Campus Camp Wellstone is a 1.5 day training program held on college and university campuses around the country. Our program is non-partisan, and welcomes both seasoned activists and those who are completely new to progressive activism.
We focus on very concrete skills, like the nitty-gritty of campaign planning, grassroots organizing, and message development. We also teach students how to successfully recruit and retain volunteers and develop new leadership.
Campus Camp Wellstone is both serious and exciting-serious because you'll walk away with skills and tools for real-world campaigns, and exciting because it's participatory, vibrant, and led by young trainers. Our trainers are leaders in community organizing, labor, and non-profit organizations.
Camps are usually co-hosted by a mixture of student groups, student government and academic departments, and each has between 40-60 participants.
Students in Campus Camps learn:
- The Wellstone philosophy of community and electoral politics
- Understanding power
- Strategic campaign planning
- How to develop an effective message
- How to work with the media (creative and traditional strategies)
- Motivating and mobilizing people for action
- Building inclusive coalitions
- Recruiting and retaining volunteers/members
- Leadership development
We teach our curriculum through a case study campaign, allowing students to apply the skills as they learn.
Session Descriptions:
Introduction (45 minutes)
TheIntroduction is focused on building a sense of community among trainingparticipants, finding commonality across issues and values, and introducingPaul Wellstone's life and legacy.
Power and Politics the WellstoneWay (1 hour, 10 minutes)
This interactivesession introduces the concept of "building power" as the means to make change;distinguishes between personal, collective and institutional power; and presentsthe "Wellstone Triangle" model forsocial change, bringing together grassroots organizing, public policy andelectoral politics.
Leadership Development (1 hour, 5 minutes)
Leadershipdevelopment is hugely important to building a progressive community that canWIN-especially among students who turnover constantly. This session delves into positive andnegative leadership qualities and behaviors, discusses the importance ofmultiple kinds of leadership, and introduces concrete strategies forintentional leadership development.
Grassroots Organizing (1 hour, 15 minutes)
Allgood organizing is based on strong relationships. In this session participantsgo deep into what it means to build relationships based on common interests,issues and values, and practice doing "one-on-ones" as a relationship-buildingtool.
Membership Development (1 hour, 10 minutes)
This session focuses on how to buildstrong relationships and organizations that support that development of a wholegroup of people. Structured around the concepts of "building capacity, buildingstructure and building community" we use participants' life experiences to comeup with guiding principles for membership development.
Grassroots Messaging (3 hours-can be cut to 2 hours)
This session is broken into twopieces. The first focuses on developing a strong message-taking structure,opposition, connection and creativity into account. Students practice writingstrong messages and work in small groups to develop a radio ad about theircampaign. The second half of the session focuses on concrete ways to use amessage to get people to act, practicing developing different "hooks" fordifferent audiences, doing recruitment pitches to potential volunteers andgoing door knocking with a script.
Strategic Planning (2 hours, 30 minutes)Thisintense, challenging session demystifies planning, and teaches power analysisas the basis for all successful campaign plans. Participants spend the bulk ofthe time working through a case study to identify targets, map powerrelationships, develop a strategy and put together a grassroots campaign plan.
Grassroots Lobbying (1 hour, 20 minutes)
TheGrassroots Lobbying session talks about the relationship between public policy,advocacy and lobbying, and shares strategies for being an effective grassrootslobbyist. Participants spend the bulk of this session in small groups,developing and practicing lobby visits with decision-makers who are supportive,undecided and opposed to a particular issue.
Closing Session: Organizingas a Lifelong Commitment (30 minutes)
In the closingsession we talk about organizing as a career or a lifelong commitment, shareresources for getting/staying involved, share individual commitments to socialchange and gather inspiration for moving forward.