Proposal for CAGJ structure during 2023-2024 Transition
CAGJ Farmworker Banner
This year is the 25th Anniversary of WTO, when many were inspired to create a new kind of radical organizing in Seattle, and out of that moment, 23 years ago, CAGJ created this alliance that includes environmentalists, sustainable agriculture advocates, unionists and global justice activists.
Today we are at a key juncture for CAGJ, due to a number of intersecting events. As CAGJ has matured, we have not been attracting many new members or leadership, especially in the past few years. At the same time, some of our key funders have announced that they are cutting back their grants and donations in our sector.
The Steering committee and other leaders have been deliberating about how to move forward with a smaller financial base and lack of new leadership. We have come to the conclusion that the decision – while formally ours to make – belongs to the community of CAGJ.
We held a meeting in September for CAGJ members and current leaders. What we came to was the idea to see if a collective of community members can take over leadership for reinventing CAGJ. We hope this will open up space for new ideas about the future of CAGJ. We invite your ideas and participation.
CAGJ’s structure
The proposed structure in CAGJ’s next phase consists of 2 bodies:
- Board
- Volunteer Collective
These could operate independently or separately, in which case there would need to be liaisons between the bodies.
Board
- CAGJ is currently led by a Steering Committee (SC)
- The SC proposes a transition to a more traditional board structure, with defined volunteer roles, to ensure the health and integrity of the organization.
- We are currently recruiting a board president, treasurer and secretary.
- Members of the board will ensure basic functions such as filing annual reports with WA state, paying taxes and bills, and payroll.
- The board will be responsible for ensuring CAGJ’s financial health by creating annual budgets, ensuring book-keeping tasks, etc.
- The board will approve requests for funds from the volunteer collective, as needed.
- Board members can be integrated into the Collective and/or operate separately, depending on what works best.
- CAGJ’s Operations Goddess, Sara Lavenhar, will work with the board and book-keeper to support day-to-day functioning. Sara is a contractor who currently works 10 hours per week.
Volunteer Collective
WHY form a volunteer collective at this time?
- We want a collective that can support each other to carry on the community alliance that is a part of a global movement for global resistance.
- CAGJ is a longstanding food justice institution that could be a container for new ideas during this transitional moment, with a supportive membership base, extensive communications network, and trust in the community. It would be strategic to continue to utilize these established networks to further community projects.
- CAGJ contains AGRA Watch, whose volunteer members would like to maintain our relationships with African partners, and find strategic ways to be in solidarity, when appropriate; a volunteer collective is necessary to help support these actions.
HOW: Proposed structure of Collective
- PARTICIPATION:
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- 5-7 people as a goal to start: just enough to work together; any smaller is too fragile.
- It would be made up of people who want a place to work collectively on the food sovereignty issues that call to them. For example:
- Identify ways to continue to be in solidarity and provide support for community, including farmers/farmworkers/food workers/indigenous fishers who CAGJ has had relationships with, and/or others
- Political education for ourselves and the community
- AGRA Watch wants to continue to be affiliated, and bring work to this collective to consider.
- Collective members will take on specific responsibilities , such as holding on to existing relationships with partner organizations, or bottom lining one of the new emerging projects.
- LOCATION:
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- As a Seattle-based organization, most members should be in the Pacific Northwest, but we welcome participation from afar as well (this is how CAGJ has functioned since Covid, and we often meet via Zoom).
- SCHEDULE:
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- Collective to meet virtually once per month, (or more frequently if desired).
- Collective members will have the option of meeting in person at monthly dinner parties hosted by Heather Day, along with the broader CAGJ community. These will be scheduled in coordination with the Collective to ensure they take place at a different time from the regular meetings.
- DECISION-MAKING & STRUCTURE:
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- Decisions to be made by consensus originally
- Everyone who has attended “x” number of collective (or other) meetings (TBD by collective) has a stake in the decisions.
- When the time comes for more structure, i.e. there is more than one project happening, suggestion is to create a spokes/wheel structure, meaning decisions that don’t pertain to the whole should be made by the group doing the work.
- New projects, requests for endorsements or partnerships should be decided on by the collective.
- Any decisions impacting finances must be approved by the board.
- Communications are a collective resource of CAGJ that include social media channels, multiple listservs, and a monthly Enews. The collective (and board?) will decide who gets access, and can work with CAGJ’s operations guru Sara to utilize these channels, keeping in mind that it’s important to streamline communication.
- CAGJ’S SOLIDARITY PARTNERS
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- We hope to build on the relationships that have been CAGJ’s traditionally, but strive to open the conversation to a broader community. It is up to the collective to decide on priorities for itself.
- These are CAGJ’s longstanding partner organizations:
- UFCW 3000: Food Chain workers
- Familias Unidas por la Justicia union (known as FUJ): Farmworkers
- Community to Community Development (known as C2C: Farmworkers
- Block Corporate Salmon: Indigenous food sovereignty, protesting GE salmon
- WA Fair Trade Coalition
- Movement partners: CAGJ is a member and participates in these organizations:
- AFSA-Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa
- NFFC-National Family Farm Coalition (pay annual dues)
- USFSA-US Food Sovereignty Alliance
Principles
To be decided as it forms, but here is a start:
- We stand with people who have been oppressed and who are organizing for the change they want to see.
- We want to work with people who want a new economy/culture that is regenerative in intent and resilient in nature.
- The collective members support each other to do projects that matter to them.
- As a starting place, the collective will adopt the current mission statement, “CAGJ strengthens the global food sovereignty movement through community education and mobilization.”
Join us for an Interest Meeting on November 20!
WEDNESDAY November 20
6:30 – 7:45PM via Zoom
CAGJ will be holding a meeting for those interested in learning more about how to get involved in the Board or Volunteer Collective. Please let us know if you can attend!
If you’re unable to attend on the 20th, but want to learn more about the new structure and how to get involved, please fill out the form and let us know when would be a good time to meet, and someone will reach out to you soon.
