Mutual Aid

Summary, part 3

Working Together on Purpose

The Nitty-Gritty of Collaboration

In order to build strong structures for mutual aid projects, activists must be “effective at saving lives and mobilizing people” (p. 65). To build strong structures, we must factor in the following:

• Groups are more effective when people know how to raise concerns, propose ideas, or if they generally feel as though they are part of the decision making process.

• Clear decision-making structures should be created. When they’re not, the groups are more vulnerable to selling out and burnout is common due to improper delegation.

• Three organizational tendencies can cause issues: 1. Secrecy, hierarchy, and lack of clarity; 2. Over-promising and under-delivering, nonresponsiveness, and elitism; 3. Scarcity, urgency, competition (p. 67).

• Group culture will vary from group to group. Refer to this chart for a comparison of the helpful vs. potentially harmful qualities in a group.

Consensus Decision-Making

Groups can only work effectively if people feel like they are part of the decision making process. For mutual aid groups, Spade recommends utilizing consensus decision-making, which gives room for all members’ concerns to be addressed. This in turn can make members more interested in the group's activities because they had a say in them. A majority-rules system can breed competition over ideas, whereas consensus decision-making systems can foster a new sense of participation where we learn to value and desire other people’s ideas.

So, what does it actually look like? Consensus Decision-Making can take many forms, but Spade clearly outlines the process in Chart 5 (p. 78). 

• Group hashes out a proposal and works with it until it becomes something most can agree on;

• Call for a consensus check to see if there are any stand asides (members who want to show that they disagree, but don’t want to block the proposal), or any blocks (members who feel the proposal cannot be passed without modification).

• The blocks can share their concerns, and then the group will re-examine the proposal.

With consensus, decision-making members can speak more openly whereas, in hierarchical organizations, people may be discouraged because they either think no one is listening or that there may be negative consequences to disagreeing. More open decisions mean better decisions overall.

This method can also help prevent co-option. Co-option is when a mutual aid group’s service is rebranded and separated from the mutual aid group by an individual. To prevent this, every individual must feel heard. Some mutual aid groups have criteria and guidelines set up to make sure that typically marginalized voices are heard. For example, if all of the undocumented people or all of the women in a group disagree with something, the decision should be reevaluated. 

Five practices that set up efficient, effective consensus decision-making:

1. Creating a decision-making chart: Deciding which decisions can be made by each team, and which should be brought to the whole group/

2. Practicing proposal-making: Treat ideas as a “proposal” rather than an idea. Group members are more inclined to modify and discuss a proposal.

3. Practicing meeting facilitation: 

   1. Start and end on time; 

   2. Write an agenda (refer to this chart for an agenda template); 

   3. Assign a notetaker; assign each agenda item an allotted amount of time;

   4. Provide food, beverages, poetry,  game, or music; and

   5. Consider going around to each person of the group on more important issues.

4. Welcoming new people by:

   1. Making meetings accessible and interesting to new members;

   2. Allowing new people to share their ideas; and

   3. Making meetings transparent so people don’t feel lost. This could mean explaining the decision-making process, sharing budget information, or simply opening up the floor to questions frequently.

5. Creating teams: Breaking off into task-specific teams within your group to address the different facets of the issue you’re solving.

Leadership Qualities that Support Mutuality and Collaboration

First, we need to shed our preexisting notions of what we believe leadership is. Traditionally, that model is more about individuality, competition, and domination. Instead, we must adopt cooperative leadership. Refer to this chart (p. 108).