Marshall Ganz
Encyclopedia
Marshall Ganz is a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
. He worked on the staff of the United Farm Workers
for sixteen years before becoming a trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions and nonprofit groups. He is credited with devising the successful grassroots organizing model and training for Barack Obama
’s winning 2008 presidential campaign.
, in 1943, and grew up in Fresno
and Bakersfield, California
. His father was a rabbi and his mother a teacher. For three years after World War II, his family lived in Germany, where his father served as an army chaplain working with displaced persons. Having encountered survivors of the Holocaust, his parents taught Marshall about the dangers of racism
and anti-Semitism
. He entered Harvard in fall 1960 but left before graduating in 1964 to volunteer for the Mississippi Summer Project, where he worked in a freedom house in McComb
and helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention
. He stayed on to become a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
in Amite County.
to organize agricultural workers. He served in a variety of positions for the United Farm Workers of America, including organizer, field office administrator, negotiator, director of the grape and lettuce boycotts, and director of organizing. For eight years, from 1973 to 1981, he was an elected member of the union’s national executive board. Chavez's background in the community organizing
tradition shaped Ganz's understanding of organizing.
Saul Alinsky
had hired Fred Ross
in 1947 to develop the Community Service Organization
(CSO) to organize Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles
and California’s Central Valley. Chavez and Dolores Huerta
learned community organizing working for Ross and CSO. When Chavez shifted his focus to farm workers, he asked Ross to join him as director of organizing. As Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), as it was then named, battled the Teamsters for its first contract with the DiGiorgio corporation in 1966, it was Ross’s methodical and disciplined approach to tracking each farm worker supporting the union that helped Chavez win. Chavez also took from CSO the idea of service organizations for the farm workers to supplement the standard union activities.
Ganz’s experience with the farm workers led him to formulate his concept of “strategic capacity,” by which he explains how Chavez’s farmworker organizing succeeded while earlier efforts by radicals and contemporaneous campaigns by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) sponsored by the AFL-CIO
, and by the Teamsters
failed. Ganz defines strategy as "how we turn what we have into what we need to get what we want." Strategic capacity, for Ganz, consists of three elements: motivation, access to relevant knowledge, and deliberations that lead to new learning. Chavez's efforts eventually prevailed because his organizing team had stronger motivation, deeper knowledge of the Mexican-American culture of the Central Valley, and diverse perspectives that generated fresh tactical ideas.
At the peak of its success in 1977, the UFWA stopped its aggressive organizing and turned inward as Chavez worked with Chuck Detrick, founder of the Synanon
drug treatment cult, to transform the internal life of the union. As Chavez purged the union of its long-term leaders and loyalty to Chavez became the primary criterion for employment, the UFWA lost its strategic capacity. Over the next three years members of the Executive Board opposed to the direction Chavez was taking the union resigned, including Ganz in 1981. Union membership dropped from a peak of 60,000 in the late 1970s to around 5,000 today.
for Congress, Alan Cranston
for Senate, Tom Bradley
for governor, and governor Jerry Brown
. He also worked on campaigns of such unions as the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union
(HERE), Service Employees International Union
(SEIU), and the Screen Actors Guild
. In 1987 he formed and served as executive director of two groups to develop organizing programs, Services for Organizing and Leadership, and The Organizing Institute. He led voter registration, get-out-the-vote, and organizer training, and conducted research on voting, leadership development, and community organizing.
on African-American fraternal organizations and with Lani Guinier
for a course on law and social movements.
and political process schools of social movement analysis, Ganz emphasizes the subjective agency of social movement participants, whose values, intentions, and narratives constitute the essential material of analysis. Ganz begins with the famous three questions of Rabbi Hillel, "If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?" Ganz relates these questions to "the story of self," "the story of us," and "the story of now." For the 2008 Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, Ganz maintained that campaign workers approaching potential voters needed to be able to quickly tell their story of self to establish a relationship with the voter. The story of us connected the values and interests of the campaign worker and voter with candidate Obama. What Martin Luther King Jr. called "the fierce urgency of now" focused the voter's hopes on the imminent election. The importance of relationships, rather than campaign platforms, dominated the Camp Obama training program for campaign workers. Ganz has continued to develop this model in "Camp OFA" for Organizing for America
, the successor organization to the Obama campaign, and for "Camp MoveOn," a training program for leaders of MoveOn.org's local councils.
The Camp Obama model was based on the model first developed and used in a project for the Sierra Club
, in which Ganz teamed up with Harvard psychology professor Ruth Wageman in an effort to improve the volunteer programs of local chapters.
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. He worked on the staff of the United Farm Workers
United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers of America is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association led by César Chávez...
for sixteen years before becoming a trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions and nonprofit groups. He is credited with devising the successful grassroots organizing model and training for Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
’s winning 2008 presidential campaign.
Early life and education
Ganz was born in Bay City, MichiganBay City, Michigan
Bay City is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan located near the base of the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 34,932, and is the principal city of the Bay City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Saginaw-Bay City-Saginaw Township North...
, in 1943, and grew up in Fresno
Fresno
Fresno is the fifth largest city in California.Fresno may also refer to:-Places:Colombia* Fresno, TolimaSpain* Fresno, a ghost village in Nidáliga, Valle de Sedano, Burgos* Aldea del Fresno, Madrid* Fresno de la Vega, Ribera del Esla, León...
and Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....
. His father was a rabbi and his mother a teacher. For three years after World War II, his family lived in Germany, where his father served as an army chaplain working with displaced persons. Having encountered survivors of the Holocaust, his parents taught Marshall about the dangers of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
. He entered Harvard in fall 1960 but left before graduating in 1964 to volunteer for the Mississippi Summer Project, where he worked in a freedom house in McComb
McComb, Mississippi
McComb is a city in Pike County, Mississippi, United States, about south of Jackson. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 13,644. It is the principal city of the McComb, Mississippi, Micropolitan Statistical Area...
and helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was an American political party created in the state of Mississippi in 1964, during the civil rights movement...
delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention
1964 Democratic National Convention
The 1964 Democratic National Convention was the 1964 presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party. It took place at the Atlantic City Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey from August 24 to 27, 1964. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson -- who had been Vice President under...
. He stayed on to become a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
in Amite County.
Work with United Farm Workers
In fall 1965 Ganz returned to California to work with Cesar ChavezCésar Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
to organize agricultural workers. He served in a variety of positions for the United Farm Workers of America, including organizer, field office administrator, negotiator, director of the grape and lettuce boycotts, and director of organizing. For eight years, from 1973 to 1981, he was an elected member of the union’s national executive board. Chavez's background in the community organizing
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...
tradition shaped Ganz's understanding of organizing.
Saul Alinsky
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
had hired Fred Ross
Fred Ross
Fred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he...
in 1947 to develop the Community Service Organization
Community Service Organization
The Community Service Organization was an important California Latino civil rights organization, most famous for training Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta...
(CSO) to organize Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and California’s Central Valley. Chavez and Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta
Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO , and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Early life:...
learned community organizing working for Ross and CSO. When Chavez shifted his focus to farm workers, he asked Ross to join him as director of organizing. As Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), as it was then named, battled the Teamsters for its first contract with the DiGiorgio corporation in 1966, it was Ross’s methodical and disciplined approach to tracking each farm worker supporting the union that helped Chavez win. Chavez also took from CSO the idea of service organizations for the farm workers to supplement the standard union activities.
Ganz’s experience with the farm workers led him to formulate his concept of “strategic capacity,” by which he explains how Chavez’s farmworker organizing succeeded while earlier efforts by radicals and contemporaneous campaigns by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) sponsored by the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
, and by the Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
failed. Ganz defines strategy as "how we turn what we have into what we need to get what we want." Strategic capacity, for Ganz, consists of three elements: motivation, access to relevant knowledge, and deliberations that lead to new learning. Chavez's efforts eventually prevailed because his organizing team had stronger motivation, deeper knowledge of the Mexican-American culture of the Central Valley, and diverse perspectives that generated fresh tactical ideas.
At the peak of its success in 1977, the UFWA stopped its aggressive organizing and turned inward as Chavez worked with Chuck Detrick, founder of the Synanon
Synanon
The Synanon organization, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich, Sr., in 1958, in Santa Monica, California, United States...
drug treatment cult, to transform the internal life of the union. As Chavez purged the union of its long-term leaders and loyalty to Chavez became the primary criterion for employment, the UFWA lost its strategic capacity. Over the next three years members of the Executive Board opposed to the direction Chavez was taking the union resigned, including Ganz in 1981. Union membership dropped from a peak of 60,000 in the late 1970s to around 5,000 today.
Political consultant
After leaving the UFWA in 1981, Ganz began working on California political campaigns -- directing field programs, training organizers, and leading strategic planning for such candidates as Nancy PelosiNancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...
for Congress, Alan Cranston
Alan Cranston
Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.-Education:Cranston earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star...
for Senate, Tom Bradley
Tom Bradley
Thomas or Tom Bradley is the name of:*Tom Bradley , mayor of Los Angeles, California*Tom Bradley , American novelist and essayist...
for governor, and governor Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...
. He also worked on campaigns of such unions as the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union
Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union
The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union , was a United States labor union representing workers of the hospitality industry, formed in 1891. In 2004, HERE merged with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees to form UNITE HERE. HERE notably organized the staff of Yale...
(HERE), Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States , and Canada...
(SEIU), and the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
. In 1987 he formed and served as executive director of two groups to develop organizing programs, Services for Organizing and Leadership, and The Organizing Institute. He led voter registration, get-out-the-vote, and organizer training, and conducted research on voting, leadership development, and community organizing.
Return to Harvard
Ganz returned to Harvard in 1991 (after a 28-year absence) to finish his undergraduate degree in history and government, graduating in 1992. He received an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 2000. He became an instructor for the Kennedy School in 1994. Since completing his doctorate in 2000, he has been a lecturer in public policy, teaching courses on organizing, leadership, civic engagement, and community action research. He has collaborated with Harvard professors Theda SkocpolTheda Skocpol
Theda Skocpol is an American sociologist and political scientist at Harvard University. She served from 2005 to 2007 as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She is influential in sociology as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches, and well-known in...
on African-American fraternal organizations and with Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier is an American lawyer, scholar and civil rights activist. The first African-American woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Guinier's work includes professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in...
for a course on law and social movements.
Organizing model
In contrast to the structural emphasis of the once-dominant resource mobilizationResource mobilization
Resource mobilization is a major sociological theory in the study of social movements which emerged in the 1970s. It stresses the ability of movement's members to 1) acquire resources and to 2) mobilize people towards accomplishing the movement's goals...
and political process schools of social movement analysis, Ganz emphasizes the subjective agency of social movement participants, whose values, intentions, and narratives constitute the essential material of analysis. Ganz begins with the famous three questions of Rabbi Hillel, "If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?" Ganz relates these questions to "the story of self," "the story of us," and "the story of now." For the 2008 Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, Ganz maintained that campaign workers approaching potential voters needed to be able to quickly tell their story of self to establish a relationship with the voter. The story of us connected the values and interests of the campaign worker and voter with candidate Obama. What Martin Luther King Jr. called "the fierce urgency of now" focused the voter's hopes on the imminent election. The importance of relationships, rather than campaign platforms, dominated the Camp Obama training program for campaign workers. Ganz has continued to develop this model in "Camp OFA" for Organizing for America
Organizing for America
Organizing for America is a community organizing project of the Democratic National Committee. Founded after the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, the group seeks to mobilize supporters in favor of Obama's legislative priorities.-History:...
, the successor organization to the Obama campaign, and for "Camp MoveOn," a training program for leaders of MoveOn.org's local councils.
The Camp Obama model was based on the model first developed and used in a project for the Sierra Club
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
, in which Ganz teamed up with Harvard psychology professor Ruth Wageman in an effort to improve the volunteer programs of local chapters.
Books
- What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality. With Theda Skocpol and Ariane Liazos. Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-69-112299-1
- Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-516201-1
Articles
- “Resources and Resourcefulness: Leadership, Strategy and Organization in the Unionization of California Agriculture (1951-1966).” American Journal of Sociology, January 2000.
- “A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Volunteerism in the United States.” With Theda Skocpol and Ziad Munson. American Political Science Review, September 2000.
- “Against the Tide: Projects and Pathways of the New Generation of Union Leaders, 1984--2001.” With Kim Voss, Teresa Sharpe, Carl Somers and George Strauss. In Milkman and Voss, Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Movement, Cornell University Press, 2004.
- “Organizing for Democratic Renewal.” TPM Café, March 29, 2007.
- “Why Stories Matter: The Arts and Craft of Social Change.” Sojourners, March 2009, pp. 16-21. http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/marshall-ganz-why-stories-matter/
- “Leadership, Membership and Voice: Civic Associations That Work.” With Kenneth Andrews, Matthew Bagetta, Hahrie Han and Chaeyoon Lim. American Journal of Sociology, January 2010, pp. 1191-1242.
- "Leading Change: Leadership, Organization, and Social Movements." Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice. Ed. Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana. Harvard Business School Press, 2010, 527-568.
External links
- Marshall Ganz’ web module on organizing http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k2139
- Marshall Ganz’ introduction to Camp Obama (video) http://blip.tv/file/365858