What organizations forget: Building relationships matters.

I was reminded of this lesson about how organizations often overlook their most powerful lever – building relationships – in the span of a few hours this past week.

The power comes when folks get to know other folks, and importantly know what those folks know and care about. Those relationships and that knowledge are the energy source for real action and productive outcomes. We tend to focus on formal gatherings and structured projects as the key activities that drive outcomes. They may. But those efforts also produce opportunities to build relationships and networks. And we should pay more attention to how we nurture those relationships.

My recent re-learning of this lesson started when I attended a meeting sponsored by an organization that is trying to build a coalition of environmental justice (EJ) advocates in Evanston. The lesson came home after the meeting ended, as a result of a random, emerging advocacy opportunity addressed in a simple email chain among folks who know each other.

At the meeting – a small online gathering – attendees joined to start discussing strategy for the organization in the next year. The organization is designed to pull together many local organizations whose interests may include EJ issues – which span broadly into areas such as housing, transportation, civil rights, etc. in addition to environment and climate change. The group currently has ambitious advocacy and outreach goals, with committees, meetings, projects and tasks documented. However, productive work and outcomes seems stalled. My sense is this was one reason for the strategy session.

Two attendees at the meeting were new to the coalition and from organizations that were not directly or traditionally associated with environmental justice or climate change issues. Others were EJ veterans.

During the introductions and ensuing conversation, I heard a few things from the potential new members.

• I want to find out where my group might plug in.
• I’m not sure what EJ issues align with (my group’s) mission.
• I want to help my own cause.
• I want to be connected to other local activists.

I also observed folks starting to engage in the learning curve that I’ve been on. EJ is a complex interweaving of civil rights, environment, health, safety and well-being related to very specific neighborhoods. It naturally connects with organizations focused on civil rights, housing, transportation, etc. The issue of “where my group might plug in” seems to be about three things:

• What is the issue/expertise connection between my group and EJ?
• What is a productive collaboration activity that might benefit both parties?
• How might I manage this as part of my larger efforts? (Literally, one group noted that this year’s focus for the is “saving democracy.” Attention is a difficult ask these days.)

The meeting wrapped up with some broad outlines for additional meetings to follow up on building a coalition strategy for the next year. The questions and issues I pose above are fertile ground for all sorts of productive new activities. So the meeting was great, for me, to observe and learn first-hand about some of the specific challenges in building an EJ coalition in Evanston.

But then this random thing occurred.

Shortly after the meeting, I was looped into what became a brief and energetic email conversation about a potential EJ advocacy need. Here’s what happened.

An EJ leader received a notification from the EPA about a local business applying for a type of permit to modify their industrial operations. The business has a history of producing air quality problems in the neighborhood that is an area of EJ focus. Here is what I saw play out:

• The Evanston EJ leader (a retired EPA manager) gets on an EPA EJ alert listserv in her formal role as an Evanston EJ organization leader.
• An alert goes out about a permitting request in process.
• The EJ leader emails members of an EJ organization, but also includes two other folks who she knows are following this company and know of the air quality issues. Both apparently live in the affected neighborhood and are activists.
• An email conversation takes place, with additional potential collaborators and specific actions noted.
• Alert follow ups are set in place.

What struck me was the high-energy, rapid response, action-oriented tone of the email conversation. Why? Because it contrasted with the expansive, heavy-lift-project-oriented vision of the coalition-building organization; a vision that, based on their past year of experience, just seems stalled and deplete of any real energy.

Programs and projects are fine. But sometimes you just need a credible person emailing folks they know.

I can summarize this as two truths I’ve learned about organizations and getting people to do stuff.

• We routinely over-engineer solutions to whatever problem we see in front of us. Better to use small experiments to discover what works before we invest scarce resources into building programs.
• A key outcome of any organization’s routines and programs is nurturing a robust network. Folks need to know other folks, and importantly, they need to know what other folks know and what those folks care about.

It seems to me that these two things drive a couple of powerful reflection questions for EJ organizations. Are we doing stuff that really works? Are how does that stuff also nurture the relationships in the network?

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The photographs which accompany these posts are taken by me, and show different settings and views of Evanston (where I live). It is a visual reminder that this is the most important setting for belonging and contributing to community: our neighborhoods, our cities.