Starlings in flight
Spring and early summer 2010 saw the emergence in the United States of
a new political group known as the Coffee Party. The founders of this group outlined a compelling vision of a new approach to political discourse and problem solving — an approach anchored in civility and shared values rather than party and ideology. This initial vision was oriented less towards developing traditional policy positions than towards building a citizens movement capable of ushering in the structural reforms that are necessary to secure the full and equal participation of every U.S. citizen in their own self-governance, and thus to transform the political culture itself.
By midsummer 2010, however, many of the most active and engaged Coffee Party organizers and other members* came to believe that what was missing — and what was necessary, if the Coffee Party was to reach its full potential —
was elaboration of the founders’ original vision through a process resulting
in a set of formally stated organizational values and goals.
It was Yul Brynner who famously — in his magisterial portrayal of the
Egyptian pharoah Ramesses II in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film epic The Ten
Commandments — uttered the line of the title above: "So let it be written. So
let it be done." But the words embed a key understanding of those early Coffee Party members: A written vision — albeit not a vision declared by an autocratic tyrant but, rather, one developed through a consensus-supported process — is key to building a unified and effective movement. To be sure, the "letter" needs to be informed and invigorated by a larger "spirit"; but — just as surely — the otherwise-untamed spirit needs the letter, to harness and channel a broadly shared understanding of the spirit, among those who wish to work together to put the spirit into action.
What these Coffee Party members also understood was that the authenticity, the legitimacy and thus the authority of these Statements would arise from
their being anchored in the expressed hopes and visions of the grassroots membership. Such Statements, they felt, should be ratified by the members
and adopted by the leaders of the Coffee Party, enabling the Statements to serve as an abiding touchstone to guide the Coffee Party’s planning, conduct and actions.
So, in August 2010, some 25 Coffee Party members organized themselves as
the Principles and Purpose Working Group. This Working Group aimed to do two things:
1
Engage a large, national sample of Coffee Party members in a conversation about their visions for the Coffee Party. Use member comments and feedback to develop member-supported draft Statements of the Coffee Party’s Core Values, Purpose and strategic Goals. And present these Statements to the Board of the Coffee Party.
2
Conduct the project via an open, inclusive, collaborative, civil, and democratic process of dialogue, deliberation, and decision making that could be replicated throughout the Coffee Party.
:: :: ::
In the initial visioning phase of the project, the Principles and Purpose
Working Group cast a wide net, harvesting ideas from a variety of Coffee
Party sources: (a) Coffee Party videos and Web sites created by the founders,
(b) statements of principles and goals developed by local and regional groups, and (c) suggestions, comments and feedback offered by Coffee Party members at local meetings, in online forums, during facilitated conference calls and during breakout sessions held at the Coffee Party’s September 2010 convention in Louisville, Ky.
This visioning phase jumpstarted an iterative drafting and survey process
that lasted for the better part of a year.
Drawing on its initial collection of ideas and insights, the Working Group developed and completed a first draft of Statements of the Coffee Party’s Core Values, Purpose and Goals, in November 2010. Over the course of next two months, the Working Group conducted two online surveys that invited a group of a few hundred Coffee Party members to respond to this first draft. Then, in February-March 2011, the Group surveyed a much larger sample on a revised draft of the Statements.
This final survey attracted the participation of nearly 1,500 Coffee Party members.
:: :: ::
Over the 17-month life of the project, the Working Group heard from nearly 2,000 Coffee Party members.
The Group also benefited from contributions from some 50 Working Group members, who dialogued and deliberated with one another in nearly 100 (often facilitated) conference calls and in countless supporting conversations by telephone and email.
:: :: ::
In all of its surveys, the Working Group asked Coffee Party members to comment on, and rate, the individual draft Statements on a scale of 1 to 10.
The aggregate response to the Statements always was very positive. On the
final survey, nearly all the Statements were scored at 9 or better.
Regrettably, the Coffee Party’s leadership didn’t see the advantage in embracing this outcome, and of bringing the Statements into the life of the organization and using them as a movement-building tool.
But, although the Coffee Party’s founders and leaders never officially recognized the Working Group project, the Group persisted in refining the Statements in response to the final survey and continued to hold conference calls from spring 2011 until well into the fall.
Members of the Working Group long had seen the Group as, first and
foremost, the steward of the shared vision of individuals who, in contributing
to the Principles and Purpose project, were expressing themselves as citizens first. Indeed, it primarily was a vision for the country — not a vision for an organization — that had come to be embodied in the Statements.
During this culminating period, Working Group members came to understand that it was in the truest spirit of the Statements to make clear that this vision was not the reserve of any single organization or group.
Rather, this was a public vision; and, because it was a public vision, the Statements themselves should be made open-source — should be offered to
be accessed, developed, adapted and lived out by all who are involved in the larger project of healing the democracy.
And so — with today’s (a) provisioning of the Statements with a non-commercial Creative Commons license and (b) publication of the Statements both here and on their own open-source wiki (see links at the conclusion of this post) — they are.
The idea is to provide We-the-People-oriented individuals, organizations, communities and coalitions with a set of tools that they can use to develop a shared vision for a democracy movement for the United States — a vision toward which so many of them already are reaching.
In offering these tools, the Working Group considers its work finished.
But the real work is just beginning.
:: :: ::
Central to understanding these Guiding Statements is the truth that, even
when the unifying task at hand is something as deeply felt as the mending of
the very fabric of democracy — even then — an "organization," a "community" and a "movement" are three distinct, if occasionally overlapping, realities.
An organization along these lines, of whatever size, may or may not produce [a] genuine community. By the same token, a community along these lines may or may not include the structural trappings of a traditional organization. Certainly, a movement — a real movement — is an expression of [a] community. Whether, and how, this movement is undergirded by a specific organization — or coalition of organizations — depends on the movement.
So an organization is not a movement, and even a community is not necessarily a movement. And, yet, We-the-People-oriented organizations and communities can and must play an extremely vital and necessary role in creating and nurturing any democracy movement: the role of convener — bringing people together around a set of shared ideals, a shared purpose and shared goals.
It is the fact (or potential) of this convening role — the fact that it is only
having been brought into the orbit of a specific We-the-People-oriented organization or community that a citizen becomes aware of a democracy movement (or the possibility of a movement) — that obligates these organizations and communities to be the ones to spell out what the ideals,
the purpose and the goals are, and, through them, what the vision is.
The Working Group hopes that these Guiding Statements can be helpful
to those who are working to develop this vision — whether theirs is an organization or community of 5...or 5 million.
A few more notes on the Statements...
1
The “Core Values” framing that was a feature of all previous drafts reflected
the specific nomenclature of Jim Collins’s book, Built to Last, which was the starting point for the process that the Principles and Purpose Working Group designed.
What became clear, however, was that all of the “Core Values” statements that emerged from the Working Group’s process have a strong ethical dimension. They don’t speak solely to values but to something more akin to value-practices or even practice-values.
The reframing to the more interpretively open “Core Ideals” seeks to
reflect that.
2
The two Public Goals were conceived as a couplet, with each Goal
interpreting — and being interpreted by — the other.
The previous draft of Public Goal 2 included a passage referring to “transpartisan approaches.” Ultimately, the Working Group recognized
that this word, “transpartisan,” raised more questions than it answered. But it
is important to note that this Goal was developed at a time when members of the Coffee Party, in general — and of the Working Group, in particular — were being introduced to the work of Jim Rough, Joseph McCormick and Tom Atlee, and, more broadly, were being exposed to consensus-oriented methodologies
of facilitated dialogue, deliberation and decision making.
This was part of the “background inspiration” for how the current draft of Public Goal 2 was finalized.
3
So long as they abide by the terms of the Creative Commons license, communities or organizations are welcome to adopt, or adapt, any or all
of these Guiding Statements — whether a la carte or on the basis of the Working Group's "full concept" of Core Ideals, Purpose and Goals.
But the Statements are presented here as “drafts,” in the great hope that — wherever they lie on the spectrum from small local societies to major
nonprofits — some group of communities and organizations will continue
to develop these as living Statements, making them the movement-building tools that the Working Group always intended them to be.
The important thing is that these Core Ideals themselves, this Purpose and these Public Goals be put into practice.
A pdf of the Statements, together with a version of this introduction, is here.
The wiki for the Statements is here.
John Lumea
Member, Principles and Purpose Working Group
24 January 2012
* In Spring 2011, the Coffee Party defined a “member,” or “official member,” as someone who makes a specified financial contribution to the Coffee Party. But, prior to that, there was no such definition. Everyone who participated in the Coffee Party — whether in a local group, on Facebook or in other online forums — was considered a member.
