This is the One-to-One Toolkit, to provide guidance on how to conduct effective 1:1 conversations. While you do not need to follow all of the guidance listed in this toolkit, it is important to keep in mind that a 1:1 is more than an informal chat. A 1:1 is a powerful conversation with a clear outcome and next steps.
About One-to-One Meetings
When it comes to community organizing, there is no substitute for person-to-person engagement. Establishing relationships forms the strongest bonds, and provides the most compelling incentives for ongoing involvement with your chapter/team.
Why do we do 1 to 1s?
- We are forging relationships, which are the building blocks of social change & commitment.
- We find shared values by telling stories, asking questions, and practicing vulnerability.
- We can use 1 to 1s to build connections across race, class, and other differences.
- We can use 1 to 1s to grow our teams and move members up the ladder of engagement.
How to do a 1:1
Before you meet:
- Call, text, or email and be clear about why you want to get together (eg. to talk about your Mothers Out Front team and how they might get involved).
- Suggest or ask them a couple of times and places that work for you both. Aim for about 1 hour.
In your meeting:
- Share your own story:
- Talk about your background, both personal/cultural and with Mothers Out Front.
- What calls you to this work, motivates you to keep going, and gives you hope?
- Share from your heart, honestly and vulnerable.
- Learn more about the person you are with:
- What’s their family background/cultural heritage? What motivates and interests them?
- What & who inspires them?
- What skills & leadership qualities do they have?
- Listen for shared values and topics over which the two of you resonate.
- Explain what Mothers Out Front and your team have been working on:
- Describe your team, wins, ongoing campaigns. Focus on hope and action.
- Talk about what your team and our movement need.
- Explore opportunities to work together:
- Where do their values and resources match your team’s needs and opportunities? How do your resources and values match their community’s needs?
- Answer and ask more questions.
- Ask. Get a commitment!
- Be specific. Assess the person’s situation and make a bigger or smaller ask accordingly.
- Do they want to host a house party? Attend an action? Meet again?
- Decide and clarify the next steps together–including when you will talk again.
Don’t forget to follow up, twice!
- Email, call, or text right afterward to say thank you for the meeting.
- Follow up later on your commitments and next steps.
Video: How to do a 1:1
Share how it went
Reporting
- Enter any information you receive about this person into Nationbuilder, or via the mobile app, FieldEdge – learnings, experience, skills, contacts, etc. (or send this information to your team’s data coordinator or your staff organizer). Instructions for Tracking 1:1s at Mothers Out Front.
- If you are not comfortable using NationBuilder or FieldEdge, please use this Google Form for reporting your 1:1s. Information from the Google Form will be automatically updated into NationBuilder every two weeks.
- Here are some guiding reporting questions:
- What climate issue are they most concerned about?
- What did they agree to do? And what are your next steps?
- What would they enjoy doing as a volunteer?
- If you need additional support with data, please contact Database Administrator, Max Parish at max.parish@mothersoutfront.org.
- Database Administrator, Max Parish will provide a monthly report to the National Coordinated Campaign Team.
The National Coordinated Campaign Team’s primary goal is to build an inclusive movement by conducting 1:1s and listening sessions with new and existing members/volunteers. We are encouraging people to use their 1:1s to learn more about their members, gauge their interest and capacity to build an inclusive movement, and to activate them in our current efforts to grow our base and achieve impact.
To achieve an inclusive movement we should understand our existing members/volunteers current capacity (strengths and limitations), skills, and willingness to recruit and welcome BIPOC moms, and also provide rigorous support and training when our existing base does not have the capacity to work across race and class, while simultaneously recruiting new BIPOC moms to step into leadership roles in our existing teams.
This work is not easy and at times we might stumble, which is normal, but it must be done, and we can’t give up! Change and growth are possible!
While this is the National Coordinated Campaign Team’s interest, your team could either join us in these efforts or/and use 1:1s to support your existing campaigns. The questions below are to support the NCCT’s goals, but you can develop new questions to support your goals based on this toolkit. Either way, please don’t forget to report your 1:1s.