Jan --

Here are some direct reactions to each of Kawasaki's suggestions, and to your own comments. I am glad you linked to your blog, because the ideas you raise got me back in a writing mood. (If you're feeling sick, please don't try to slog through all this now...)

First a little background: In 1998, a subsidiary of what was then the largest cement manuf- acturer in the world proposed to build a massive, coal-fired plant in the neighboring town, sprawling into my own town. The facility would have included a 400-foot tower, a plume up to 6 miles long, a 1,200-acre mine, over 500 truck trips in and out daily, two miles of conveyor belts, and a major barge facility along a National Heritage River.

The company had quietly observed a previous land use controversy in the area (which we also won), and thus heavily lobbied local officials and opinion leaders in advance of public awareness of the proposal. We were told when it was announced that the project was a "done deal" -- as all communities are in these situations -- and indeed it looked that way to many.

At the time this began, our tiny group was an unincorporated association of about 30-40 citizens, which grew to over 4,000 paid members by the time we won. In the final review, nearly 14,000 written comments were submitted to a state agency, 87% of them against the project; they said the volume and intensity of the public interest was a record for the state. The controv- ersy lasted 6.5 years, and involved numerous review processes, hearings and comment periods among 12 local, county, state and federal agencies.

We fought on our own for two years, with larger, more established groups unwilling to help. Once our membership, publicity and fundraising began to grow exponentially, we were able to get some three dozen other groups to lend their name (and in some cases, their clout and money) to the cause. Still, our grassroots group had to raise $2.3 million, at least two-thirds of all the funds raised by all partners in the fight.

People still can't quite believe that we won. But our core leadership always believed that we could win -- that it was just a matter of finding a way to do so. It helped that the company, though well-funded, was incredibly arrogant and confident of victory -- and constantly fell right into the traps we set for it. Also, it had a terrible track record which we discovered and exposed time and time again, to great effect.

(Another favorite tactic was to track the company's p.r. statements and application claims very carefully over time, and continually expose the contradictions  topic by topic. Destroying the opponent's credibility is always essential, and can make a dreary fight a lot livelier.)

Lastly: The reason I'm spending time to tell you all this is because when I started, I could not find anyone to even give me help, let alone advice in our area. The only real response to my distress calls came from Lois Gibbs' organization, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, based in the mid- Atlantic (far from my home in New York's Hudson Valley).

As such, I always respond to any request from help, guidance, or just a conversation about activism, because I remember what it was like to be in the wilderness, facing an steep uphill trek. I hope the following is useful to you in your work or to your clients.

--Sam ("Hudson" at MyDD)

=== COMMENTS ====

1) [GUY] Focus on cash flow, not profitability. The theory is that profits are the key to survival. If you could pay the bills with theories, this would be fine. The reality is that you pay bills with cash, so focus on cash flow.

[JAN] For outsiders this means: don't plan on raising the money you need from the big guys, at least at first. Don't make your campaign plan on the assumption that you'll get the big grant or hit with the big donor. Instead, try to project simply how you can make payroll. As long as you can do that, you can move forward and create the momentum that might lead to bigger money.

[SAM]This definitely reflects my experience. Our fight was funded almost entirely by small contributions from individuals for the first two years. When we got our first $20 donation, I was thrilled -- never dreaming we'd eventually get grants as large as $240,000. Over the course of the battle, about two-thirds of our funding came from individuals, not grantors -- and we raised more than $2 million.

It was better, overall, that things started small and grew organically... because it kept us hungry, and got our members directly invested in the cause. People stick with a fight longer if they have money in it, even only a few dollars. (Our annual membership "dues" were voluntary; if someone wanted to join for $2, we preferred to have them on the rolls, even though we'd spend at least $10 in postage and printing on them over the year. Someone else would make up the difference with a donation of $500 or $10,000. And by asking people to donate what they could afford, rather than a set amount, people actually gave more.)

Also, big donors like to see that your work has broad-based support, from a large and growing number of people. The more small donations we got, the more big ones. It was a selling point, and our fundraising appeals would always show, graphically, our increase in membership year by year.

It was clear to me that it was more important, initially, to build a much larger membership, and fast, than anything else. My message in the early stages had to be directed to what would come to be our "base." Having 400 members was more than 10 times more valuable than 40. And it was crucial to demonstrate to the company that, unlike most citizens groups, were were going to grow and expand by leaps and bounds, not dry up and blow away in the wind.

One thing which I'd add, which may not fit exactly in this context but I don't want to forget:

We found that both financially and organization- ally, it was important to take periodic leaps into the unknown. For us, some early big leaps were to move into an office instead of continuing to operate out of my living room, despite doubts about our ability to pay; retaining a big, industrial engineering firm as our main consultant, though their fees almost killed us; or having the guts to ask donors who had shown an ability to give $250 to give $2,500 or more. In each case, there were many arguments against making that leap -- we can't afford it, we should be cautious, we have to avoid being too pushy. But in retrospect, if anything I'd have been bolder sooner.

2) Forecast from the bottom up.

Because big media, especially TV, have big impact, it is easy to get fixated on what you could do if you could buy enough gross rating points to saturate your intended market with your message. But that route to influence is not for outsiders. Instead you need to multiply the number of ways you deliver message rather than trying first to overwhelm your audience. On a city size campaign, this can imply that given the choice of one really glossy, classy brochure or 15 literature tables in popular locations for a weekend with ugly but serviceable paper flyers, go for those tables.

This is absolutely on the money, so to speak.

Our opponent spent lavishly on print, radio and TV advertising, as well as direct mail. Whenever they launched another campaign, some of my members would freak out: "We have to respond, let's take out a full-page ad," etc.

To respond in kind would have bankrupted us.

And, I countered, we have more substantive ways to reach people. They have money -- we have time. Let's get out there in front of every post office in the county and leaflet, making sure that at least one well-known and well-liked person from that town is part of the leafletting posse.

Let's put literature and petitions on the counter of every busy deli, restaurant and shop that is sympathetic. Let's have a painting party, and hand-paint lawn signs to counter their glossy, corporate signs. Let's ask each of our most committed members to have their 5 best friends over for coffee, and discuss the issues in detail, so that when it comes time to write letters or participate in a public hearing, we have our army fully briefed and motivated. Let's use the (free) letters to the editor section, rather than paying for ads -- after all, the letters are the best-read part of the paper, and we can get our message out there unfiltered, most of the time at least. Let's print up a new flyer right before every big community event, and make sure these get full distribution before and during that event. Let's use hard-hitting press releases and create unexpected, creative events which the media can't resist covering.

In short, let's use what tools we have, rather than waiting around until we have the ideal pamphlet, perfect ad campaign, and the money to promote these properly. Like the shark, we had to keep moving, or we'd die.

3) Ship, then test.

Outsiders get their propaganda out the door, then refine the message based on the feedback. Because we are outsiders, we really don't know what will work when we try it out. We write letters, set up and frequent blogs, make flyers, put up stickers and hammer at our points. In a political campaign, the perfect is often the enemy of the good.

Your comment is right on. As alluded to above, we would take any meeting of any size, especially in the early days. Because each encounter, even with just a "crowd" of three people, not only built our base incrementally, it also taught us what we didn't know. It showed us what we had to go back and research, and which lines of argument fell on deaf ears. It was free focus-grouping of the message -- and pretty darned fun to meet these people, anyway. We'd come away saying, "Gee, they didn't care much about blasting impacts, but when we mentioned that the company could not build the same kind of plant in their home country, everyone lit up."

The same went for our flyers and other materials: Make them strictly factual, but with enough of a hook to get attention. Have three people check them for typos. Use the most basic tenets of design to give them a clean, professional look. But don't delay pulling the trigger on getting the copies made -- next week or month, you can fix those and get yet another flyer out. Indeed, the need for fresh material was nearly inexhaustible, as the interest in our cause grew. And always print more than you think you're going to need, money willing.

Get people with copiers or inkjet printers to agree to run off 50 copies for you each, if you don't have cash, and they'll probably come in with 300.

Have mailing parties, and ask people to bring their address books and whatever spare stamps they have lying around. Hand-address those early mailings, with the name of someone the addressee knows on the envelope, so that it gets opened. People will be generous, especially if the events become a chance to meet people and see friends. (Coffee and donuts goes a long way toward getting people to come back, too.)

I found that advertising/design professionals were among the most trying people to work with on this campaign, and eventually did all the design myself -- because the pros were too nitpicky, and also wanted to make everything look too slick for a campaign aimed at a rural population. In the end, everyone complimented me on how great our materials looked -- but this was because I was continually generating new material, and improving it based on the feedback we got each time.

4) Forget the "proven" team. Proven teams are over-rated -- especially when most people define proven teams as people who worked for a billion dollar company for the past ten years. These folks are accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and it's not the bootstrapping lifestyle. Hire young, cheap, and hungry people.

You don't need the most experienced political consultant or pollster. In fact, because the ones with reputations have usually gotten to be insiders and organize like insiders, you don't want them even if you could get them. And you can't. You need people who care about your issue or candidate, who will work, and learn.

This dovetails with my comment above about ad professionals, and also goes for political consultants and other advisors. Doing things by the book is a good way to lose, because the system is designed for citizens to fail. You will have to use nonconventional and, dare I say, asymmetrical tactics to prevail; consultants and pros will argue against the very tools that open a path to victory.

Indeed, I came to realize that part of my job was to fend off the countless bad ideas that came from professionals -- and to keep my eyes peeled for the brilliant and truly astonishing people who had never before been involved in such a fight, but came up with amazing research and volunteer efforts on their own.

As an amusing aside: When our battle began, I was 29 years old. I love to chide, now, one of our earliest and dearest supporters, who sent an email back in the days when we were getting the group together saying, "Sam is a bright and energetic addition to our community, but I fear he is just too young to lead this fight." Little did he know that the fight would go on for six years, and that a whole lot more energy would be needed to win than some of the older members were willing to contribute.

(Sadly, when I stepped down from the organ- ization, the board ignored this precept and my advice to replace me with three young, hungry, energetic college grads willing to work for a fraction of what the "professional" who demanded -- and got -- more than what three youngsters would require in salary -- and the group is faltering now.)

5) Start as a service business.

Build a base by giving the people you want to recruit something they want. For a great story about working this way, read Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights by Jennifer Gordon. Advocates offered legal assistance to exploited immigrant workers by training them about their legal rights and eventually won major wage raises and a domestic workers bill of rights from New York State legislators. With imagination, most campaigns can use this advice. For those trying to replace incumbents, think candidate training workshops!

In my separate experience with grassroots political campaigns, it was essential to train poll inspectors, poll watchers, and candidates long in advance -- and over a period of years. People need not just the knowledge, but also the confidence to go out and accomplish difficult goals. They need to know what others have been through and to ask questions.

Our key task on the big environmental issue we eventually prevailed on was to give people tools to be citizens: to explain in detail how the various review processes work, and be available in person to answer questions.

Sit with small groups around a table as they write letters, answering questions and encour- aging them to trade ideas and feed off each other's intensity, growing emboldened by the sense of cameraderie. We had to go beyond just petitioning and marching (which we did), and give people tools to become more actively and directly involved, whether through hosting events, donating services, contributing research, speaking at hearings, approaching public figures at whistestops, putting up signs, making calls, decorating gyms for events, videotaping and disseminating tapes of meetings, disrupting company press conferences and chamber gatherings, making connections to company board members to convey the depth of opposition that their staff was hiding from them, arrange benefit concerts, write their Aldermen... The list goes on and on.

The key is that we were never satisfied with "just" a signature on a petition or an annual donation. We tried to squeeze every bit of knowledge and energy out of each of our members we could, and we did so without making them feel pressured or hassled, I believe. The flow of interest (and funding) never dried up, because we were the most exciting and important cause around. At some point, we were no longer pariahs, but rather personalities that people wanted to meet.

6) Focus on function, not form. Design great stuff, but buy cheap stuff.

Outsiders don't need the best of everything, just good enough. Used copiers and borrowed office space is okay. (Don't apply this advice to databases or accounting though.)

Precisely. We had (for a time) donated space and copiers; we eventually graduated to the next level, but not until we had the capacity to do so. The important thing, per the above comments, was to keep our oars in the water and to pull those oars as strongly and efficiently as we could, until we grew bigger muscles. (Okay, end of the sports analogy.)

There is also another facet to this topic, which isn't readily available to the professionals, or the people who hand out design awards: Slick is what the corporate guys do, and local people can sniff it out in a minute. That's not a reason to deliberately make your materials ugly, but one can fall into the trap of making your flyers too fancy. That can turn people off and even make them wonder: where is my money going? To glossy cardstock, or to fighting the cause? A balance needs to be struck, ideally: Neither amateurish, nor too Madison Avenue.

7) Bootstrappers pick their battles. They don't fight on all fronts because they cannot afford to fight on all fronts.

Yes, you have lots of battles. For political outsiders, this means that you have to look around for people who are already in the field who might be your friends. This can be made difficult by the fact that advocacy financing and political office are finite competitive resources, so there will be pressure on you to go it alone, to pretend you have the only solution to the problem you are working on. Try not to do this if you can help it. Work with others as much as you can, even if they resist your presence in the field.

This is the only point on which I have a slight disagreement, or at least a slightly different take. There are essentially two topics above: How many fronts to fight on, and how to approach allies and partnerships. I'll take 'em one at a time:

Battles and fronts: We had, for most of this period, just one battle -- to stop this polluting and sprawling project from destroying our towns and way of life. But we fought that battle on every front that we could afford to.

The only arenas we didn't try to compete in were the ones we couldn't afford to; for example, the company took out full- or half-page ads in one of the local papers every day for about four years. We weren't going to do that, much as it drove our members crazy, both because it was too expensive, and after a while no one paid any attention to them.

But otherwise, we took a totalized approach:

Respond to every press release, no matter how small the issue, and pre-empt any company p.r. event that we caught wind of in advance. Hold meetings in every town in the affected area, in three states, so long as someone locally would sponsor it. Fight every attempt by the company to undermine community values (e.g., donations to churches and arts organizations) by making both the company and the recipient feel the heat in the media and from supporters. Send people to every meeting, in droves, to any meeting where the project might be discussed. Send members to any event where the Governor, a Senator, a Congressman, or even some minor official might be present, with signs and buttons and personal appeals to be our hero. Don't go home from the office until you've done at least three things which tangibly advanced your cause that day, so that at the end of the year you've done over 1,000 things to move the cause along.

What is crucial, whatever else citizens do, is to remember to fight on your own terms. When responding to a letter, don't repeat the company's any more than you have to in order to show them up as liars. Frame the debate from your perspective, as someone with a direct stake in the issue, rather than in the terms set by the company's p.r. When things get stale, we would get creative. Come up with a whole new angle for supporting your position, and get it out there. Host a new type of event, or give people a new tool for spreading the word.

(At one point, when the years were wearing on all of us, I had a run of 250 "Swat the Plant" flyswatters made up to lighten the mood -- people loved them, and it even gave them a tangible way to take out their frustrations over the issue... Pity the flies.)

Allies: Sadly, I have seen grassroots groups get co-opted and then sold out by larger, more established groups which view local controversies as R&D for their own fundraising strategies.

My advice is this: Court as many allies as possible, and work with them in good faith. But never, ever let a larger group drive the bus. Primary decision-making on a local issue must remain in local hands, or the chances of an unsatisfactory compromise or craven capitulation go way, way up. Build coalitions that present a united front against your adversary, by all means. But behind the scenes, you will have to watch your allies almost as closely as the enemy.

The same goes for lawyers and consultants. Event the best experts (and we had very good ones) are built to compromise. We found a wonderful attorney, with great values and a very sharp legal mind. But even he had to be pushed at times to look harder at a specific issue that he didn't think was a winner, or to help us find a different angle which would at least result in a draw, so that we could win on something else.

8) Understaff.

Self-exploitation is the only way to get started without money. Accept this and recruit others who can live with it.

Absolutely. It staggers me how little work comes out of big environmental groups with dozens of staffers. A handful of sharp, motivated, energetic people, making use of an army of volunteers, can always accomplish far more than an inaccessible bureaucracy.

Also, members and donors need direct contact with the people on whom they are relying to accomplish the agreed-upon goal. Those people must convey confidence, passion, and expertise, if the group is to fluorish.

9) Go direct. The optimal number of mouths (or hands) between a bootstrapper and her customer is zero.

In a campaign, your best and cheapest resource is the candidate's time. An outsider candidate has to be open to grotesque, non-stop, self-exploitation for the duration -- that means being willing to go to every meeting, meet every voter, shake every hand, answer every question, over and over. In an advocacy campaign, this means, though you try to play well with others, being at every possible event with your own materials, never depending on friendly organizations to get the nuts and bolts organizing done, never thinking organizational or celebrity endorsements will carry the day without your shoe leather.

My point in the previous comment, exactly. While there is a role, once your group gets enormous, for some kind of gatekeeper to make sure you can get your work done, if the leadership ever becomes inaccessible, the organization is dead.

Besides, direct contact with members and the general public is the whole reward of the job, which is generally thankless in most other respects.

One other comment, which doesn't exactly fit here, but is worth making: By all means, preach to the choir. Without a choir, no one will come to church. But people always dismiss meetings among activists as "preaching to the choir." Keep that choir in good shape, though. You'll need it.

On celebrity endorsements: They are silly. And you don't want to do it very often, certainly not until you've got a strong grassroots base. But I have to say -- they do work, at least in terms of media exposure. A press conference with Natalie Merchant (who cried on cue) got more coverage than just about anything else that happened. But I wouldn't spend time chasing celebrities -- more important is the day-to-day, drip-drip-drip, Chinese Water Torture approach that steadily erodes company support. If a celebrity falls into your lap, though, go for it.

10) Position against the leader. Don't have the money to explain your story starting from scratch? Then don't try. Instead position against the leader.

This bit of business advice is about how to break into a Microsoft world. Political outsiders are trying to break into a Republicrat world. I don't mean to imply we need a third party; I'm writing for outsiders who aim to move the Democrats. You need to promise through your actions and propaganda that you recognize how establishment Dems do it -- and promise to fill the niche for those who want it done better. You can. Their results are not that good these days.

On a grassroots level, this advice might be applied this way: Use the adversary's strength against them. If the other side is outspending you on advertising, highlight the heavy-handed, slick, overblown nature of their campaign in letters to the editor, comments to the press, etc.

Revel in your underdog status, while conveying confidence; people like underdogs, even some who aren't on your side. If the other side tries to impress regulators with ten linear feet of application materials, go through all those papers with a fine toothed comb -- you'll find something you can use against them, for sure, because its consultants don't  think you're going to read what they write, and don't even necessarily realize what is a damaging revelation. Turn their every move against the other side: if, as in our community, the company holds big, free "community days" to buy support, make it known that these fatcats think local people can be bought off with a free hotdog -- and that the community is insulted.

Activists will always be told that they have to be "for something," not "just" against something, and at times it can be helpful to get behind a good idea, or at least paint your ideal vision of a healthy, vibrant community. But don't get boxed into not being critical, not taking the other side to task, not turning their advantages into weaknesses. You don't have to be the best- liked person in the community -- but you do have to win.

11) Take the "red pill." This refers to the choice that Neo made in The Matrix. The red pill led to learning the whole truth. The blue pill meant waking up wondering if you had a bad dream. Bootstrappers don't have the luxury to take the blue pill. They take the red pill -- everyday -- to find out how deep the rabbit hole really is.

Stay real. The beginning of political wisdom is understanding what forces you have and what you can really do. As you have a few minor successes (and a lot of failures), don't believe your own endorsement interviews or grant applications. Hang on to your vision -- and know what force you really have. Use it. Build it. Win.

Or, as Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance:

"In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of our absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

With regards,

--Sam in Hudson

So, anyone still reading? Reactions? I got a little wordy there, for which I apologize... Please do check out Jan's blog, linked above, as this format for structuring my thoughts is entirely thanks to her insightful repurposing of Kawasaki's advice.