by Dean Briggs
Does your local Indivisible group want to take on an issue that is larger than you alone can handle, or that requires attention across a wider geography? Maybe it’s time to create a Statewide Action Team. I recently caught up with Laurie Veninger, one of the co-founders of Indivisible Mass Coalition’s Feminist Action Team (FA), a statewide collaboration comprising reproductive rights activists from across the state.
Their largest initiative, June 2024’s Bigger than Dobbs* coordinated rallies attended by over 650 people, led by 13 local groups from Cape Cod to the Berkshires. It included groups that were not part of IMC or other formal organizations. IMC provided materials, help with press coverage and other services supporting all the groups.
How they did it
Laurie explains, “With Bigger Than Dobbs, we built on prior work and relationships: a four-group event, a nine-group event. It was people reaching out to people. We paid a lot of attention to what people had needed, made sure their questions were answered, that we provided good planning docs, To-Do lists, scoped out the locations, contacted the police departments in advance, made sure there were no traffic hazards—the nitty-gritty stuff.” She has good friends now, spread across the state in various regions—they built a community.
Where they started
“When I started in 2017 we had all these little Indivisible groups on Cape Cod and the Islands. It made sense that we would be more successful by working together, sharing the load, and having a greater impact. Deb Paul and I discussed a regional coalition, which eventually became Indivisible Mass Coalition (IMC). I had been meeting with other regional groups in 2018 and we started sharing best practices. One of those was having Action Teams that organized across multiple groups in Massachusetts. The idea was that they would have more voice because they had numbers,” Laurie continued.
FA is an example of this collaboration.
Laurie emphasizes that the Action Teams are a collaboration and are not about controlling other groups. “The movement is interested in achieving a goal, not in accolades, not in getting control. FA will work with everybody. We can work with a lot of different groups on issues. When issues arise of ideological purity, rigidity – we set them aside. For example, I met a person who was planning a voting rights event. They were afraid that IMC was going to take over this event. FA addressed their fears and was able to connect them with speakers for the event. It was about the cause, not FA.”
Lessons learned
Laurie learned from shepherding FA, first, to use the organizational skills she’d developed as a teacher. “Someone needs to facilitate, so I reached out to people. I sent out agendas; they were like ‘Lesson Plans’ for meetings.” Also, “I would try to get consensus on what might be actions.” The teaching skills play many roles: “To do this work, you need to be able to deal with all kinds of people, all kinds of brains.”
The next most important lesson she learned was reaching out and pulling in as many people as possible. The more people who are engaged, the more skills you gain.
Another lesson was to put people together. “Someone new would come in and start talking about a problem or an initiative. I would say, ‘Oh, I know someone who has an interest in that,’ and connect one person with another.” And Laurie puts together events partnering with much larger organizations, “because tapping the energy that’s out there allows you to have a bigger impact.”
Laurie notes that a loose coalition of independent groups, such as the Bigger than Dobbs coalition, lacks any hierarchical structure. “That may not provide long term stability, but it makes the coalition more flexible and adaptable. And—the groups and individuals involved may not want a hierarchical structure.”
Using your skills, preventing burnout
Another lesson: “Delegation is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. It’s good to find a partner who has complementary skills and interests, so you can divide up the workload while doing different tasks.”
Finally, “Being a teacher has been helpful because we’re good at assessing people’s natural abilities. It is hard for people to give up control; and patriarchal, hierarchical models of organization have hindered (collaboration). Often, people come with great ideas but don’t feel empowered to carry them out. They need to learn that they don’t have to do everything themselves.”
What issues draw your group toward collaborating with others? The IMC Board and leadership can connect you HERE. Indivisible national provides information about statewide action HERE.
Dean Briggs is a member of the Indivisible Mass Coalition Communications Team.
* The 2022 Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, an earlier ruling that had made abortion legal for fifty years, and there are plans by The Heritage Foundation, detailed in Project 2025, to further restrict reproductive rights.
