PB Evanston Engagement Ladder

Organizing is about helping other people build capacity for change. But social change seems difficult, and none of are motivated by a goal that we don’t think is too difficult to achieve.

In fact, people pursue goals that take decades to achieve all the time, like becoming a doctor or scientist, starting a business, and raising kids. It’s much easier to achieve long-term goals when there are examples, structure, and community that supports achieving that goal (like school). These support help us take many little steps over many years — each step by itself is not too difficult to achieve. Unfortunately, there aren’t many schools for learning organizing.

Organizers create engagement ladders, that help people move from affiliating with an organization, to participating in action, to committing to outcomes, and to helping others become organizers (Han, XXX). Each step on the engagement ladder is small enough that going from one rung to the next is not too hard.

Participatory budgeting has an engagement ladder that supports people to generate ideas, develop proposals, and vote.

PB Evanston’s engagement ladder focuses on moving people interested in volunteering to become leaders.