The Power of Community Driven Change

Community driven change is more sustainable because it shifts our collective social values.

There are clear guidelines for creating bottom up change. These grassroots guidelines can be adapted to fit almost any situation, cause, or opportunity.

Four days before we knew the result of the Australians Same-Sex Marriage survey, I gave a TEDxPerth talk. I used that opportunity to share my optimistic views about the process and changes I observed. The Same-Sex Marriage postal survey campaign is a perfect case study in how these movements are made and why they stick.

Watch the TEDxPerth talk here.

Read the talk below:

“Hello this is Emma” is how I answer my phone, and it hasn’t changed in almost 10 years. It’s a trick to save a few precious seconds on every call. I learned it on my first campaign with my very first cell phone- a pink blackberry mini. I was 17 and got into the campaign because my friend Emily asked me to go doorknocking with her one Saturday afternoon. After having a few conversations with strangers, I was hooked.

What captured my heart in that first campaign was building connections, and connecting others to new people and experiences.

Field Campaigning facilitates deep friendships amongst volunteers, and through phonecalling and doorknocking enables hundreds of conversations between fellow community members.

I was a young idealist and this was a clear, actionable way to change the world.

Campaigning has brought me all over the world, from Northern Minnesota to San Francisco, from Wisconsin to Trinidad and Tobago. And most recently, Western Australia.

I’ve lived in Perth for 18months now. I came out here to work on two electoral projects.

Lucky that, because I was able to participate and witness a very important campaign. Two months ago I started on the Marriage Equality Campaign as the WA State Coordinator.

Before we get started, I have to add – I am an ally in this fight. I am a white, cis, hetero female. I was raised by a village of gay and lesbian artists – Andy and Andrew, Sandy and Rochelle, Jeff and David and Chuck. Chuck gave me my first pair of heels – glow in the dark platforms, size 11. They are my family and absolutely shaped who I am today. They are the people I was fighting for in this campaign.

Today is November 11th. Four days ago Australia finished voting on whether same-sex marriage should be legal. In four days time, we will know the result. Right now, here today, we are in a suspended moment in history, where the campaigning is over and we can discuss this process without the results clouding the analysis.

The process was unprecedented in Australia. It was a non-binding, voluntary, postal survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (the ABS), not the Australian Electoral Commission. The voting period was set over 6 weeks and cost the government more than $120 Million dollars. 

When we talk about change, and how change comes about in society, it comes down to top down change or bottom up change. Top down change is when the institution at the top makes an executive decision, and the people fight or fall within that system. Bottom up change relies on individuals to independently create change, which become the collective norm or system.

An example of top down change is the US supreme court decided that Same Sex Marriage was legal. What this meant practically was that you could be super out and proud on the coasts, but it was still difficult to be gay or transgender in the middle of the country. We hadn’t had that conversation yet.

Here in Australia this Same-Sex Marriage postal survey is creating a bottom up change in our culture. Individuals are having conversations and demonstrations across regional and metro Australia about Same-Sex Marriage, and broadly the rights of LGBTI people.

Top down decisions are necessary at times don’t get me wrong, but genuine cultural acceptance comes from bottom up change, where people sit down in living rooms, sports clubs, churches, and at the pub to discuss and discover our shared values as a community.

You can only achieve bottom up change if the public is engaged and participating at a high level.

There is objective evidence to the high participation rate in this campaign. For a voluntary, postal survey, voter turnout was 77%, 12.3 Million Australians are estimated to have returned their survey. That beats voter turnout for Trump, Brexit, and the Ireland Constitutional Referendum for Same-Sex Marriage. Consider Australian Local Government Elections, which are voluntary, postal surveys, over a multi-week voting period, voter turnout is 20-30%.

I have witnessed few examples of truly organic participation in all my years campaigning.

It simply defies my two rules of campaigning, which are:

1. No one cares about your issue, and

2. Everyone is lazy.

However in this campaign, there were numerous examples of people being proactive.

Let me tell you about my friends younger brother. This guy was typically apathetic, didn’t give two shakes about politics or current affairs. But when he realised all the ABS surveys in his apartment building had been damaged and stolen, he took it upon himself to a) figure out how to replace them b) replace them for his entire building and c) write a note for their notice board explaining what happened and the instructions on how to replace an ABS survey. Then he took it one step further, and copied those instructions on how to replace a survey and posted them up at his workplace. That is an incredible amount of effort and initiative for someone to do without being asked.

Bottom up change occurs when people like this take it on, and become personally invested in the issue. That drives them to identify solutions and act.

So - Why was there such high participation?

One is that LGBTIQ+ rights are a global issue. It crosses class, gender, race, ableness, age, every single –ism. That is unifying in itself. people from a variety of background share this common thread. The global nature is overwhelming and motivates people to act.

Another reason is due to the simplicity of the question. “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” No major economic ramifications, or complicated systems to consider. Just about marriage.

The simplicity of the question made it very clear to determine which side you were on, and people quickly took a side. Once they established a side, individuals and organisations jumped to participate in their own unique way.

Businesses came forward and made a rainbow version of their logo, or a clever statement. Sports organisations like the Australian Footy League and National Rugby Leagued defended their Yes position in the face of political and media backlash. Entire neighbourhoods worked together to paint a fence rainbow or chalk the sidewalk.

And most of this activity was not organised by the central campaign. Some said the campaign was leaderless, lacking a single figurehead. That was its strength, in that everyday people, everywhere, took it upon themselves to lead in their own way.

Perhaps most surprising to me, given my political background, was the different political parties and ideologies that came together and got involved publicly around same sex marriage.

If our beliefs were a venn diagram, we would overlap on a thin margin. This middle ground created an opportunity for individuals to have one on one conversations.

Sonia and Suzette were volunteers on the campaign. One is a union organiser and the other is a former Liberal party staffer. One was apprehensive about meeting her first Liberal, the other disliked unionists. They come from the far left and right of the political spectrum. A highly unexpected friendship indeed.

Through volunteering on this campaign Sonia and Suzette have developed an understanding and appreciation for each others work, and respect for one another despite their political differences.

All these people and organisations came together and participated in this debate.

There are three key reasons why high levels of participation around an issue generate bottom up change:

One, because when individuals campaign, it is so pervasive. Everyone is talking about this issue in different spaces, spaces where values based conversations about politics and religion usually don’t occur. These are new conversations.

Two, People are sharing their personal story. They are having the tough conversations one by one through their personal network. Sharing these experiences spreads understanding and empathy, which changes the way people view an issue.

Third, is that because of this conversation happening neighbour to neighbour, colleague to colleague, we collectively identify our community values. Discussing and establishing our shared values is so powerful. Because once we’ve decided and named those values, it’s in our cultural identity. We can stand by them and fight for them proudly as a united community.

The conversation was not always respectful, and this entire exercise caused enormous pain throughout the LGBTIQ community. Asking any segment of society to vote, going cap in hand to their neighbours, asking for their dignity and self worth is immensely painful.

This mechanism for decision making was unprecedented, and forced to a public debate due to a failure of leadership in our representative democracy.

Even though we didn’t ask for this postal survey, Win, lose, or draw, we cannot deny that a bottom up change has occurred through this process.

High levels of participation and individual engagement from diverse perspectives, drives activity into communities, in unique and unexpected ways.

That forces new conversations to occur, and through these conversations we share information and experiences, which spreads understanding and empathy.

By having these conversations, we discover our shared values and collective identity, which creates change, on an individual level, from the bottom up.