For the past 6 months I’ve been consulting the All-Ages Movement Project (AMP), a member-driven network of community based organizations that connect young people through independent music and art. AMP connects DIY and grassroots music organizations together to make them stronger, and currently has assembled a network of 94 organizations across the country.
While organizations like The Young Dems tend to get all the attention from funders for “building the progressive youth movement”, we need to remember that if there’s any movement to be had, it will be built on the backs of musicians, artists and individuals who have the cultural capital to rally kids from a diversity of backgrounds. Music communities are exceptional at reaching young people, because they are essentially created by young people.
AMP organizations work hand-in-hand with these music scenes. In some instances, they are the music scenes. Because of this, they are usually the first to open doors for young people to get involved in their communities and build skills for the future.
Shannon Stewart, AMP’s chief coordinator, has been cultivating a series articles spotlighting some of the most interesting and successful of these music organizations in an attempt to demystify the processes behind them and raise awareness to potential funders. Below is the first in a continuing series.
Although many of these venues and music-related organizations get overlooked in the youth-organizing scene, they tend to have an mind alteringly positive impact on the communities and kids they reach. They do outreach to the kids who fall between the cracks, and cover for our broken educational system by providing leadership building and work skills to kids from urban backgrounds.
AMP organizations deserve to be scrutinized, as they are on the cutting edge of marketing civic engagement and community involvement to Millennials. As progressives working in Millennial politics, it is our job to hold these institutions up as the organizing models of the future, make sure they're well funded, and make their organizing models accessible to every community in the country.
In this vein, I am republishing AMP's organizational spotlight series here on FM, so you can get to know a few of the estimated 200-300 orgs across the country working in the trenches- changing the lives of young people and the direction of this country by making activism and participation cool again.
Turn the Beat Around: Youth, Art and Activism at 924 Gilman
By Shannon Stewart
SPOTLIGHT ON 924 GILMAN'S PARTICIPATORY STRUCTURE
You Are Responsible for Your Participation
When you first walk into the little warehouse in front of a canning shop on Gilman Street you might, like me, stand in the middle of the room sort of awkwardly and wait for someone to ask if they can help you.
And you will stand there for a while.
The second time I did this, the back door was propped open and the sun backlit people walking in and moving around me as if I were an inanimate object rather than a curious and semi-lost looking person standing in the middle of the concrete space.
As I wondered whom I should talk to about getting on the agenda for the 924 Gilman membership meeting, some guys in clad shirts screaming band names in scratchy fonts moved nasty couches around and disturbed the mice hanging out underneath. I flinched at the sight of the urban wildlife inside and was rewarded with a couple knowing smirks. Strike one.
People meandered in. A whiteboard was slid out and propped up against some chairs with all-caps agenda items like "BOOKING" and "SECURITY." We were 12 people: mostly male, mostly wearing all-black clothing. One person was putting trucks on a new skate deck.
Ben, the facilitator, pushed his thick black glasses up the bridge of his nose and pulled a pen out of the front pocket of his plaid button up shirt. "OK, let's get started. First of all, does anyone have anything they would like to add to the agenda?" There were a few retorts back, and then he says, " OK, well how about you go first then?" I looked up from my notes to find 11 mostly disinterested sets of eyes focused on me, seemingly sizing me up. I passed around a few copies of my case-study proposal. I knew that every major decision at Gilman is passed through membership.
After a few questions about my proposal, Mike asked if anyone "wanted to vote" on whether or not they approved of Gilman's participatory structure being written about. Even though every decision has to go through membership, not everything is voted on, and in this case, no one piped up. This struck me as such a no-brainer way to keep every decision from seeming process-heavy as they normally do in collective settings.
The conversation then moved on to a lengthy discussion about creating a new "head of security" position and formulating the best strategy for working with the city in dealing with noise complaints.
