Organizing with Better Angels

Better Angels Organizers are red and blue organizers who, working together, begin the process of depolarizing our communities and, gradually, our nation, by offering community-based Red/Blue Workshops. Organizers are the key leaders who actually bring the two sides together.

Each Red/Blue Workshop requires at least one red organizer and one blue organizer. There are two versions of the Red/Blue Workshop: a 3-hour version and a day-long version (7 hours).

What does an organizer do?

1. Find an organizer of the opposite color to form an organizing team.
2. As an organizing team, secure a venue for the workshop.
3. Recruit 5-7 participants of your own political color for a Red/Blue Workshop. (An organizer may be a participant in the workshop.)
4. As an organizing team, coordinate logistics for the workshop or secure a logistics coordinator. Logistics to consider include setting up the venue, providing name tags, registering people into the workshop, providing any food/snacks, and cleaning up the venue.
5. Provide interested workshop participants with information on how to form a Better Angels Alliance—a group of local reds and blues who have participated in a Better Angels workshop and want to keep the conversation going—or connect them to an existing local Alliance.

Note that an organizer is not responsible for facilitating the workshop itself; two trained Better Angels moderators facilitate the workshops. Better Angels will connect you with volunteer moderators, or give you information on how to recruit moderators in your region if there are no moderators in your region.

How does Better Angels support organizers?

1. Monthly support calls and opportunities to connect with other Better Angels organizers across the country.
2. A Workshop Resources page that includes materials for finding organizers of opposite political color, recruiting workshop participants, how-to-manuals, and video demonstrations of workshops.
3. Responses to questions on organizing workshops, including trouble shooting challenges you experience. This will be provided mainly through email responses and the monthly support calls.
4. Connections with Better Angels moderators, who facilitate the workshops.

To take the next step, become a member of Better Angels then click here to officially enroll as a Better Angels Organizer.

Listen to the Better Angels Organizer Orientation for more information:

Let’s go out there and depolarize America!