This is the future of digital organizing and civic tech
What the Kairos Fellowship is planning for 2018
Apply now for the Spring 2018 Fellowship: http://bit.ly/Kairos18
By Mariana Ruiz-Firmat
When we started the Kairos Fellowship three years ago, our goal was to build a pipeline for people of color into digital organizing and civic technology. But pretty quickly, we realized that our mission needed to shift — instead of just focusing on building a pipeline to existing organizations, we actually needed to have a laser sharp focus on centering the leadership and growth of people of color, Black folks, and queer and trans organizers in civic tech and to facilitate partnerships between groups on the ground who are mostly POC-led and digital organizations, in order to better serve the broader movement for social justice.
The reality is that the digital tools that many of us use to organize and the ones being built right now are built by and for white people. They weren’t built with communities of color in mind, nor were they developed to meet the needs of frontline organizers and grassroots groups. When the predominant way that we’ve organized online for the past two decades has been starting petitions, and then throwing our weight behind the ones that go viral, no matter what their goal, that too often leaves communities of color and other marginalized groups behind.
At Kairos, we believe the genius that exists to change digital tools and develop new tech-based organizing models lives and breaths within communities of color but needs to be unlocked, supported and nurtured in service of movement building.
At Kairos, we are building a new model, one in which digital organizations and civic tech leaders partner with frontline communities, where we prioritize organizing and collaborating with community-based organizations that are led by people of color. This is the future of digital organizing and civic tech.
There is a wave of leaders of color that are grappling with technology and building new innovations within tech to serve our movements and communities. Color of Change has showed us what can be accomplished when tech innovations like SMS messaging for organizing are used in ways that meet the needs of Black voters. MPower Change worked with CUNY CLEAR to build the Border Buddy app, which notifies friends and family if you get detained at the airport or at the border. And 18MillionRising created VoterVOX, a platform that connects voters with limited English proficiency with a translator who can help them cast ballots. It’s tools like that these — ones that are built when civic tech leaders collaborate with community-based organizations — that we need now and in the years to come. These are the tools that Kairos wants to foster and see more of. We’re going to see more and more of that important work in the years to come, and our vision is for Kairos Fellows and alumni to be leading that work.
In 2018, Kairos will still be training fellows to run smart and strategic online campaigns, but the emphasis will be on supporting the work of frontline communities. And of course we’ll be training our fellows on how to code, so that more of us are equipped with the skills we need to build tech tools that the current moment urgently calls for. Fellows will continue to be placed at various organizations, but in a shift from the first two years, we’ll have two cohorts in 2018 — one that we’re calling the Equity Cohort, which prioritizes the leadership of people of color in traditionally white-led organizations, and one that we’re calling the Racial Justice Cohort, which will focus on supporting the capacity of racial justice organizations on the state and local level.
A note on the Equity Cohort: we recognize the inherent tension of placing people of color at largely white institutions. To transform the digital organizing and civic tech space, we need to bring more people of color into organizations that have traditionally not prioritized the leadership of people of color, and in particular women of color and queer people of color. But this is potentially dangerous for people of color. It means dealing with microaggressions, it means often being called upon to represent all people of color, it means opening oneself up to being undervalued, and under a Trump presidency, it means an exponential uptick in feeling and being attacked. To deal with this requires extraordinary resiliency and connection to a community that is invested in your survival, your growth, and your leadership. Over the past two years, we’ve learned a lot about the delicate balance that needs to exist for Fellows to thrive. This year, we are saying no to some groups who want to be host organizations but aren’t quite ready. We are fostering stronger relationships among Fellows, host organizations, and Kairos. And in 2018, we are looking for Fellows who are deeply connected to multiple movements and are ready to lead.
Last year, we witnessed and experienced increasing threats to so many of our communities, making it all the more urgent to transform the ways we use digital tools to build power. I’m incredibly excited about what Kairos has planned for 2018. If you’re excited about movement building, if you understand the ways that the immigrant rights movement overlaps with the Movement for Black Lives and with the fight against Islamophobia and with supporting trans rights, and if you are passionate about building power through using tech tools — then apply to become a 2018 Kairos Fellow today.
