What do you think?
Rate this book
Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable Future
It’s an unfortunate fact of social organizing that, despite even the best intentions, groups convened to effect positive change often fail to empower people from all backgrounds to speak up or to tap into a positive and inspiring collective vision. Longtime social justice crusader Linda Stout details a practical process that enables everyone—even those commonly marginalized—to work together with honesty, passion, commitment, and joy to create a positive, energizing, and sustainable vision and to make that vision a reality.
Stout shows, in practical terms, how to bring a group together, build trust, ensure that each and every voice is heard, create a positive vision, and develop an action plan that leverages everyone’s abilities to bring that vision to fruition. Used successfully by more than 120 organizations—and illustrated here by dozens of practical examples and exercises—this process creates hope for change, even among those who’ve stopped believing that change is possible. This comprehensive guide will serve as a template for anyone seeking to create a better, more just tomorrow.
Stout shows, in practical terms, how to bring a group together, build trust, ensure that each and every voice is heard, create a positive vision, and develop an action plan that leverages everyone’s abilities to bring that vision to fruition. Used successfully by more than 120 organizations—and illustrated here by dozens of practical examples and exercises—this process creates hope for change, even among those who’ve stopped believing that change is possible. This comprehensive guide will serve as a template for anyone seeking to create a better, more just tomorrow.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 1, 2012
I met Linda while she was giving a talk at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island. I'd walked into the book store to browse and decided to sit down and listen to her talk. I ended up staying for the the rest of her talk and buying her book. I kept thinking of her message in the context of my involvement in education activism/advocacy. Now that I have finished her book, I would love to put some of her ideas and strategies to work. Pieces of her message that particularly resonated with me:
* focus first on what worked before focusing on problems/critiques
* express a complaint or concern with a suggested solution
* vision what you want, not what you don't want -- vision what's possible
* actions need to involve the entire community
* shared leadership and lead with vision to mobilize people to make change
* present a collective vision to decision makers
* focus first on what worked before focusing on problems/critiques
* express a complaint or concern with a suggested solution
* vision what you want, not what you don't want -- vision what's possible
* actions need to involve the entire community
* shared leadership and lead with vision to mobilize people to make change
* present a collective vision to decision makers
March 30, 2022
Whether you’re in business or activism, you probably have a lot of meetings to go to. And while there are plenty of books on running effective meetings, I’m not aware of many that focus on the meeting as a form of empowerment. Stout brings years of organizing successful cross-racial, cross-cultural, cross-class community organizations and coalitions that built on her experience as a working-class rural white woman working mostly in the Deep South, who never thought, growing up, that she could be a leader.
Yet, she’s led several organizations, including at least one national group. And her engagement of working class people and those of color long predates the current embrace of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in both the business and social change worlds; her book has a 2011 copyright and draws on work she’s done for decades.
For Stout, organizations work best when they create a process to collectively create a vision, not just for a particular organization or campaign but for society as a whole—and then figuring out how to implement that vision. One of her most powerful case studies describes school children in post-Katrina New Orleans who designed a whole new model of education (pp. 22, 27) and got big pieces of it adopted by the school system (though some parts were casualties of other factors like the crashing economy of 2007-09).
In today’s walking-on-eggshells time when many on the left are super-worried about offending people from various historically oppressed groups, Stout offers an example of a white group that hosted an event in a church known to have KKK connections and then wondered why their outreach to communities of color didn’t bring turnout (p. 48). But she says even an event in very white places like Iowa can attract participants of color, if organizers thoroughly understand not just their messaging but how it’s received in targeted communities. [This is true in the business world, too. Chevrolet brought the Nova to Latin America without noticing that the name translates as “doesn’t go”—and then wondered why sales were terrible.] You may have to work at inclusion. If you want young moms to attend, you’ll need childcare and perhaps transportation; if you want people with physical disabilities, meet in a barrier-free space. And if you hire an ASL interpreter, reach out ahead of time to deaf communities and let them know (p. 47). And even a space with a problematic history can be used if the history is acknowledged in the right way (p. 49).
Meetings accomplish more, Stout says, if they reach agreement on process and behavior right from the beginning and to accept that others in the room have good intentions, even if that takes some time (pp. 54-55).
While she loves the group visioning process, Stout recognizes that not all gatherings are ready to plunge in. Particularly if your attendees are feeling hopeless and powerless, some personal visioning (pp. 69-86) might need to happen before the group brainstorms a collective vision.
Once the collective vision is in place, the work is far from done. Pages 107-115 address the challenge of agreeing on strategies for action and implementation. One way is phrase goals positively (pp. 127-129). Another is to have participants look back to the present as “ambassadors from the future” from a time down the road when the goals have been met or exceeded (p. 131). And another is to make a point of celebrating even small victories (p. 135). She mentions several others. One I particularly like is a set of strategies for involving the whole community (not just the organization’s members and activists) to accomplish goals like closing a prison or challenging segregationism in local media and government at the same time (pp. 155-165). It isn’t easy, but she reminds us that repression and censorship are signs the other side thinks you’re winning, that languaging and messaging are really important, and that the culture can be changed.
Yet, she’s led several organizations, including at least one national group. And her engagement of working class people and those of color long predates the current embrace of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in both the business and social change worlds; her book has a 2011 copyright and draws on work she’s done for decades.
For Stout, organizations work best when they create a process to collectively create a vision, not just for a particular organization or campaign but for society as a whole—and then figuring out how to implement that vision. One of her most powerful case studies describes school children in post-Katrina New Orleans who designed a whole new model of education (pp. 22, 27) and got big pieces of it adopted by the school system (though some parts were casualties of other factors like the crashing economy of 2007-09).
In today’s walking-on-eggshells time when many on the left are super-worried about offending people from various historically oppressed groups, Stout offers an example of a white group that hosted an event in a church known to have KKK connections and then wondered why their outreach to communities of color didn’t bring turnout (p. 48). But she says even an event in very white places like Iowa can attract participants of color, if organizers thoroughly understand not just their messaging but how it’s received in targeted communities. [This is true in the business world, too. Chevrolet brought the Nova to Latin America without noticing that the name translates as “doesn’t go”—and then wondered why sales were terrible.] You may have to work at inclusion. If you want young moms to attend, you’ll need childcare and perhaps transportation; if you want people with physical disabilities, meet in a barrier-free space. And if you hire an ASL interpreter, reach out ahead of time to deaf communities and let them know (p. 47). And even a space with a problematic history can be used if the history is acknowledged in the right way (p. 49).
Meetings accomplish more, Stout says, if they reach agreement on process and behavior right from the beginning and to accept that others in the room have good intentions, even if that takes some time (pp. 54-55).
While she loves the group visioning process, Stout recognizes that not all gatherings are ready to plunge in. Particularly if your attendees are feeling hopeless and powerless, some personal visioning (pp. 69-86) might need to happen before the group brainstorms a collective vision.
Once the collective vision is in place, the work is far from done. Pages 107-115 address the challenge of agreeing on strategies for action and implementation. One way is phrase goals positively (pp. 127-129). Another is to have participants look back to the present as “ambassadors from the future” from a time down the road when the goals have been met or exceeded (p. 131). And another is to make a point of celebrating even small victories (p. 135). She mentions several others. One I particularly like is a set of strategies for involving the whole community (not just the organization’s members and activists) to accomplish goals like closing a prison or challenging segregationism in local media and government at the same time (pp. 155-165). It isn’t easy, but she reminds us that repression and censorship are signs the other side thinks you’re winning, that languaging and messaging are really important, and that the culture can be changed.
March 2, 2020
One of the best books on activism I've ever read. How can we act for change if we do not know where we're going, only what we're running away from? This book is a practical roadmap to harness the collective enthusiasm and power of whatever group you're a part of, on whatever issue you're passionate about.
March 29, 2013
Linda's first book, Bridging the Class Divide, was very influential to me when I read it in college. This book offers lessons and stories from her many years and decades of organizing, as well as practical exercises for building diverse organizing communities, leading from a place of what are we struggling towards, and developing personal and collective visions. Quick read, and useful for those currently leading or staffing organizing projects.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews