Organizing Tips

• Set goals for delegations: aim high! This is a great opportunity to get new people involved in your NOW chapter. Branch out and get others involved by encouraging them to join your delegation. A delegation is a group of people who want to travel to the March and provides a great way of both enlarging your own activist base and getting others to identify supporters in your community. A delegation can even have its own banner identifying the group. Delegations can be other organizations, work site groups, student groups, religious groups, or even groups of friends, neighbors and family members. In order to create group unity, you might want to do a group mixer before everyone gets onto the bus.
• Price and reserve buses: The easier you make it for people to get to New York City, the more likely it is that people will go. If you live several hours from New York, charting a bus is an efficient way to get a large crowd to the March. Chartering a bus is also is also a great way to show your local chapter's or organization's commitment to the March. The more committed you are to the March, the more likely others will be to commit themselves. To charter a bus call several firms to get the best bid, and find out arrangements on deposits and final payment (see the How to charter a bus page for more help). Price the tickets above cost to cover scholarships and no-shows. Getting people to pay money—either for a deposit or even for their whole ticket—is a great way to make sure they'll come. Plan to have a bus coordinator for each bus or for every two or three buses.
• Plan a chapter or special march organizing meeting: This is a useful tool for recruiting new activists to help organize your delegation to the March and to keep the interest and enthusiasm of seasoned activists. People enjoy being "in the loop," so it is a good idea to start immediately adding updates on information in your newsletter, putting the March as a regular agenda item for your meetings, and even planning meetings for participants with briefings and information about the trip. Bare in mind that many people have never attended mass mobilization efforts before, so you may need to do a few "events" to get their attention and commitment to joining in.
• Set up one or more committees to help organize and mobilize people before and during the march: Organizing a delegation, chartering a bus, fundraising, etc. is to much work for one person. Creating structure to your chapter's involvement is not only a great way to divide responsibility but can also help draw somewhat inexperienced activists. Some of the jobs that need to be done are: publicity, maintaining a speaker's bureau, union outreach, campus outreach, ticket sales, phone banking, transportation, and fundraising. You'll also need someone to take overall responsibility for delegating these other responsibilities and coordinating your chapter's participation. Be sure to give the Action Center this person's contact information so we can be sure they get all the information and assistance they need from the March Team here..
• Set up a schedule: It's a good idea to schedule all events, actions, and goals a few weeks in advance as well as create a physical calendar. This schedule should also include regular meetings of chapter activists who are coordinating key pieces of the event.
• Contact every supportive group in your area: Reach out to groups that support peace, democracy, and of course women's rights. Contact a wide variety of groups so that you can have a comprehensive and all encompassing progressive delegation. Get commitments from supportive groups to form delegations. You can invite leaders and activists from other groups to a special meeting with the goal of getting them more involved in the March organizing.
• Use E-mail: Gather all of the e-mail addresses you can get your hands on—from chapter activists and certainly from interested individuals who sign petitions or contact the chapter about participating in the March. Use e-mail to call for March organizing meetings, send information about the March, updates on delegations from your area, tabling events, etc. This will help keep people connected to the event and its goals.
• Activate Phone Bank: Start putting together a phone bank to contact new names about the March. These names may come from other organizations that support the March, but don't have a grassroots component to their structure. They may be people who have signed petitions or members of other groups who have heard about the event from a NOW speaker. You may want to plan the messages for a series of calls, asking them to save the date, asking if they can volunteer either in your community with outreach efforts or at the March itself, and for contributions to fund your organizing efforts.
• Chapter Newsletters: In addition to regular and updated information about the March, you may want to include the text of press releases and perhaps the list of endorsing organizations as it grows. You may want to have a "clip off" form for participation and for bus ticket sales. Try to get other organizations to run the March flier or information in their newsletters.
• Ticket sales (if you are planning to rent a bus): Set up information tables at shopping centers, festivals, conferences, and anywhere people meet or gather. If you are tabling it is a good idea to have one or more activists out in the crowd with clipboards, fliers, and petitions working the crowd and directing people to the table. Be sure that the table is visible, use your NOW banner and/or rounds. For such events you may want to print bus tickets in advance (see our Sample Bus Ticket) and sell them at the tables. Be sure to have one person who is responsible for keeping track of all the names of people who have committed to attending the march and who have paid for a bus ticket (use our Bus Ticket Sales Record sheet to make this easier).
• Fundraising: Prices for tickets or scholarships to travel to NYC need to cover a multitude of scenarios, including people who don't pay, don't show up, people who need some financial assistance in getting to the March, as well as amenities you might want to provide your delegations (such as bottled water, snacks for the ride, signs and printing materials). If someone says they can't go, ask them if they can make a contribution toward the costs of getting others there. This action can be the centerpiece of a major membership drive. Price the tickets at about $10 over the base cost and offer a "free" NOW membership. Make a special point of including these new members in promotions about the event. There are many ways to get people who can't come to the March, but who are emotionally invested in the issue, to support your efforts. Some will be willing to write checks outright while others may need something tangible. Try making a large banner that activists from your community will carry in the March. Offer people who can't go the opportunity to sign the banner for $5. Then their names will be at the event! Some participants might want to use a pledge system of getting supporters to help cover their costs. Remember that asking people for a financial contribution is a great way to get them invested in the effort. Be sure to keep track of your supporters and contributors and thank them.
• Campus organizing: College students will be a major target of our organizing efforts. Chapters should make an effort to contact nearby campuses through women's studies programs, government departments, women's centers, environmental clubs, women's groups (especially all local CANs), progressive groups, continuing education programs, and schools of social work. Contact NOW members who are students, faculty, or staff. Encourage and help students organize and mobilize their college campuses and high schools to form delegations.