County-by-County organizing as a “bullshit detector” – we’ve got to be able to find people who care about our message in every single county. Otherwise, what the #%?@ are we doing?

What does it mean to have a “County-by-County” organizing principle? Rural organizing is more than having a meeting once a year in Bend (Oregon’s third largest city outside of the Portland metro area).

How does a group keep momentum after a crisis moment has passed? In the aftermath of intense campaigns to defeat the anti-gay Ballot Measure #9 (1992) and a subsequent rash of similar, county and city-wide initiatives (1993-94), a touring holocaust exhibit not only mobilizes and strengthens local human dignity groups–it helps prepare them for the next crisis.

A critical first task of new Human Dignity Groups is to build a broad base of supporters. Here, ROP Founder Marcy Westerling shares the small town-tailored approach that she and other local leaders used to build lists of supporters in their rural communities.