We stand on the shoulders of women physicians and their allies who have fought for gender equity. How to develop strategies for policy shifts in health care was the subject of the VCH Medical Staff Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee’s recent session: Accelerating Action: How to Organize for Change. The workshop, which was facilitated by Monique Nicholas from Women Transforming Cities, provided a step-by-step guide on ways to move ideas forward.

Monique began by discussing community organizing: what it is and who it is for. She talked about the different types of changemakers: creators, resisters, investigators, nurturers, communicators, and networkers (learn what type of changemaker you are by taking this short quiz). Her talk touched on ways to find strategies to affect transformation. She used a case study to demonstrate how to transpose strategies to the workplace.

To build a campaign strategy, community organizers need to:

• Define the problem
• Determine who has the ability to solve the problem
• Learn what the people who can solve the problem want
• Figure out what resources you have that they want or need
• Organize those resources to give you enough leverage to get what you want

Workshop participants were able to participate in a theory of change activity, after which Monique introduced the concept of the spectrum of allies and talked about ways to design actions and tactics to move people/groups towards your goal. This included brainstorming active and passive allies, people who are neutral, as well as those who are actively or passively opposed.

Identifying your target—the person who has the power to fix the problem—was discussed in detail including how to power map other people/groups that impact or influence your target. Monique went on to introduce two types of tactics: building and wielding and talked about how to decide on what tactics to use.

Feedback

Thirteen of the 28 medical staff who attended the session completed the post-event survey. Most agreed that they will apply content from the session to their work.

Here are some of their comments:

• I got much more out of the presentation that I had been expecting. It was great to learn concrete tools and a framework to approach advocacy work.
• Monique was amazing—thank you for educating us and for your passion in making our communities more equitable. You are inspiring!
• Very informative session; thank you so much!
• How to incorporate CPD into your practice.
• It should have used more direct examples to health care, not just community.
• The spectrum of allies was a helpful tool to brainstorm possible targets of a campaign.
• Building before wielding. I also liked the mapping idea.
• Networking is so important.
• Discovering there can be method to the madness of raw passion to make changes.
• How to get started, think about who your allies are, who has the power.
• Research and planning are key.