Dilraj Kaur September 2025

Five years into organising and now beginning my sixth year, something feels different. I carry a deeper knowledge of the method and the theory of change, but also the same question that I think most people with a moral compass—or who see organising as a practice of their faith or as a vocation—ask themselves: Am I, are we, really—yes really—making a difference?

This question feels especially important because of the people we have brought with us along the way. And, in all honesty, as is human nature, I began my sixth year reflecting on the failures: the street lighting that wasn’t installed correctly, the 450 homes we spent hours campaigning for—including 12 gruelling hours at council planning committee meetings—which we won, yet may all go down the drain.

Timely enough, the start of my sixth year coincided with our Mission and Impact Report. As I sat there dreading the task of writing it, I reminded myself of the satisfaction that always washes over me once it’s complete—the reflection on the year and the reminder of the impact our collective hard work has made. Celebrating the wins and reviewing the year has also been hugely beneficial for our leadership team—who, given recent political events both internal and external, also seem to be questioning whether their hard work is truly making a difference. Looking back on the number of people we’ve engaged, trained, the small victories of local crossings, school timetables, relationships with MPs, ‘It’s not banter’ campaign, and securing selective licensing—it reassures me that, as a young chapter, we are doing okay. More than okay.

We do this because we respect our work—and we respect our work because we respect the lives of the people (George Goehl) we train, engage, and listen to. We do not always get it right, however. I think of Jack, a volunteer at a member organisation. Fighting cancer himself, in pain, while his daughter remained unable to secure social housing. We told him organising is slow, that he needed to be with us for the long run. At first, he seemed enthused. But when council officers heard his daughter’s story—how she had reached the top of the housing list, only to somehow fall back into the 40s—he poured out his pain to them in public. The officers made promises: more affordable housing, and personal help for Jack’s daughter. They didn’t deliver. Months later, Jack angrily left a campaign meeting, saying none of this was making a difference—his daughter was still sleeping on a sofa—and he could no longer be involved. He stopped returning calls. We felt his pain. Jack left, but I now see Jack in many people.

Mondros and Minieri write:

“The rule is that you can’t just convene people to talk about what they’re experiencing. We don’t want people to bleed in public, but we’ve got to get people to understand how society is failing them, who is responsible, and who can give us what we want. Then we’ve got to move them to action, even if it doesn’t fit into existing campaigns. You have to get people to act on the anger and the hope that we’re trying to inspire, or pull it up out of people.”

Listening in organising is hard. We listen to build relational power, seek leaders, identify issues that move us to act, re-listen to find common concerns, and hone in on winnable and worthwhile campaigns. Over my five years, I’ve seen that we can get people to show up and share their issues, but moving them to act is the greater challenge.

In our housing listening, we convened parents to share their struggles. I explained that we are here to win systemic change, that their stories would shape our campaigns, and that their action would build them. But one parent, on hearing that I was not there to fix her immediate need for a house, left. Another mother told how her family had been moved five times within six months to different hostel rooms, with no Wi-Fi and drug abuse present. After five months, she finally expressed her deepest gratitude for securing a home. Another parent said she believed the only way to get a house was by turning up to the council in a “rubber dinghy.” She then unfolded a piece of paper and asked me for advice, thinking I was from Citizens Advice. Classic.

Many are happy to tell their stories, but few are ready to act. There is a culture of “someone else’s problem,” disillusionment turning into apathy, and the deeper modern issue: a lack of interest in public life. I try to teach my young children that when they come to me with a problem, we must also think together about the solution and act to solve it. But the question still lingers: who can blame people for not acting when they desperately need a basic need addressed?

I think about Jack often. Could I have done something differently? Mondros and Minieri remind us: “We’ve got to move them to action, even if it doesn’t fit into existing campaigns.” I am still learning. How do we stay true to building systemic change while also blurring the lines with other forms of change, like service delivery? I am by no means a true orthodox organiser—or orthodox anything. I find frameworks and boxes helpful, but also a trap for losing compassion.  The openness, curiosity and ability to adapt I believe can aid us to organise across difference.

When training others, I stress that this is one model of organising, but I use the suffragette movement as an example: all forms of change were needed for us to have the vote today. I am still learning how to engage with everyone’s self-interest without burning out. We meet between 9–20 people a week. Do we need to be more intentional about which self-interests to engage and how deeply? With our housing campaign, I’m curious about how we can weave workshops and advice into our organising, ensuring both action and support.

Mondros and Minieri share the case study of Make the Road in New York—where people, before seeing a lawyer, first meet a receptionist trained in relational questions, then an organiser. I think about how we can embed this model in our housing campaign. We began yesterday, at our first post-summer housing meeting. First, we are building the power of pastoral leads in schools—we’re calling it “Pastoral Power”—to bring them into the campaign, as they see firsthand the flaws in the homelessness notification system. Next, we are partnering with PECT to advise families on damp and mould issues—still a work in progress.

The challenge will be ensuring people don’t just leave with a leaflet, but also with the agency to join the campaign. This depends on how well we tell stories, expose systemic flaws, and move them to action. I look forward to learning from Cardiff and Newham, who have been developing this model. I want to see it in practice, learn what works, and adapt it so we engage people’s self-interest while ensuring no one bleeds in public without support—and while staying true to our theory of change and our drive to win.