Activism, Inc.: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics in America

by Dana R. Fisher

Activism, Inc. introduces America to an increasingly familiar political the canvasser. She's the twenty-something with the clipboard, stopping you on the street or knocking on your door, the foot soldier of political campaigns. Granted unprecedented access to the "People's Project," an unknown yet influential organization driving left-leaning grassroots politics, Dana Fisher tells the true story of outsourcing politics in America. Like the major corporations that outsourced their customer service to companies abroad, the grassroots campaigns of national progressive movements―including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Save the Children, and the Human Rights Campaign―have been outsourced at different times to this single organization. During the 2004 presidential campaign, the Democratic Party followed a similar outsourcing model for their canvassing. Fisher examines the history and rationale behind political outsourcing on the Left, weaving together frank interviews with canvassers, high-ranking political officials across the political spectrum, and People's Project management. She compares all of this to the grassroots efforts on the Right, which remain firmly grounded in communities and local politics. This book offers a chilling review of the consequences of political outsourcing. Connecting local people on the streets throughout America to the national organizations and political campaigns that make up progressive politics, it shows what happens to the passionate young activists outsourced to the clients of Activism, Inc.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

168 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever worked as a paid canvasser, here your dreams and nightmares are brought back to you, or as an outside observer you can take a look into overworked young idealists getting chewed up and spit out. The Fund for the Public Interest and Grassroots Campaigns Inc aren't real activism, they're fundraising machines practicing unfair labor practices.
Fieldworks and Green Corp aren't much better, another way to work yourself into the ground. Here's a quote that's good on Green Corp:
Others had less positive experiences with the program. In the winter 2004 edition of Threshold, the magazine of the Student Environmental Action Coalition, Nathaniel Miller, a former Green Corps organizer, cautioned students against applying to the group. He wrote that during the four months that he worked with Green Corps “they engaged in unionbusting and openly opposed affirmative action, environmental justice, and other efforts to diversify the environmental movement.” In fact, many of this recent college graduate’s complaints about Green Corps were reminiscent of those I heard from the People’s Project canvassers in 2003. He called Green Corps a “top-down organization” that required its workers to meet quantitative goals and targets, and he accused the group of having a “fundamentally undemocratic” structure. Although when hired he had been ecstatic to find a position where he would “get paid to be an activist,” he was let go after reportedly trying to organize the members of his cohort and being a union agitator. 20 Although Miller’s short tenure suggests that his personal experience with the group may be unique, I found similar accounts posted on the progressive watchdog website Nonprofit Watch. 21 This site posts personal reports and maintains a bulletin board of accounts by other young people. In contrast to claims by some on the left that this website is a front for some right-wing organization, it is not. It is run by Bernardo Issel, a selfproclaimed progressive who works for the labor-union-organizing group Corporate Campaign, Inc. 22 In his article, Miller also reported that Green Corps had a very high attrition rate. In his class of thirty-one people, “only fourteen finished the year, [with] six people leaving during the first three weeks.” 23 In short, young people working for this partner group, which states its mission as training “the next generation of environmental leaders,” 24 have had problems similar to those of People’s Project employees. Some who did not complete the year-long program had been so turned off by their experience with Green Corps that they were no longer interested in working for mainstream progressive politics and became anarchists instead. [As long as they're not Black Bloc, individualist anarchists, or anarcho-primitivists they're taking a step forward]

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've worked in a canvassing office, you can skip the first 3 chapters. I think they make a bit much of workplace drama, because I think some of those things happen in every job, so it's not worth whining about in a union/reforming way... but I think they had a valid point (that also occurs in the PIRGs) of purposely limiting your time with your real social life and basically forcing your social life to revolve around canvassing/your job. I also had an experience as a street canvasser for a BIG contracting company like the one they described in the book that switched charities every couple of weeks, depending on your team, so you never really learned all the info you needed about one before you had to move on. That was in Britain, though, so not everything matched up completely... but gleaning from that "big corporate" experience and from PM, I'd say that PM is at least doing a little better in terms of keeping it real, haha.

The 2nd 3 chapters I thought were REALLY useful and actually inspired me. I really identified with one point they made on both ends of the spectrum: Besides giving money, they don't really encourage people to get more involved on a volunteer level. I once had a great conversation with someone who really wanted to get involved past giving money and I really didn't have anything to offer him. I mean I checked the "interested in volunteering" box on the form he filled out but I'm pretty sure no one ever called him... I mean, what can my old canvassing office offer, truly? Ummmm do some photocopying for us? There aren't any meetings they can really attend as a member... I mean, if membership meant more than receiving the e-newsletter, it might TRULY be meaningful. I've also tried contacting Amnesty International at various local levels (I've been giving them $10/mo for about 2 years now) and no one will get back to me about meetings and group sessions of letter writing, etc... So you'll take my money but you don't want me to create community around your organization... hmmmmm. So that got me kinda riled up and wanting to find where more true community existed among lefty and political organizations (NOT parties).

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

"As is becoming increasingly apparent, laying (grassroots political networks) in the form of outsourced political workers and imported volunteers cannot complete with true grassroots connections among like-minded neighbors."

Interesting read, described the state of canvassing after the 2004 election. Positives and negatives from People's Project (paid political canvassing operation), the Kerry campaign, and the Bush/Rove campaigns. You can see some clear thought lines that went into the 2008 Obama for America grassroots campaign. Very informative quick read.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of history has passed since this topic was explored. However, the Democratic Party and its tactics remain moribund, and the proof is in the pudding. Everything is so locked in, and the forgone conclusions weaken us as a society. What does the future hold? I am less hopeful than I have been at any time since the year Reagan was elected.

[What the Fluff · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is the demographic range of a grassroots volunteer or employee? And how does their motivation dwindle within days of joining the campaigns? Are the leading questions contained within Activism Inc, which takes us into the world of grassroots campaigns and how they fail. The writer has interviewed disaffected former canvassers and investigates the systemic failures of the campaign systems.
Activism, Inc. is a bit of a dry read, which leads me to think it probably has merits in academic research of political science or related topics, but is unfriendly to the casual reader. It is not the length- this is actually a decently slim work- it is the repetitive details, the narrow case studies and subject, and the lack of a "spark".
Some nonfiction books have the "spark"- the subject and style it is written in are precursors to the reader's simultaneous learning and authentic enjoyment. I am sorry to say that Activism, Inc. may be slightly honorable in the "learning" department, but its presentation is uninspired.

[Lindsay Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is by my advisor-to-be. its great sociological research and its really well written so as to be broadly relevant. if you've ever winced at a Greenpeace canvasser on the street, you should read this book.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly it's not completely accurate or all that well written. But it might, might, give people from the outside a view of the odd world that is the canvass.