Jane Fonda on how "community means power"

As agencies, nonprofits, families, and individuals make contingency plans upon contingency plans in face of all the uncertainty of this moment, I wanted to share some words - courtesy of Jane Fonda - of both hope and action (which were PoP Health’s wish + invitation for 2025…which, two months in, feels like it has already lasted about two years).

I’m not really up on pop culture or Hollywood, but I’ve been deeply impressed with Jane Fonda ever since I heard a podcast interview with her a couple years ago - what a life, what energy, and what commitment. In an industry where it is especially easy to ignore, pay lip service to, or throw a few pennies at societal problems, she’s been on the ground trying to fight for change.

So, I didn’t hesitate to click on the video of her speech at the SAG awards a week ago, where she received the Life Achievement Award (transcript here for the readers out there). And I’m so glad I did.

Here are my key takeaways:

• “Community means power.” - She talked about how unions have our backs and give us power, and I’d add to that all the other ways of coming together in sustained, structured ways - community coalitions, co-ops, neighborhood associations and groups. Create them, join them, sustain them.

• “Empathy is not weak or woke.” - This statement stands by itself, but Fonda had more to say about empathy. First, she connected it to the job of actors - “...we don't manufacture anything tangible. What we create is empathy.” Indeed, I’m a big believer in storytelling and its importance in creating empathy as well as inspiring and persuading. Which brings us to Fonda’s next point about empathy - “And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent, because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.” I could not agree more. To sneak in some words from Rebecca Solnit, who I’ve been turning to often over the last couple months, “You need to pitch a big tent and welcome everyone who might come in, even if they came over recently and weren't always there. No one knows what it is going to take to overcome the current crisis…I do know that it's going to take a lot. The more the better.” As Solnit goes on to point out, “unwelcoming committees from people more interested in being right than effective” are self-destructive to the causes we support.

• “We are in our documentary moments. This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal.” - Fonda urged us to take this seriously, be brave, stay in community, and take action. And it’s not enough to just be against things. Fonda underscored, “We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future. One that is beckoning, welcoming, that will help people believe.”

As Fonda went on to say, “Let’s make it so,” Reader.

In your coalitions and your work, how are you projecting an inspiring vision of the future, widening your tent, staying empathetic, and building community power? Drop me a note and let me know. And let me know if you disagree about what we need right now too - disagreements are always welcome here.

And, for those looking for more concrete advice on how your coalitions, organizations, and agencies can take action in your communities to transform health - a quick save the date: April 2nd, noon ET, on Zoom, join PoP Health for a free action planning webinar. You'll learn about the #1 missing ingredient that's preventing your action plan from getting the results you want + details on how to follow our 5-step action planning process to go from feeling stuck to feeling like a superhero. Register here!

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

What organizing IS and ISN'T

Unfortunately, everything is still on fire, and the public’s health (and SO much else) remains under threat.

I talked earlier this month about how taking action requires a) actually planning and committing to take action and b) organizing.

But what even is organizing?

Today, I want to share a little primer on what organizing IS and what it IS NOT.

Most of the content here is from a National Academies panel with Jamila Michener and Jonathan Heller during a workshop earlier this month on democracy and governance.

Organizing IS NOT merely mobilizing.

During this panel, an attendee asked an excellent question - we’re talking about organizing to protect and advance democracy and public health, but what about all those that are organizing against those goals? Couldn’t one argue that those who don’t share these goals have basically organized us out of a democracy at this point? In their response to this question, the panelists drew a distinction between organizing (where the process of organizing has to be a democratic one and develop the critical consciousness of those involved) and mobilizing (which is just about putting people into movement, even if it’s “astroturf” or other such entities telling the community what to believe).

Organizing IS NOT merely “individuals brandishing banners stating scatter goals”.

You’ve heard me quote Grant Ennis on this before, but it bears repeating. Historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.” We need organizational weight and structure behind demands in order to sustain the efforts to make the demands reality beyond a single protest or set of protests/actions.

Organizing IS about both building and breaking power.

The panel I mentioned was titled “Building and Breaking Power” and I think this distinction is so important. I loved how they broke down these concepts. Building power in community looks like community organizing, developing coalitions, starting social movements. Breaking power where corporate interests (or, random unelected billionaires, as the case may be) have too much of it looks like profit minimization, regulation, enforcement - and, I would add, as I heard chanted at a recent rally, it looks like litigating, legislating, agitating, and resisting. Both building and breaking power involve negotiation and storytelling and making and pursuing collective demands.

Organizing IS about a lot more than just direct action.

Don’t get me wrong, direction action is important (I’ve been dusting off my long forgotten bubble letter/coloring skills and running my daughters’ markers dry these last couple weeks making signs for rallies), but it’s just one component of organizing. During the panel I mentioned, they shared many different concepts that make up the idea of organizing (from a forthcoming publication called “Let’s Talk: Community Organizing”). I’ve organized them into three groups below.

There are aspects of organizing related to internal change in those involved:

• Increasing their sense of control/agency/power;

• Increasing their ability to reflect critically and hold complexity (which relates to the prior point about how organizing isn’t merely mobilizing);

• Building their capacity - to identify problems, to identify change targets (that solve problems, unify the base, and build power), to organize, and to collectively solve problems.

There are aspects of organizing related to external change by other actors:

• Making demands and taking actions (including via campaigns/initiatives).

And there are aspects of organizing related to structural change in how the organizing is happening (this relates to the prior point about how organizing isn’t just individuals brandishing banners):

• Building a base, “expand[ing] the number of people impacted by problems in their community who are in relationship with one another and involved in collective action”;

• Developing leadership, “shifting from private shame about the problems they face to a public stance, and [building] leadership to solve these problems”;

• Forming an organization to coalesce and sustain power (this one is incredibly important - without the structure of an organization, it's extremely difficult to keep efforts coordinated and sustained).

I continue to feel that the only way out of the many messes our country is currently in is through meaningful, effective organizing. I hope this primer is a helpful lens through which to think about it.

And I hope PoP Health's upcoming free webinar on action planning for community coalitions and launch of a new initiative that aims to change the narrative and inspire organizing to build and break power (and make organizing itself easier and more effective!) help too - we'll be sharing dates for these launches soon.

In the meantime - keep taking action! I really love this distillation of different ways (and varying levels of effort) to do something in support of democracy - https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!

Taking action when everything is on fire

Whew, it's been a couple weeks, hasn't it?

Public health is being further threatened than it already was in every direction - halting of foreign aid work; an attempted coup in the form of a spending freeze; an anti-vaccine skeptic nominated to lead the nation's health agency; the list - sadly - goes on.

And the opposition to these threats? It's been weak, slow, and completely insufficient. I don't mean opposition as in people ranting about and posting about and discussing these problems. I mean opposition as in actually taking action.

And why is that? I think there are two key issues here:

1. Actually taking action isn't a central part of enough our organizations’, agencies’, and coalitions’ (not to mention politicians') ethos, frameworks, and plans. Speeches and reports and "awareness raising" and "information sharing" are not ACTION. And here’s the thing - nothing changes until we act.
​
2. We aren't organized!! And it's not entirely our fault. Our civic infrastructure has been ravaged by everything from land use policy (which prevents the kind of community building we need to foster the trust, conversation, and connection that is foundational to organizing) to restrictions on 501c3 lobbying (while leaving corporate lobbying, political influence, and in a word, corruption, unchecked) to the decimation of local news (which is needed to hold local policymakers and others accountable, foster community action, and more) to the weakening of community, labor, and other organizations that could actually put weight behind advocacy demands and see them to fruition.
​
So we can call our congresspeople or join protests, but without actual, meaningful, and long-term organizing, we're not going to be nearly effective enough.

I've been giving both the action and organizing points above a lot of thought, even before the chaos of the last couple weeks.
​
On the action front, PoP Health will be offering a FREE live class for community coalitions sometime this Spring, all about why every community health coalition needs a strong action plan - and the process they need to get there. Community-rooted work is more important than ever right now, and with a strong planning process, your coalitions can deepen your impact and build community power.
​
On the organizing front, we've got some wheels in motion, but it's early yet - stay tuned for more details, and please reach out if you have ideas to share or want to be involved. Also please drop me a note if you've seen examples of or are involved in taking organized action against the current threats to public health.

As Grant Ennis notes in his book Dark PR, historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.”

And as I heard in a conversation about the role of democracy in population health yesterday, protests and other forms are direction are a component of organizing, but they are the not the entirety of organizing. There's a lot more to organizing effectively - stay tuned for the next Community Threads newsletter for more on that.

Everything that's happening right now is a LOT, but I still have hope we can find ways to come together to not just act in opposition, but to proactively put forth different - and more compelling - narratives, values, and ways of shaping our policies and our communities.

We can do this.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!