The 2020 Democratic Presidential primary season has already started, which means that candidates will start hiring staff. Most of the on-the-ground staff will be in the states that are early in the primary calendar, such as Iowa and New Hampshire. Given the number of candidates, it is likely that the titles for positions that are roughly the same will vary considerably.
We’ve seen some overlapping of titles, however, in recent years. The Obama presidential campaigns, especially, made use of the title “organizer” for the people on the ground working most directly with volunteers. This is likely given President Obama’s history as a community organizer, as well as the background of folks who helped President Obama’s campaigns develop their field and training plans, folks like Marshall Ganz and Joy Cushman. These individuals have decades of experience with long-term community organizing.
The title of “organizer” has since been used by more and more candidate’s campaigns, with varying levels of fidelity to the idea of an organizer that Ganz and Cushman had in mind. That idea came from unions, the Civil Rights movement, and other long-term community organizing groups like Faith in Action (formerly PICO). So in order to develop some clear distinctions, I offer the following definitions:
Organizer - This role focuses on building community and developing leaders. This is done through 1:1 conversations, house meetings, trainings, and coaching. The goal is to develop long-lasting organizations, centered around shared values and identity, that can use their growing power for a wide variety of purposes. These purposes can include legislative advocacy, direct action, and elections/civic engagement. The organizer is a thought-partner, agitator, teacher, pastor.
Field Organizer - The field organizer role is more limited than that of an organizer. They are given a plan, a geographic or demographic turf, specific skills, and told to execute the plan. They recruit volunteers to accomplish the plan. They may build up structures that look like those created by an organizer, but the key distinction is that the structures themselves do not determine priorities or goals. The field organizer is an doer and volunteer coordinator.
Canvasser - These folks have one job, which is simply to talk to people at the doors. These conversations are generally of two types: persuasion or Get Out the Vote. There is no true relational component to their work, which is driven purely by numbers. These folks can be truly effective for their given part in a strategy, but that part is very narrow and not up for debate or discussion.
Field organizers and canvassers are key parts of a candidates’ campaigns, but they shouldn’t be confused with the role of organizer as it exists in organizations that build long-term power. Indeed, it is not uncommon for organizations founded by staff from candidate campaigns to use the term organizer, when in fact they do not completely understand its breadth and depth.
Conflating these titles causes confusion within the larger progressive movement. I’ve seen individuals with several campaigns cycles of experience as an “organizer” (field organizer) on candidate campaigns try to move over to long-term community organizing groups, and be completely unequipped for their new role.
So let’s call a spade a spade.