Enlace Institute

The Enlace Institute’s purpose is to advance the field of strategic organizational development. The Institute assists organizations of low-wage workers to develop disciplined, mutually accountable teams who continually improve the work of the organizations for their constituencies.
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2009 Enlace Institute Year-End Report

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In 2009 Enlace realized a long-held dream. Last spring we were able to start the Enlace Institute. Its purpose is to develop strategic planning and organizational development expertise in low-income community organizations and in the movement for social and economic justice in the United States and Mexico. Among our many goals for the Enlace Institute, two are crucial: improving the economic standing and the leadership skills of low-wage workers and strengthening and stabilizing low-wage workers organizations.

The core program of the Enlace Institute is the Peer Trainers Program. This two-year program provides two training sessions per year. We are giving over 30 staff and leaders from 25 low-wage workers organizations in the U.S. and Mexico the skills to improve the work of their organizations through collaborative techniques, teambuilding and strategic planning. These organizations are the best hope for empowering low-wage workers and their communities, particularly among immigrant groups in the United States.
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The peer trainers take the skills learned at training sessions back to their organizations with the expectation that they will implement them as well as train co-workers in how to use them. The trainings for Year 1 are now completed, except for one remaining training in Mexico that will take place January 21-22.

In 2009 Enlace staff trained the participants in three frameworks. Frameworks are collaborative brainstorming processes that are useful for virtually all work groups in base-building organizations, including top staff leadership teams, strategy groups, organizing teams, boards of directors, and teams that include volunteers. A few can be used by an individual. The frameworks were first developed by Enlace co-director Peter Cervantes-Gautschi in the 1980s. They have been built upon and improved over the past 11 years by Enlace trainers and participants from the over 70 organizations from Mexico and the U.S. that have received training from Enlace.
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In the first session of Institute, Peer Trainers learned Enlace’s Evaluation Star framework. Rather than assigning blame, the Evaluation Star sheds light on areas a team needs to address in any future plans. It is grounded in measuring the depth and growth of the organization’s base (in leaders and leadership) while at the same time analyzing the quality of the group’s operations, internal coordination, strategy, and the effectiveness of its work.

In the second session, Peer Trainers learned two frameworks. 1) Strategic Direction is valuable in a situation when a team is experiencing doubt or frustration in accomplishing an objective or when a team is in a rut or lacks focus or a clear priority. A group of almost any size can use this process to improve or to create a new strategy when the current one is not moving the team closer to its objective. 2) The Rap is the basic process for motivating and recruiting. It is used to persuade people in any role in the organization to commit to something new or to recruit new people to participate in one of the organization’s activities or campaigns. The legendary Fred Ross developed the Rap and taught it to hundreds of organizers, including those who built the United Farm Workers.
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Before and after training sessions we conduct extensive mentoring interviews with the participants, to ensure they are implementing the frameworks in their own organizations and to brainstorm with them ways to overcome any roadblocks or hesitancies they are encountering.

Some of the feedback that we have received from Peer Trainers to date include:
Guillermina Castellanos, Women’s Collective and Day Labor Program of La Raza Centro Legal: At the training it is very beneficial to interact with other organizers and learn how they organize and the incredible victories of their organizations. The training also provides space to learn how they train the staff and build membership leadership; it gives us other perspectives and ideas for developing leadership and staff. Our organization also benefits from this as we form valuable alliances, and being a part of Enlace is a great opportunity to grow and strengthen as an organization.

Evelin Urrutia, Tenants and Workers United: We used Strategic Direction with all of the staff at TWU, and it was very useful. Everyone participated and felt very comfortable with the new plans that we developed for each program.

Lino Pedres, SEIU Local 1877: Using the Evaluation Star the organizers prepared the information needed in order to have a comprehensive evaluation on the current supermarkets organizing project. The participants were able to identify weaknesses and strengths of our organization. At the same time we were able to get focused and find ways to build more capacity with the same resources. It is a great tool to evaluate effectively.

Other trainings and collaborations

In 2009 we gave our third supervisors training to directors and leads at the June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco.

In addition, we have produced a new brochure that highlights all of Enlace’s training programs as well as individual consultation available to organizations and local government entities. Click here for the brochure.

Enlace is collaborating with the UCLA Labor Center’s Institute for Transnational Social Change to write a case study of the Sara Lee Campaign in order to explain our Integrated Organizing Approach.

Thank you to the Ford Foundation for providing major support for the Enlace Institute!

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