New Organizing Institute

Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime...

Before coming to the NOI bootcamp, I considered myself many things: Iranian, a woman, a recent college grad, an activist, a daughter, a sister, one quarter Polish, one quarter Russian, an American, a New Yorker, a “political junky,” a globetrotter, a Latin American Studies nut, and last but not least, a Democrat.

I did not consider myself an "online organizer." To better convey this sentiment, it might be helpful to note that to me, html referred to the 8th, 20th, 13th, and 12th letters of the alphabet. Little did I know that in a mere 7 days, this would all change. I had never worked on a political campaign before coming to the NOI training. I had campaigned as president of various clubs as a student at Brandeis University, but the majority of my internships were sit-in-front-of-a-computer style internships.

At NOI I experienced many firsts: my first time canvassing, my first time writing a persuasive email asking people to take action, my first time learning the ins and outs of the VAN, Act Blue, web metrics, Google AdWords, earned media, and microtargeting, and my first time organizing a campaign (a mock presidential campaign to elect Stewie from the Family Guy president- GO PINK TEAM!). Usually, when someone says it was their "first time" doing something, this means that she now knows what that "something" looks like, or has an inkling of how that "something" works. This is precisely how NOI differed from any type of training I had ever been to. I actually learned to use these programs and tools in that if someone asked me to do targeting and cut turf on the VAN, I could have it ready in less than an hour.

At the NOI bootcamp, I became an online organizer in every sense of the phrase.

My only regret is that it was only a week long- not because I felt like I needed to better learn the aforementioned online organizing materials, but because being at the NOI training was an opportunity to surround myself with people who will undoubtedly change the world, and put this country on a track of progressive politics.

When I think of the NOI training, I can't help but think about the proverb “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” For having "taught us to fish," I can't thank Roz, Zack, Judith, and all of our wonderful speakers enough. But, what I can do, is put the tools that they taught us to work. That being said, I am looking forward to seeing everyone again in the near future, on a progressive campaign.

Thanks for all you do, NOI,

Sarah Farhadian

¶ posted by SarahLF @ 10:28 AM