Effective activism requires thinking strategically about how to solve problems, win concrete improvements in people's lives, and alter relations of power. Many GSAs use activism to make schools safer and empower students. This resouce sheet is designed to help you choose issues and think through the process of developing a strategy to make change.

How can a student group organize to create change?

1. Do community research to identify the problem and the best way to address it.
2. Using information from this research, turn the problem into an issue.
   An issue communicates what you are fighting for to help solve your problem. The issue is the goal of your campaign. If the problem is name-calling and slurs, your issue could be to reduce anti-LGBT slurs.
3. Develop a strategy using the strategy chart on the reverse side of this handout.
4. Make a to do list with everything that youwant to accomplish. Write down who will do what by when.
5. Mobilize your constituents and allies.
6. Put pressure on the target to respond.
7. Evaluate where your campaign did and did not succeed. Make a new plan to accomplish what you were not able to in your original campaign. Make sure to celebrate your victories and accomplishments, however small.

What is a strategy chart?
The strategy chart can be used as a guide to help you develop a strategy that best suits the situation at your school and the group of people who are involved in planning the action. Before you sit down to fill out the strategy chart with your activist group, you may want to gather more information. For example, you may want to bring the student handbook that outlines school policies, a list of all the staff and teachers at the school, a list of all the district employees and school board members, and any other materials that provide information about key people or policies related to the school.

Download the Strategy Chart

Goal: Goals are measurements of success or victory. A long-term goal is the ultimate goal you want to achieve. It could simply be winning the issue you have identified. A long-term goal could be implementing AB 537. Make sure to celebrate your accomplishments.

• Intermediate goals are the smaller goals that need to be accomplished to achieve your long-term goal. An intermediate goal could be getting a mandatory teacher training approved.
• Short-term goals are the steps toward achieving your intermediate goals. A short-term goal could be getting on the school board meeting agenda or doing a voluntary teacher training.

Resources: These are the strengths and weaknesses within your own activist group.

example: A strength could be the number of people you have in your group. Weaknesses might be lack of money or internal division within your group.

Groups: Groups of people are the people who are affected by the problem. There are three types of groups: constituents, allies, and opponents.

• Constituents are the people who support your campaign because they care about the issue and will be directly and positively affected by it.
• Allies are your group's allies are people who will also support you but may not necessarily join your group.
• Opponents are the people that stand to lose or be upset if you achieve your issue. Try to figure out how they are organized and how they could oppose you.

Target: The target is the person with the power to give you what you want.

• Primary target is the specific individual who has this power.
  
• Secondary target is a person who has more power over the primary target than you do and who you have more influence over than you have over the primary target.

Tactics: Tactics are the specific things that your constituents and allies can do using the resources you have to put pressure on your target to give you what you want (your goals). You may also want to include research and media as important elements in implementing your tactics.

example: Publicizing the results of a school survey about name-calling, holding a rally, running a letter writing campaign, meeting with your principal.

Strategy Chart

For more information or for hard copies of our resource sheets, contact GSA Network: Statewide Office: 1550 Bryant St, Suite 800, San Francisco, CA 94103, ph: 415.552.4229, fax: 415.552.4729 Central Valley Regional Office: 928 N. Van Ness Ave., Fresno, CA 93728, ph: 559.268.2780, f: 559.268.2786 Southern California Regional Office: 1145 Wilshire Blvd #100, Los Angeles, CA 90017, ph: 213.482.4021, f: 213.482.4027