June 2004

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Challenge and Promise of the Boston Social Forum

Jason Pramas is Coordinator of the Boston Social Forum. He is also Director of the Campaign on Contingent Work in Boston, MA, and a member of SEIU Local 888.

It's always instructive in any political effort to review the challenges we are facing day to day, and the Boston Social Forum (BSF) is certainly no exception. From the beginning, the BSF has presented local progressive activists with one of the most complex organizing campaigns in recent memory - leading up to the largest event of any kind that most of us have ever worked on.

BSF Peace Track Graphic: Leon Gerson

Which is funny because the Social Forum concept at base is a simple one: create an open space where significant numbers of progressives from across the left spectrum, and interested members of the general public, can gather for a few days to network, build alliances, put forward their best analysis of the present, and express their best visions for the future.

But creating such an open space, then filling this space with committed engaged progressive activists willing to put aside any differences they might have for a short while, is more difficult than it might appear at first glance.

Naturally, the logistical obstacles to this kind of event are a given. Pulling together a reasonable number of core organizers into a structure capable of surviving the usual internal stresses long enough to actually achieve something is hard enough. Finding a site, raising money, attracting interesting and visionary speakers, artists, and performers, getting media coverage - all these tasks take loads of hard work and dedication on the part of a mostly volunteer team.

But the toughest challenge to making the Boston Social Forum a reality has clearly been outreach. If the Forum is truly to be a landmark happening, successful in bringing folks from all different kinds of communities around Greater Boston and New England together to do the vision thing - in hopes of emerging with stronger and broader social movements in the months and years following the event - then outreach for the Forum has to be very broad indeed.

So how did an effort that began with only the staff of two small local non-profits create the large multiracial network that is working on the Boston Social Forum today?

Taking a tip from the World Social Forum process from which we spring, we built Forum outreach organizationally. The original core BSF activists went group to group to group - doing our best to find key organizations in key communities - and talked to their staff, board, and activists about why we were building the BSF, and why we thought they should work together with us to make it a reality. Over the course of 19 months, we invited all the groups that expressed interest into a loose but resilient committee structure. We encouraged these new groups to reach out to other groups they knew. And we kept building relationships and friendships as we went along - taking pains to show up at other organizers' events - and trying not to take people for granted once they joined up with us.

As of early June, over 50 organizations in the Boston area, and over 20 organizations around New England, are working together on this one big event. Over 100 activists are working on one or another aspect of the BSF in our various committees and teams. And a solid core of about 20 folks is doing work for at least a few hours each week. We've raised about $50,000 so far and are on target to raise the rest of our budget. We have 2 full-time paid staff working on fundraising and coordinating volunteers. We have people with all kinds of expertise helping out with all kinds of tasks, and we can now say with some certainty that the BSF will succeed.

Good outreach is not rocket science, but it takes patience, good communication, and a willingness to take the time to do the same thing over and over again until you achieve your goal. Outreach must be done to groups that are not be immediately interested, but may become interested over time. Some groups may be too busy to get very involved, but need to be encouraged to do what they can. Some groups will never be interested even when organizers think they "should" be. Patience is all important. Yet with persistence, results come.

The response of groups like the American Friends Service Committee and the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project, which have rolled the BSF into their normal workplan, has been most gratifying. Dozens of other groups are also devoting significant amounts of staff and activist time and fundraising acumen to the project.

The BSF outreach strategy is not done yet, however. Now we are beginning to reach more deeply into communities around Boston. Our goal is to bring the World Social Forum process right down to the grassroots, and in doing so to help build stronger progressive movements in this region. Will we succeed? Only time will tell. But we're willing to give it a try. And we encourage everyone reading this to join us in making the BSF the fun and groundbreaking event that so many of us having been working so hard to bring to fruition.

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