Your local officials may need support in choosing common-sense zoning reforms. There’s nothing more effective than ensuring they hear from their own community! For a comprehensive organizing tool, download our Playbook for Advocates!

Here are some immediate tips to help you build power and mobilize allies in your community: 

• Set a goal. Organize around a concrete policy that will help you or your community. The more concrete, the more effective your organizing will be! Government bodies can react specifically to concrete demands.     
  Identify power in your community. Once you have a concrete goal, figure out who has the power to make that policy change. Is it a town council? A mayor? A planning and zoning commission?

• Choose a strategy. Align your strategy with who has power, and what your relationship with them is. Is the planning and zoning commission elected? You may need to get enough people to influence electoral outcomes. Are you good friends with the mayor? Maybe getting coffee with your friend will be enough!

• Choose your scale. The scale of your organizing depends on the size of your town. The more people in your town, the more people you’ll need to be persuasive. Finding 10 people to join you is a good first goal for most towns in Connecticut.

• Start with your current circle. It’s tempting to try to organize the most influential people or try to find people who already care about zoning. Instead, the easiest way to organize is to talk to people who already trust you and persuade them that zoning reform matters.

• Tell your own story. The most persuasive information you can offer to the people you’re organizing is your own story. Why do you personally care about this? Don’t feel pressure to make it dramatic. As long as it’s about you, people will be compelled.

• Set a deadline. It’s easy to delay organizing work and hope that someone else will do it. If you want to organize your community, set deadlines for yourself for number of conversations and your ultimate goal.