GPUS Steering Committee Minutes – Strategic Planning – 4 December 2018
AGENDA:
I. CALL SETUP & BACKGROUND – 15 min
a) Facilitator: Charles Sherrouse
b) Roll call – Margaret Flower, Jody Grage, Gloria Mattera, Justin Beth, Hillary Kane, Violet Zitola,
Tony Ndege, Anita Rios, Andrea Merida
Observers – Starlene Rankin OR/Staff, Erin Fox MI, AJ Reed IL, Tamar Yager VA, Philena Farley OH
c) Agenda revision suggestions – none
2. Review the four goals outlined in the 2013 strategic plan. (Read it here). – 45 min.
a) Do we still support these as the goals? – overarching – more like a template for a strategic plan, need more definition, need for mission statement (The Bylaws list our purpose as 1. Assist in the development of State Green Parties, 2. Create a legally structured national Green Party Federation)
Goal 1 – Increasing Membership and Diversity – Bring in more new members, Retain existing members, Recruit and retain members from groups who are currently under-represented in our party: primarily people of color and youth; Define who is a member
Goal 2 – Running and Electing More Candidates – Develop coherent plan of action at all levels, for recruiting, developing, and supporting candidates, Raise significant funds to support top candidates in key races across the country, Track electoral activities and successes, Develop campaign to support ballot access, proportional representation/IRV, and other electoral reforms at the national and state level
Goal 3 – Achieving Greater and More Positive Awareness of the Party (reworded) – Increase awareness of the Green Party overall, Create a clear understanding of our mission and accomplishments, Stronger branding: more consistency, strong messaging and visuals, and more overall professionalism in communications;, Combat negative attitudes about the Green Party and third parties in general, Create targeted communications for diverse group, Improve internal communications about how things work, and reporting from various entities about what they are doing, Establish positive internal environment in line with our values
Goal 4 – More Effective Issue Advocacy and Policy Development – Two-way communication with a broader public, Articulating positions more strongly, Effectiveness in issue advocacy, Achievement of policy victories
b) What progress has been made on them? What obstacles have there been to progress?
Lack of benchmarks and accounting then and now, need quantifiable targets; overall membership probably up from 2013 but lower than historic highs – more young people including Youth Caucus; NationBuilder numbers could be used to assess growth; consideration of individual memberships for GPUS which is now a federation of state parties; people in unaffiliated states need to be included; in party registration states member may be different from registered voter; non-voters both a threat and an opportunity – consider frontline communities and their reasons for not voting; nearly all states affiliated so restructuring could make us more flexible; GPUS should aggressively support state parties with skills, knowledge, and organizing info as CCC does for campaigning, etc.; need more obvious results on issues – working groups?; individualized metrics needed for each state; definition of active Green suggested; retained member vs. activated member; goals for members to give them purpose; still hard to change Dem voters; need to deal with racism in GPUS; highlight issues that are very important to improvement of lives in frontline communities – universal health care and access to education – in a political way; may need issue/movement committees; need to be a party of organizers and understand needs of communities; need to experiment – at state level
3. Review of the nuts and bolts of the party. – 45 min
How are the committees functioning/not functioning? What can be done to enhance communication and coordination between the committees? How do we expand leadership and engagement, particularly in committees that are under-performing?
advertise two committees a month to recruit membership; need to come to consensus on the responsibilities of committees and the role of the SC; rules and procedures need to be shortened and clarified; need better communication within and among committees; suggest defining critical committees; what is committee output and how does it support the GPUS mission; GPUS committee should be working with and coordinating with state committees; suggest conference calls with committee chairs; trainings for committee chairs; hampered by decentralization/lack of accountability/lack of organization; suggest working groups/clearing house for issues, skill sets, etc.; what are NC responsibilities to state parties; committees have mission statements and rules and procedures; SC responsibilities re: committees; need to be efficient – what committees do we need and what is the work of certain committees; accountability between NC and committees; committees need regular meeting to keep going; roles of chairs and members
need defining
4. Next steps. – 45 min
a) What new tasks have we identified in the above?
review each committee on future call; committee spreadsheets up to date – Jody volunteered; Gloria – need overall GPUS vision and mission statement including anti-racism – suggest work on draft on line; Andrea – need consensus on SC responsibilities and rules; Justin – need to consider each committee’s part in accomplishing the vision and mission statements; caucuses need to inform the party about their outreach to communities; discussed proposal floor manager role – rotation to be used to assign floor managers;
how complement electoral program to involve people to increase
b) What information do we need? – see above
c) Next call 3 January – focus on specific tasks, 2017 list of tasks is in GPUS SC google folder under “strategic plan.”; discussion of advantages and disadvantages of using Zoom, chat room, and video
Executive Session – None
Call recording ended: 10 pm Eastern
TOTAL TIME: 3 hours
Jody Grage, Secretary