Sharing Power through Our New Structure
As many of you know, NYSYLC paused many of our programs from May through August 2024, allowing us to focus on our organization’s biggest issues and plan for the future. This pause was part of a strategic planning process that began in 2023.
In planning our organization’s next three years, we balanced competing needs: our need for clarity on what work we should be doing, our members’ need (both current and future members) to be included in decision-making, and our need to be responsive to changing conditions.
In the end, we decided to clarify our mission, values, strategies, structure, long-term goals, and initial programs. We decided on the first steps we will take, and the rules that govern what we do, but we left the finer details to be decided with members. We must remain flexible because our membership demographics will change. Immigration patterns are ever-changing, younger people will join us, and we must do more recruitment from underrepresented immigrant groups.
Our Planning Process
Our process for planning NYSYLC’s next chapter is summarized in the graphic below.
To gather data and feedback for deciding on NYSYLC’s next chapter, we gathered insight from members and partners through surveys (60+ responses), 1-on-1 interviews (19 members and teachers), a focus group, and our member groupchat.
The organizational issues we uncovered, and their causes, are summarized below:
The final decision-makers were NYSYLC’s staff and contractors, mostly immigrant youth of undocumented experience who started as NYSYLC members.
Outcomes of Our Pause
Through our pause, we created the blueprint that will guide our programs and activities for the next three years.
Some questions we sought to answer were:
How can we make decisions in an inclusive but efficient way?
What kind of structure will give current and future members real power over the organization’s structure and activities?
How can we invest in our members’ ability to lead and make informed decisions?
Clearer Membership Process
Before our pause, many of our participants weren’t sure whether they were members, or what it meant to be a member.
Now, we define a member as someone who lends their voice, skills, time, and support to our organization, and in return, receive:
The platform and space to get involved
Guidance on using their voice, skills, time, and support effectively
Leadership development through 1-on-1’s and training
Resources, programming, and social connection
Decision-making power in the organization through circles
As staff, we are accountable for advancing members through our leadership pipeline:
Clarity on Strategies
Our primary goal is to build the power of undocumented youth to create lasting social change, particularly through community organizing, which is strengthened many other strategies and tools.
New Organizational Structure: Sociocracy
From 2007 to 2016, NYSYLC was a volunteer-led organization, with a mostly-flat structure. In 2017, we became staff-led, beginning with two co-directors. Over the years, as more members became paid staff and paid fellows, our decision-making processes became less clear. This raised the question of how we stay accountable to the community we serve.
During the pause, we researched governance structures and learned about sociocracy, a structure that emphasizes shared decision-making and equality. It’s often used by co-ops and intentional communities. Its key features include:
Consent-based decision-making: Decisions in circles are made when no one objects, and there is informed consent from all circle members.
Organizing in circles: A sociocratic organization consists of a hierarchy of semi-autonomous “circles,” or teams. (Circles are kept small for efficient decision-making. More circles can be created as needed.)
Double-linking: Two members of every circle are also members of the next-higher circle.
Elections by consent: Individuals are elected into roles through open discussion.
(Adapted from Endenburg, Gerard; Lindenhovius, Jasper; Bowden, Clive (1998). Sociocracy : the organization of decision-making : 'no objection' as the principle of sociocracy. via Wikipedia)
One interesting aspect of sociocracy is that it doesn’t use majority voting, which can alienate people with different needs and preferences.
We learned a lot about sociocracy through meetings with Youth Power Coalition, resources and learnings they made freely available, and resources and books from Sociocracy for All.
The diagram below shows our new structure, with organizational needs divided into semi-autonomous circles (teams consisting of staff and members):
What are the aims of each circle?
Circles are organized by what they work on (their aim) and have authority over (their domain). The Mission Circle (Board) has the broadest aim, while the “leaves” of the tree structure (Fundraising, Organizing, Teach Dream, Advocacy, and Undocu Academy) have the most specific aims and do the most community engagement.
Mission Circle (Board): To ensure that the nonprofit's activities and transactions are aligned with its mission
General Circle: To ensure that NYSYLC’s departments (Undocu Academy, Changing the Future, and Finance/Legal/Operations) are aligned, effective, and adequately resourced.
Finance, Legal, and Operations: Ensuring that NYSYLC’s circles and staff have adequate resources — staff, space, tools, funding, etc. — and guidance to succeed.
Fundraising Team: To raise money for NYSYLC’s youth-led programs.
Undocu Academy Team: To support undocumented high school students through postsecondary planning support, community and peer support, and introductory political education.
Changing the Future: To coordinate NYSYLC’s activities to create systemic and institutional change and respond to immediate threats.
Organizing Team: To recruit and develop undocumented youth into skilled community organizers and NYSYLC members.
Advocacy Team: To develop and grow NYSYLC’s campaigns for systemic change and planning rapid response actions.
Teach Dream: A team of educators, creating safer schools and advocating for students of all immigration statuses, by sharing resources, organizing, and supporting student-led activism and leadership.
Members now develop their leadership by joining circles and participating in programs and events led by the circles:
Although circles should be kept small for efficient decision-making (4 to 20 members, ideally 8 max), circles can branch into sub-circles to accommodate many members. Each sub-circle has authority over its area of work and elects a delegate to represent its interests in higher circles. We see this structure as a tool for organizing a large community, as shown in the below graphic:
New Roles
To implement our new structure, staff took on broader and more flexible roles, and became the first leaders of multiple circles. We’re all being trained on sociocracy and are sharing knowledge with members. NYSYLC members can choose a circle to join, where they can grow into decision-making and leadership roles.
Our 3-Year Strategic Priorities
The following graphic displays our strategic priorities and the activities needed to achieve those goals, from the end of 2024 through the end of 2027. These priorities are informed by the data and feedback collected from members and participants.
Our biggest goal for this pause was to plan improvements to our strategies, decision-making processes, and governance. We know that our programs and campaigns will now be decided on through a more inclusive process, better aligned with the needs of members and the broader undocumented community.
Challenges
We began implementation in September. We’re still tackling the following challenges and needs:
Fully training our staff on sociocratic principles, meeting facilitation, and non-violent communication
Creating inclusive and youth-friendly processes for budgeting and creating workplans
Clarity on staffing policy and the role of staff vs. volunteers
Training volunteers to lead circles
Making collective decisions faster
Creating an organization-wide plan for language access
Creating a clearer process for member intake, orientation, and required training
Growing and developing a values-aligned board of directors
We also face the same challenges that many other immigrant rights organizations face, including burnout of leaders and staff, limited and unstable funding, community leaders facing deportations and family emergencies, and fear within the undocumented community.
Take Action
Building power and community leaders takes time. Our immigration system is the product of centuries of oppression; transforming it is a long-term fight. We call on our supporters and funders to stand with us, volunteer with us, tell others about us, and provide ongoing financial support. Make a long-term commitment to fund immigrant youth-led community organizing.
Please give generously to support us as we transition to a shared power structure, while also responding to the attacks and threats that will come in Trump’s second term. Consider making a monthly donation to our organization. If you can make an annual commitment, please email us at donations[at]nysylc[dot]org.
Acknowledgments
Firstly, we are grateful to all of our members for their honest feedback, their patience, and their commitment to our mission and each other.
We thank Janine le Sueur — whom we worked with through Community Resource Exchange — for initiating the strategic planning process with us in 2023. With Janine’s support we surveyed 60+ community members, facilitated a focus group, participated in a strategic planning retreat, and developed an inclusive and comprehensive process for strategic planning. This partnership was made possible through CCNSF and Hispanic Federation.
We thank Cecilia Lim, conflict practitioner, for supporting us during our organizational pause in resolving interpersonal conflicts, developing healthier communication styles, and creating community agreements. This partnership was funded by New York Foundation.
We thank Youth Power Coalition for sharing their insights about sociocracy, for sharing numerous resources, and for modeling how sociocracy can work for an organization dedicated to youth-led collective impact. We thank Sociocracy for All for their comprehensive materials.
We are thankful to our funders and donors for their patience, understanding, and support as we paused much of our programming to embark on this project. We are thankful for general operating support from North Star Fund, Pinkerton Foundation, Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, New York Women’s Foundation, New York Foundation, Prospect Hill Foundation, Cricket Island Foundation, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, Altman Foundation, and Tikkun Olam Foundation.
