Bridget Blair

Bridget Blair (she/they) is a political organizer working with progressive candidates and grassroots initiatives to secure affordable housing, climate resiliency, and transparent leadership at the local level in Northern California.

Movements built at the speed of trust

As an organizer, I’m always thinking about how we can better connect with one another to build real power in our communities. One of my favorite organizer mantras comes from my time at TakeAction Minnesota:

“Movements are built at the speed of relationships, and relationships are built at the speed of trust.”

And, it’s true. Building deep, trusting relationships allows us to scale our efforts quickly, efficiently, and with joy. An essential task for any people-powered campaign is to make complex issues accessible, tangible, and actionable. To this end, political storytelling is one of my most treasured organizing tools.

The Self, Us, Now model of political storytelling was first popularized by Marshall Ganz, who links together personal transformation with community transformation with political transformation. He believes that, “to allow yourself to be seen so that you can see others is very powerful.”

A successful narrative-driven campaign utilizes political storytelling to build trust and to create a sense of shared purpose and responsibility. Stories can be the difference between feeling alone in emotions like fear and despair, or feeling energized and empowered to take action.

When we begin to braid together the narrative threads of self, us, and now, it becomes easier to name where change is possible, and we can then start working together toward a brighter future.

Bridget’s Library