Who’s Your Target?

When was the last time you thought about your target?

And no, I don’t mean the shopping center that we all love to run to for a sweet treat on the weekend. (And that also just rolled back its DEI initiatives, so… #boycott)

In community organizing, your target is the person or group who you want to take a certain action that gets you closer to your goal.

It's the person or entity that holds the key to what you want. 

I’m gonna share with you why identifying your target matters, how to do so, and what to do after you’ve pinpointed your target.

And I'll give you some great questions to help you apply this to your campaign!

Why does it matter?

Typically your target is a decision-maker in a position of power.

They're the ones who can make the critical decision that you need to win.

This could be a policy change, a public commitment, an allocation of resources like time or money- the list goes on. 

If you don't persuade this person or group to take the action you want, then you're essentially not gaining any traction in your work.  Your job when organizing is to build enough power on your team, or among your base of people, such that the target is convinced to listen and take the requested action. 

If your target agrees to what you want, then congrats- you've won your campaign! Or at the very least, you've moved one step closer to your final goal.

How do I identify a target?

Great question! This is a part of your team's research process. If you're working for change within an institution, like a college, it can help to obtain a chart diagramming who reports to whom. This is usually found online. If that's not available, you can interview people affiliated with the institution to create your own map of the relevant decision-makers.

When I was organizing in Massachusetts, our racial justice team was working on an important campaign. After a long process of narrowing down the overwhelming "problem" of racism to the specific "issue" of Black history and education, we decided that we wanted to get Black Studies back into the public schools curriculum.

Community conversations had revealed that Black Studies had been taught for generations until it disappeared due to budget cuts, a move which was within living memory of many of our Black elders. So we decided that its restoration would be our campaign.

But before we could even think about mobilizing, we had a key question to address. Who was in charge of deciding the school curriculum?

After a lot of research, which really meant talking with teachers, administrators, staff and even leaders who had worked in the school system, we learned that the person who could make it happen was none other than the superintendent. He was our target!

So we marched right into the superintendent's office, slammed our fists on the table, and said, "We want Black Studies, and we want it now!"

Err… nope. 

What we did instead is what you should always do after you identify your target- we researched him!

Before we could make demands, we had to find out what he even thought about racial justice in general, and Black Studies specifically. Did he have any personal background with educational equity? Would he be in its favor? Would he be extremely opposed? And in either case, why? 

These questions were related to what we call self-interest.

If you’re gonna change a person's mind or get them to do something, you have to understand who they are and what they value.

Understanding this builds your negotiating power and gives you multiple leverage points when you do make your ask.

Several of our leaders knew the superintendent because he had lived in the area for a while. They had always experienced him as fairly approachable, which gave us confidence when preparing to meet with him. If we had just barged in with our demands, it would have been harder to reinforce a positive response or anticipate potential challenges. 

Okay, so find out their self-interest. Then what?

Well in our case, we actually met with the superintendent a few times to learn his thoughts on the matter.

Prior to each meeting, we drafted a set of questions and an agenda. Even though it was sometimes intimidating to be directing a meeting with a public official, we always remembered that our tax dollars paid their salary, and so we would meet on our terms. Also, it was respectful to be prepared. Each leader took ownership of a question, which ensured that everyone would speak. 

In our first meeting with the superintendent, community elder Mabel Hamilton opened the conversation. She recounted how Black Studies had been an important part of the curriculum in her day before it was later removed.

It was so powerful seeing Miss Hamilton, with her shock of white hair and incredible gravitas, spelling out slowly the difference that Black Studies had made for her as a young person. 

After she told her story, we asked the superintendent directly- "What do you think?" 

We waited for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. Finally, he began to speak.

When he was a young teacher, he said, he had taught school kids in the Southern US. One day while researching local history, he realized that many of the Black students in his classes shared the last names of regional slave owners.

This sobering awareness, he said, had deepened his commitment to learning and teaching Black history. For him, it was a direct connection between the past and the present that was at risk of being overlooked. 

We were really heartened to hear the superintendent's story. He described a strong commitment to racial justice and a personal story that we could tap into. All of this would make it easier for us to ask for his commitment to restoring Black Studies to the public school curriculum.

That said, we still didn't dive headfirst into, "Ok superintendent, chop chop! Let’s make it happen!"  We actually had to take a step back and continue to do research. Part of that was asking him, "What would it take for Black Studies to be restored to the curriculum?" 

But Dondei! Didn't you already know this due to your research?

Well, sort of. We knew that he was the decision-maker, but now we wanted to know what kinds of things would make granting our request easier or harder. So this brings me to my next point.

Not only do we have to identify the target and learn about their self interest and values, we also have to have a deeper understanding of what the process of decision-making is even like for them. 

For example, would the superintendent be accountable to the school committee? Would he have to abide by certain curricular standards, or might he anticipate pushback from teachers or parents?

Even if in his heart he was willing, there were practical things affecting how motivated he would be to restore the class to the curriculum.

We even had to learn about the hiring process for a teacher to run the course.

And so that basically became the substance of our follow up meetings. One sticking point that the superintendent raised was that he was planning not on a Black Studies course, but rather to interweave Black studies and other ethnic studies into the teaching of all subjects across the board.

So one of his later counterpoints to having a Black Studies class was that in math class, for example, he wanted students to learn about Black mathematicians. This would seem to replace the need for a specific Black Studies course.

But one of the great things that we did was to get in touch with a young, energetic Black teacher who was already teaching a high school course on Black Literature.

And wouldn't you know it? This teacher was so adamant that students were eager to learn specifically about Black culture, that we were able to bring that to the superintendent. We responded thoughtfully to his concerns and made a stronger case overall. 

Finally, the process wouldn’t have been complete without us going in and actually requesting that he publicly commit to restoring Black Studies.

We invited the Superintendent to our organization's Annual Convention, where he made the pledge in front of excited community members. 

The event was reported on in the local paper, with lots of praise for the superintendent. But get this- the superintendent himself then wrote an op-ed describing how we inspired him to make the right choice. (Although I will say, we were very ready to tactically place an empty chair on stage if he hadn't turned up!)

Following the Convention, we held a Q&A at the local Black church where the public could ask the superintendent in-depth questions about his plans. 

When he turned up, the turnout and community eagerness reinforced the weight of his commitment- as well as the fact that people would be watching and holding him accountable.

In that way we showed that it wasn’t just our little group of leaders that cared, but truly the community at large.

To sum it up, yes, we could have gone in with a blind ask for the superintendent to add Black Studies to the schools. But we gained so much by taking the on-ramp of asking about his experience and learning his story. In moments when he wavered in his enthusiasm (and he did waver), we held him to his personal reasons for pursuing justice. 

We also gave him the gift of bringing his commitment to life, via the public commitment at the Annual Convention and the more intimate community Q&A event. 

So what does this mean for you? It means that a great way to get a handle on your organizing campaign is to identify your target! 

Ask yourself the question: What person or group of people would really hold the key in making this decision?

Question whether it really is one person, or whether it’s a group. Is that person or group accountable to any other people or groups?

And what do each of these players think about what you are proposing? Are they with you or against you, and why?

Then start to understand their viewpoint, interests, and decision-making process. 

If you've made it this far, congrats. You're ready to pinpoint your campaign's target!