What Are Civic Leadership Networks?

A natural progression to our main program, the Civic Leadership INSTITUTES, has been the kind of network development among our partner sites that focuses on shared best-practices, relationship building and cross-trainings.

Building Partnerships is committed to fostering direct exchanges between sites as well as strategic support of peer-to-peer work when more focused resources are required.
There have been four key types of network-building activities that our CLI partners have shared and developed as peer-to-peer activities:

• Learning Tours
• Cross Trainings
• Convenings
• Organizing and Political Action

Learning Tours
The best way to know the 'California experience' is to see it, feel it (and taste the LA and Bay Area air). Therefore, we coordinate three-day tours to San Jose and Los Angeles for the staff and partners from new sites. Day-long meetings with the staff and partners of Working Partnerships and SCOPE offer in-depth access and insights to how such strategic partnerships have transformed the metropolitan landscape, generating movement-building in the process. And, the years it has taken to get to their current state.

Cross-Trainings
Due to finite capacity -- people, money and time -- work is left undone because of other everyday demands of place-based organizing. Yet, certain skills and information are critical to advance the long-term visions that we hold. Thus, we consider it as part of our work, our responsibility to uplift those soft-skills or less urgent discussions. Oftentimes, this work is a priority, but not urgent. We conduct two styles of 'network-riding' collaboration between our partners:

• topic-focused: skills development (such as organizing fundamentals, meeting facilitation, mobilizing) supporting and partnering with new immigrant or enviro formations, and how the leadership institutes advance other programs/campaigns, and
  
• constituency-focused: to bring organizers, academics and electeds from multiple sites together to cater discussions to the common challenges and opportunities that are specific to their unique role in metro coalitions compose of community, labor, interfaith, academia, public officials.

Convenings

April 2006 Convening

Organizing and Political Action

Building Partnerships believes that models of social change that do not deliberately build towards electoral action are obsolete. To effect real change, organizing and policy development must be integrated with political action. The ideas developed at institutes may provide compelling political platforms that can re-frame the public debate. Multi-issue agendas offer alternative visions for society that progressive candidates can run on ... and win.

Unlike organizations that address only the mechanics of campaigns, Building Partnerships focuses on the ideas and agendas essential to building viable campaigns.

We do so by tapping into the knowledge and experience amongst our network partners. We promote political action programs that reflect the culture and unique needs of working communities are essential to winning. Rather than focus on electing "good people" to office, Building Partnerships works towards supporting candidates who are committed to good public policy.