Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. ~ ALICE M. SWAIM

Dear friends,

You’ve probably heard us talking up the release of our new book, Re:Imagining Change – How to Use Story-Based Strategies to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World. We’re pretty psyched about the response we’re getting…

After the BP oil disaster (and subsequent PR blitz), our email box lit up with requests from the Gulf Coast to ship books to Louisiana for an organizers meeting.

As the nation’s attention turned to the racist anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, we were boxing up books for activists offering training on the front lines in Phoenix.

After our book launch in New York City, one activist was so inspired he brought his new copy to a local environmental organizing meeting, but someone else got there first, and was already holding up a copy of the book, imploring the group to read it and firing off ideas for how they could use it to take effective action.

This is why we wrote Re:Imagining Change, and this is why we need your contribution this season.

In fact, we’ve already sold out of the first printing of the book, published by PM Press in April. With your support, smartMeme’s vision of spreading tools and inspiration for grassroots action is coming to fruition. We’ve been coast-to-coast offering training and collaborating with like-minded groups to build a stronger progressive narrative and develop media strategy across our movements.

Nevertheless, it is a dangerous and distracting time. We all know that the Tea Party doesn’t really represent the views of very many people, but they have something even more powerful than all that corporate cash — they have a powerful story! The right wing has hijacked populist anger at Wall Street bankers and is using it to sell the same old fear-mongering, race-baiting ideology.

So how can we tell a better story of ecological justice, community transformation, reconciliation and reform?

That’s why we founded smartMeme. Powerful storytelling is the rocket fuel of movement building. Grassroots activists need the skills to not only tell their stories but also to challenge the existing stories of fear, domination and greed. We’ve trained nearly 4,000 grassroots activists and partnered with over 100 organizations fighting for peace, social justice and the environment to design story-based strategies and win framing fights that matter. But the fight is far from over.

Your donation can write the next chapter of story-based strategy.

SmartMeme is offering ideas and innovation for 21^st century social change, and building stronger movements that can tell smarter stories. We do it for cents on the dollar of the corporate PR machines we fight with the generous contributions from our community of donors like you. With foundation support waning in the wake of the recession, we need your contribution now more than ever.

As you read this, we’re working on the front lines of the movement for climate justice, helping amplify the voices of grassroots leaders at the COP 16 talks in Cancun, Mexico and continuing to build momentum for the rights of Mother Earth.

With your support, we will convene the first ever “smartMeme Academy” in 2011 – an intensive training for a new generation of leaders who can carry smartMeme’s story-based strategy tools for framing back to the communities and movements who need it most.

Our goal is to raise $20,000 this holiday season. Will you chip in $500, $250, $100 or $50? Whatever amount you can give will directly support critical campaigns, training grassroots leaders, and wide-scale distribution of Re:Imagining Change. Your donation is an essential contribution to build the movement for ecological justice and progressive social change.

The demand for smartMeme’s tools and training is growing everyday: building the grassroots climate movement, fighting for migrant’s rights, challenging corporate dominance and supporting community resilience. Our modest operations can hardly keep pace with the demand for what we do. Only with your support can smartMeme continue to be a one-of-a-kind resource for progressive change makers.

Please, make a generous gift today to support smartMeme’s important mission, and change the story for a better future.

Thank you.

Onward,

Doyle Canning & Patrick Reinsborough, smartMeme Co-Directors

PS: Still haven’t got your copy of Re:Imagining Change? A holiday contribution of $50 or more gets you two signed copies: a gift for you, and one to give away!

Two new Podcasts For your Listening Enjoyment…

Click to LISTEN: Part One :

Moderator: Laine Romero-Alston, Solidago Foundation; with Makani Themba-Nixon, Praxis Project; Doyle Canning, smartMeme; and Kathleen Pequeño, McKenzie River Gathering Foundation.

Click to LISTEN: Part Two :

Moderator: Helen Brunner, Quixote Foundation and Media Democracy Fund
 
Panel; with Karlos Guana Schmeider, Center for Media Justice; Patrick Reinsborough, smartMeme; Damekia Morgan, Community Media Organizing Project and Friends and Families of Louisana’s Incarcerated Children.

(Special thanks to Karlos @ the Center for Media Justice for posting this audio!)

This tele-strategy session series was organized by the Progressive Communicators Network, and brings together grassroots communications practitioners with a commitment to justice issues and funders who support justice and social movement efforts for a rare opportunity to think together about opportunities and imperatives to strengthen communications as a tool for change that will substantively impact U.S. culture, consciousness, and political policies.

This is a time of unprecedented change for grassroots communications practitioners. Factors such as the current economic crisis, rampant media consolidation, emerging new media technology and shift in administration bring unique and urgent challenges and opportunities. Faced with this changing communications landscape, grassroots justice organizations must make smart decisions about how to effectively communicate to advance their program and political work, often with fewer resources and confronted with changes in how media is made and news is communicated.
 
These times demand whole new approaches to change making and communication. It’s no longer enough to win individual victories, we must fundamentally shift our social, cultural and political ecology.

The Center for Media Justice, for example, has put out a call for a comprehensive and transformative approach to justice communications: Truly effective and sustainable movements for racial and economic justice must have the capacity, strategy, and leadership to advance a shared worldview and agenda, watchdog power, elevate strategic stories to a wider audience, increase engaged popular governance, and influence policy to change social conditions.They outline a powerful strategy that tackles race head on, brings the voices of the disenfranchised to the center, transforms public narratives, increases media access, and ultimately changes public consciousness and policy.

Join us to hear about these cutting edge strategies and more communications realities from across the country. We invite you to be part of creating the strategy and infrastructure that will boldly work to transform communications, change work, and the political realities of the 21st century.

As the seasons turn and the geese take flight, we are inspired to offer this invitation for participation!

FACT: As each goose flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird following. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if the bird flew alone.

LESSON: Those who share a common direction and sense of unity can get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the thrust of one another…

SmartMeme is seeking a few special individuals to join our Board of Directors, and we’re issuing this invitation to our community. The Board’s primary function is to support the organizational mission and participate in making that mission manifest. As part of our commitment to inclusive movement building, the Board is majority people of color and women. Attention is made to diversity in sexual orientation, area of work, geography, ability, etc. Young people are welcome and the current group is all under 40 years old.

2009 board members start with a seaside board retreat in Northern California November 5-8, 2009. We are currently redefining and building this leadership team, and it’s an exciting time in smartMeme! Interested?

Apply today! [DOWNLOAD APPLICATION AS PDF]

Want to fly with our flock?

Read and return this application [DOWNLOAD AS PDF] and return via email by 5 pm PST on OCTOBER 14, 2009.

{More lessons from Geese}

Are you hungry for justice? Do you love local, organic, delicious food?

Bring your passions together at the table, and join me and smartMeme board member Shana Mc-Davis Conway at the First Annual Gathering of the newly launched Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI): September 18-21 at the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Food connects culture, health, the land, and the people - but in this fast food nation (where food is getting more globalized, genetically-modified, high carbon, and expensive), we’ve got to step up and strengthen the movement to bring food back to an ecological, human scale. The inspiring trend is that farmers markets are re-emerging in many communities, and organic food is the fastest growing segment in the food industry - but the critical question is, who can (and can’t) afford it?

In the age of global warming, and in a time where 12.6 million children are going hungry in the United States, the future demands that we nourish the Earth and our bellies with a re-imagined food system built on the principles of ecology, and racial & economic justice.

This upcoming gathering is 3 days of doing just that. We are looking forward to delicious, local food — critical conversations about how racism shapes the food system — stories from community-based organizations who are doing something about it — and seeing YOU there!

The Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI) is

a new network aimed at dismantling racism and empowering low-income and communities of color through sustainable and local agriculture. The network views dismantling racism as a core principle which brings together social change agents from diverse sectors working to bring about new, healthy and sustainable food systems and supporting and building multicultural leadership in impoverished communities throughout the world. The vision for this initiative is to establish a powerful network of individuals, organizations and community based entities all working toward a food secure and just world

A main course of workshops includes:

What It Means to Be White: Working towards full-awareness of white- privilege in community food security work: Judging by a quick scan of the demographics of people leading urban agriculture projects in low-income communities of color around the country, white women seem to be particularly drawn to this type of work. Within the good intentions of many white women (and men) often lie unexamined negative assumptions. This interactive workshop will explore cross-class and/or inter-racial partnerships…

Grassroots Leaders Fight for Justice in the Food System: The experience of racism in the food system can best be lifted by those who have lived it. We also are the ones on the ground finding solutions in an unjust system. Our multicultural panel will briefly describe our experience, work, barriers, achievements, and plans, with emphasis on successful work led by people of color in the food system….

and our smartMeme workshop -

Re-Framing Food, Changing the Story for Justice: People just buy junk with Food Stamps. Genetically modified crops will feed the poor. Community Gardens are for white hippies/Organics are for yuppies. America means justice for all. The intersecting narratives of poverty, race, and food create a complex mine-field of messages in the dominant culture that all of our work must struggle to re-frame and transform. We will use story as a method to approach framing our issues, and have an honest conversation about our successes, and what is holding back our efforts to create change…

Hungry for more?

A keynote from Winnona LaDuke (Founder White Earth Land Recovery Project and Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band. She has won numerous awards for her indigenous rights work, and written five books including Last Standing Woman and All Our Relations.)

and a potluck of great ideas from smartMeme community friends like:

Marc Rodrigues, organizer with Student/Farm worker Alliance; John Kinsman John E. Peck, from the Family Farm Defenders and Rafter T. Sass of the Liberation Ecology Project

The conference is filling up so register now! See you in Wisconsin!