicate the resources necessary to win them! What would it take to move Dingell to oppose the SOA? What would it take to increase bus service to Ypsi and Willow Run? Can we do that? If so, let’s do it! Let’s put the energy and intensity into winning some of these changes rather than always being weighed down by them.
• Highly responsive. I confess, I think we’ve been slow to adequately respond to emerging issues like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our structure is great for doing what we’ve always done. Not so great for taking on new issues. In the future, I want to see ICPJ be more nimble in responding to these new issues. If that comes from people approaching us as described above, that’s great. If not, we need to be able to lead a response. (The hard part is figuring out how to balance this responsiveness with fidelity toward our long-standing concerns. I still haven’t figured that one out).

This is a top-of-the-head, speaking for myself only blog post. The Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice is a community, and where we go in the future is up to the community as a whole. These are my thoughts. I may not get my way in all of them, and in conversation with the community my thoughts may change.

Several disaffected members of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice have been targeting the organization with criticism. I don’t think their arguments stand up, but that’s not the point for today. The point is what can be learned in this encounter.

Every person or organization can grow, and productive critical feedback is part of that process. Yes, there are many ways ICPJ can do better. We can work to increase our religious, racial, and ethnic diversity. We can craft more effective and change-focused strategies. We can improve our member follow-up to better involve our members in our work.

We can do better. And we need to here critical feedback to identify some of those areas where we can do better.

Not all criticism is created equal. Loving criticism is like a scalpel for surgery. Hateful criticism is like a knife for stabbing. Both have sharp edges. Both can be painful. But only one is helpful.

Critical Feedback is most effective when it is given in love from someone who wants the recipient to do better. There’s a big difference between “go home you #E@* drunk,” and “Jim, you’ve had too much to drink. I think it’s time we got you home.” Critical feedback is always hard to hear, but it is more likely to be listened to when the speaker really wants the best for the other person. William Sloane Coffin spoke of having a “lover’s quarrel with America.” That kind of quarrel, that kind of criticism, offered in love with deep concern for the wellbeing of the hearer, is the kind that is most likely to be heard.

Public “other-criticism” weakens trust, especially when it is spiteful, dishonest, or for the sake of wounding. After the public critique of ICPJ, I trust the writers much less. I don’t see that it was an honest attempt to strengthen ICPJ. I think many of the assertions made in there were dishonest. And I don’t think they were trying to strengthen or build up the organization, but rather to wound it.

Honest, public self-criticism builds trust (but it’s a scary thing to do). Okay, this one is more speculative, but I think that if ICPJ had been more public in sharing where it sees room for growth and how it is attempting to address that, I think these criticisms would find less traction. It wouldn’t stop the attacks from people who have an ax to grind. Some folks just can’t be placated. But, it would establish that we are honestly trying to be the best organization we can be.

The need for public self-criticism (confession?) and the dangers of other-criticism are greater in conflict situations. Consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many supporters of Israel engage in internal self-criticism of Israeli policies such as the destruction of Palestinian olive trees, but rarely does that self-criticism go outside of the community. Man supporters of the Palestinian cause engage in self-criticism of tactics by some Palestinian actors such as the Hamas attacks from Gaza, but rarely does that self-criticism go outside of the community.

What does go outside of the community? A long litany of other-criticism. Supporters of Israel will invoke the list wrongs inflicted on Jews in the conflict. Supporters of Palestine will recite the list of wrongs inflicted on Palestinians in the conflict. Both sides only hear criticism. Neither side hears concern for their own wellbeing or survival. Neither side hears the other acknowledge any mistakes or wrongdoing.

Neither side sees any reason to trust the other.

That’s not a recipe for peace between neighbors.

Where we can go from here. I don’t have answers for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but I do have thoughts for how to address this within ICPJ:

• Share areas where ICPJ can grow.
• Avoid other-criticism that is aimed to wound.
• Temper other-criticsm with empathy and compassion. While I consider the criticism that the letter launches against ICPJ to unfair and disingenuous, I do recognize that the letter’s authors have a deep concern for Palestine and are frustrated that ICPJ is not addressing the issue in the way they would like. I can respect their passion, even if I disagree with their methods.

Often we plan program and events thinking start to finish. But the real work takes place after the finish, with the follow-up.

For example, our Disarmament Working Group recently had a movie showing. Did the event end when the last guest had left and the last dish was washed?

NO.

(Okay, you saw that one coming.)

After the event, we had thirty people who expressed an interest in nuclear disarmament. Now the real work begins. How will we follow up with them so that they stay involved in the organization and in the issue?

For us, the first step means getting a follow-up email to them  within 24 hours to remind them about the issue, reinforce the message, and reiterate what actions they can take.

Getting this follow-up email out is an important development here at ICPJ. Now, just like a chess aficionado, we need to plan three steps ahead.

Take home message: Plan your follow-up just as much as you plan your publicity and your logistics. It’s in the follow-up that you win or lose new members, new donors, and new activists.

So I keep wondering if at ICPJ we try to do too much.

What if we did less, but we did it better?

What if we only took on projects if we were sure we could put in the energy to get the right number of people there*, follow up with our new contacts, train volunteers to take leadership roles, and get good visibility outside of the choir?

If we made this change, would we have more members?
Would we reach more communities?

And most of all…
Would we make more of an impact?

* When I say the “right number of the right people,” I’m not being elitist. Sometimes the “right number of right people” could be 5 clergy members from different traditions, or maybe 2 welfare recipients and a member of congress, or 300 people from throughout the community. My point is that some events are big events, some events are small; sometimes we reach out to wide audiences, sometimes we want to reach a more specific segment.