We Make the Road By Walking with Amity Foster of ISAIAH/Faith in Minnesota

This post is part of D4PB's launch series, featuring three data practitioners at grassroots organizations in Minnesota.

Amity Foster (she/her) is the Data Director at ISAIAH, a multi-faith, multi-racial statewide coalition of leaders fighting for racial, economic and social justice, and for Faith in Minnesota, ISAIAH’s sister c4 and a political home for people who want to create people-centered politics grounded in abundance and not scarcity. She started out as an executive assistant at ISAIAH, then as a leader in criminal justice organizing, and started to get clear that the institutions we all move in can either bring more people into democracy, or continue to keep people out and that to win, we build power. She believes that we build power and make systemic change when people claim their own agency and voice, and move together, with shared values and agendas. Grassroots data helps us tell the story of that power, through leadership development and base-building, and she is interested in tracking that growth, in a systematic way—of leaders in their own networks and bases and how that connects back to grassroots organizations and builds power for the organization AND individual.

ISAIAH and Faith in Minnesota are statewide organizing powerhouses building a just and abundant Minnesota through faith in action. To read more about their work, check out these two interviews with ISAIAH/FIM Executive Director Doran Schrantz, part of the “What’s Your Power Analysis” series at The Forge.

(6/3/2022) What's Your Power Analysis | An Interview with Doran Schrantz
(12/6/2023) What's Your Power Analysis | Power Is Dynamic, Relational, and Can Be Changed

The Job of a Data Person is to Make Meaning From the Data

MOLLY You’ve told me about this before, but how did you come to this role at ISAIAH/Faith in Minnesota? What was that path like?

AMITY I was originally hired as the office manager. Then I started doing more work with our executive director, scheduling for her. Then I started doing more work around grants. And then it was like, hey, we have a new database. There's a weekend retreat to go learn how to use it, go to that and come back. It wasn't as unintentional as that sounds, but I was not prepared to manage a database. I had very little understanding of organizing.

Then I started to get more involved with other organizations that helped me understand why you need data beyond just like, hey, share your email address, we want to be able to follow up with you.

This got real clear to me when Liz McKenna [author, researcher, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School] was doing research on our work. I had been doing all of our data entry for about eight years. Every single event that we held, I set up registration links, updated the attendance. And she came out with this research that shows how it matters what kind of events people are coming to and what they're being asked to do, for how you build a long-term base who will regularly come back versus people who will show up for one or two things. You want that core of people who are doing the higher level asks, who are coming to core team meetings, who are coming to the internal strategy team of the organization. Those are the people who are going to be driving the turnout for the massive events. Those are the people who are your core leaders who are grounded in your organization's values, who understand the strategy and who can invite more people in. That's what crystallized it for me. 

MOLLY And that was analysis of your data, of ISAIAH’s data, all this data that you'd been entering for eight years. 

AMITY Which was wild to me.

I make it sound like getting that data was all daisies and sunshine and wonderful. It is hard to get data. Organizers are so focused on the organizing work, which they should be. Their mission in life is to organize people, not to organize data. No one had ever said that to me. And I came into this work, like, I worked at a college library. It was very much, you do what you're told to do. Because it's your job. Anyone who has worked with organizers knows that you can't just say, hey, do this, it’s your job. It's about self-interest. It's about building power and developing leaders.

I think the job of a data person at an organization like ours is making meaning of the data to the organizers so that they'll continue to build it. I'm not going to go to an ISAIAH meeting with our leaders and say, hey, turn in your sign-in. Our organizers need to understand why we're asking for data, why we're asking for contact information, why we're asking people to sign in. It's my job to work with the organizers so that they understand why that's useful. What our data shows is how you go from 20 core leaders to a thousand people at a meeting with the governor. What's the path of those 20 people? What's the path of the 200 people that they're building? What's the path of the 500? What's the path of a thousand?

And then it feeds back into methodology, how to do it, how to organize. 

MOLLY It sounds like in a lot of ways, you created this role for yourself, in collaboration with the organization.

AMITY I don't know that I created it. I think I was told to do it. But I created it in the practice of doing it. It was trial and error. Seriously, for eight years, it just felt like trying to figure things out, both in the short term and the long term. 

There’s all kinds of data trainings you should have to be a data director or a data manager at a grassroots organization. And all of that is good. You know, most organizations are using EveryAction. You should know how to use EveryAction. You should probably have a baseline of VAN. 

But do you understand what power is and do you understand your organization's theory of change when it comes to building power? One of the things we're constantly tracking is leadership development. The tactics of it change fairly regularly. Do we have the flexibility in our data systems to change with that? There’s such an individuality about these questions for every organization and every moment. You can go to a training, but you have to continually customize it to your organization and the goals and the tactics. 

At the start of the pandemic, Minnesota had a stay at home order. That was right when we were about to roll out our spring program that would have moved into the fall voter program launch. And it was like, oh my god. Now we have to do all of these trainings over Zoom. The staff didn't know how to use Zoom. 90% of our leaders didn't know how to use Zoom. A whole bunch of them didn't have computers. It was all on their phone. And so I ended up doing a lot more trainings directly with our leaders. Usually what I'll do, if we're using a new app or something, I'll create the training, train the organizers, and then they train their base. This time I was on Zoom calls with hundreds of our leaders doing tech trainings. Every now and then I'll still get a call from one of our leaders who's like, can you help me do this?

This is what I mean. If you're going to be a data manager or a data director at a grassroots organization, it's really easy to sit in a corner and say, I manage our data. I run our research programs. I run the data for our voter programs. But I know that personally, I'm a stronger data person at ISAIAH because I know our leaders. My work doesn't exist without them, our organization doesn't exist without them. And being in spaces with them has helped me understand their commitment to their work. Every time I hear someone say oh, old people really don't like technology, we can't teach them, they're not going to learn anything new. Let me tell you about the 70- and 80-year-olds I trained over Zoom on downloading an app onto their phone while they were on the phone.

This is the less “data” part of this conversation and more - knowing who your organization's bases are helps you be a better data staff person. I think if you choose to not engage, you can be perfectly fine at your job. But you will be more creative, more willing to be flexible, and more thoughtful about how you roll out systems and what systems you use, because you know who's going to be using them.

MOLLY Absolutely. I think that this project is maybe only a third about data, and is otherwise about organizing and power.

AMITY I honestly don't know a ton of data people who are just like, yeah, I manage data and I can't really tell you about my organization. They know the people, they know their members, they know what fights are happening. I see data people at the Capitol. You show up. It’s actually hard to stay aside from it. 

Thinking Outside the Sign-Up Form

MOLLY What’s a data project that’s on your mind? What are some of the possibilities and challenges of that project?

AMITY The excitement about data right now for me is: How do we track leadership development and base-building in communities that are new to us, or where there is a fear or tension about data and about giving your personal information? Usually those fears are grounded in reality and deep abuse. How do we help move people past that? 

Our members from congregations, one of our longest-standing bases, they are familiar with our processes: fill out a form, register for an event, there's always going to be a commitment form to fill out. This is not always true with all of our bases. In bases where people have tension with data, or where our organizing is newer, we still want to track leadership development, but we have to build trust and be open.You still want to track leadership development to see how power is built and how our members are building their individual power and their ability. I mean, not to be cliche, but their ability to make change.

The challenge is then, okay, people don't want to give us their email addresses. Almost every database requires an email address. So maybe the first round of engagement with people is a series of Google Forms and Google Spreadsheets, and then we fill in the data as we get it. We have to solve those data problems so that our organizers can keep organizing and building in the community. If we don’t, they’re going to use a paper list. I do some side organizing and I have paper lists of people, that's fine. But when we're talking about data management for an organization, you're managing the collective. You can't just have people using paper because that power is never tracked back to the collective. It's just tracked back to that organizer, who is powerful in their own right, but far more powerful when they're ISAIAH and not just an individual organizer. They are powerful because they are an organizer with a base of leaders, part of the collective of ISAIAH.

Empower is a relational organizing tool, we've used it two or three cycles now, but it's always been for electoral work. One of our organizers came to me, he's like, hey, could I use that with my members, so that we can upload a script and they can ask a series of questions to their friends and we'll have all of the answers.

I know from previous experience, his leaders’ phone lists are going to be like, Molly from Dar Al Farooq, Amity from Second Street. Most people don't have their phone contact list neatly maintained, like Molly Abbattista, your full name at this address and number. 

MOLLY [Laughing] I mean, I put stuff in my phone that way. 

AMITY Well, I just went through and cleaned up my Google contacts. So now I do it like that. But this is actually getting to showing the power of our organization and the data. He’s got 20 leaders who are going to be doing this and each of them has 20 to 35 people that they're running through a set of scripts. The first script is asking friends to share their concerns, their experiences about housing and if they see themselves as community leaders. From here, we can continue to organize around those issues, and how people want to lead.

Data is a Two-Way Street

MOLLY What are you looking ahead to? What do you want to be possible that isn’t right now?

AMITY I want to get to the point where our data and the research that we're doing shows the power in our leadership development and base-building and our organizing. When I started doing data management, and pulling reports, it was focused on numbers: how many trainings, how many people trained. It was mostly for grant reports, which is good—we should know those numbers.  But, they don't demonstrate growth of power or people's leadership. Network maps of our top leaders, how our leaders are organizing in their communities—that's the kind of power I want to be able to show.

MOLLY Creating data and analysis not for funders, but for the organization first and foremost?

AMITY Yes. And for the organizing. It will be very useful for funders, but that's not the reason we're doing it. 

Part of it is for the broader field: I want other organizations to see that focusing on leadership development, on moving your leaders through a path of their own self-interest, through the tension of being a public person who is inviting more people into the organization with you - this is how you win. This is how you build power in statewide organizations. 

And I want our leaders, the people who are doing that work to see themselves in it. I showed a few of our St. Paul leaders their networks on the Faith in Minnesota St. Paul network map. I thought, they'll think it's pretty and they'll think it's cool. And they're like, this is so agitational. I thought I invited more people. I should have more connecting nodes around me. 

The data is the data. There can be a disconnect between how people are experiencing their own organizing and then what the data tells you is actually happening. One woman was like, I didn't know that many people saw me as their leader. So then it's like, okay, great. You all are on a mission now for 2024. If you've got 10 people around you already, what do you need to be doing to keep them growing?

It took me until the past few years to understand that I needed to bring the data back to the organizers. I would say to organizers all the time, the data is not just the contact information, it shows the growth of your base. But I had never really shown them that. It just never struck me that all of this data exists here for you, but you're not using it and I'm not showing you how to use it. 

I ran an event participant report for one of our organizers, to show how his base has been showing up, the last three events each person attended, how many events they've attended over the last five years. And I sent it to him and he used it to call people on that list who haven't heard from us or showed up to an event in a while. As a data person, sometimes stuff is only coming in. What do we want to give back to our organizing teams? 

I would be curious to hear from the other conversations you're having, how the data staff at organizations are getting support on what they should be giving back. Who are they talking to to help them figure things out?

I mean, literally, the first eight years at ISAIAH, there was like one organizer that I would talk to regularly. I rarely talked to leadership around big data picture things. So there was no one saying to me, hey, we should be doing monthly reports to organizers. It had to emerge somewhat organically, but maybe also a little belatedly from the organizing.

You May Lose the Election, but You’re Winning Everywhere Else

MOLLY Faith in Minnesota is a powerhouse on legislative and electoral campaigns in Minnesota. I’ve been hearing about the organization’s campaign work for years, before I moved here, and I experienced Faith in Minnesota’s mobilizing capacity firsthand in the city council elections this summer. What’s top of your mind around data and campaign work, specifically?

AMITY I don't manage our electoral data. Liam McMahon is our civic engagement director, Liam is amazing. If you asked me to cut a voter universe for you, oh my god.

MOLLY Yeah, I just learned how to do that this summer and I was like, whoa, that's different. 

AMITY I think the last time I cut turf I sent people into a river, so. You shouldn't have me doing anything like that. 

But here’s something I’m super interested in. Almost every time there's going to be an election, Faith in Minnesota will probably want to do some work around it. Our electoral work through Faith in Minnesota is incredibly powerful. And the leaders who are doing that work aren't just Faith in Minnesota leaders, they are often ISAIAH leaders. I want to map the flow of power from the daily base-building work that we do in ISAIAH, you know, the basic organizing work, one-to-one trainings, power analysis, issue campaigns. Moving from that into electoral work, into legislative work and back, and over and over and over again. A lot of times funders or groups only want to focus on electoral work. They're like, we only want to fund door knocks and phone banks and voter universes and targeted ads, that is what wins elections. No. Power wins elections. 

I mean, you need all of those things. But what wins elections is having people who are clear, who have collective analysis around issues and a shared vision of what they want their state or their city or their community to be. And they are so clear that they understand that you have to play in all of the fields of power to get that. And that means understanding power, understanding your role in it, how to understand self-interest, how to go out of voter work into the legislative work, into the city level work, and every step of the way you have to be bringing people along with you. 

That's what our data could show, I think. I don't know how to do it yet. I mean, I have ideas. But I don't know how to tie it all together to really show that this is how you win statewide over and over again. Even when you don't win, that's how you keep winning.

MOLLY You're building through the campaign. 

AMITY Yes. You may lose the election, but you're winning everywhere else. That's what I want to be able to demonstrate with the data. 

A CRM of Our Own??

MOLLY Anything else you’re thinking about?

AMITY This is the heart of a data person, the boring things. I want an internal website of all of our data resources and all of my tutorials and instructions and guides. I want that all in one place that everybody that is searchable and usable. And then also I want us to take over the world and have data infrastructure that supports the on the ground organizing work we do every day.  I think we're always going to use more tools and systems; like there's not ONE database to hold all the data and do all the things. So, I want to be part of figuring out what the best systems will be, if that means something new, or new ways of using what does exist.

I mean, I get it. It's probably always going to be some kind of for-profit thing. But I would like us to have access to databases that allow us to track power the way that we build power. We have to force it into these data systems that are so focused on electoral or so focused on traditional fundraising, they're not flexible, and the designers, the developers maybe aren't interested in making them flexible. There's probably less profit in that. And so a huge amount of my time, and I think a lot of data people's time, is spent figuring out, how do we track this? How do we do this? Or realizing, we can't do that. It's too hard. Our organizers will never do it. So it just gets left on the road. That's ridiculous. 

That's it. I want to be able to track power the way that we build power. That’s the essential struggle about using data systems for organizing.

Got an idea for a future post, someone I should talk to, or feedback of any kind? Email me at molly@tallgrassco.com! I'd love to hear from you.