Origin Story: How Ocean of Organizing Podcast Began

In this origin story episode, Benn traces Ocean of Organizing back to a 2016 free training series born out of the ranked-choice-voting referendum campaign in Maine, and how that idea evolved — through burnout, a return to college, and an independent study with Professor Francesco Basallo — into a weekly podcast that launched in April 2019. Benn breaks down the acronym behind the name (Organize, Create, Educate, Advocate, Network), lays out three core goals for the show (sharing organizer stories, sharing tools and resources, and solving common problems together, starting with burnout), and shares plans to expand interviews beyond his existing network and get episodes translated into Mandarin, Spanish, and Hindi. The episode closes with a personal canvassing story about empathy and not taking others' reactions personally — a reminder that "it's not about you."

SHOW NOTES

Maine Transgender Network – I don’t like to pick favorites, AND these folks are definitely one of my fav orgs for sure. They offer peer to peer support networks all across the state of Maine for trans folks and their allies.

Episode 5 with Professor Francesca Vassallo – Professor Vassallo and the resources of the University of Southern Maine and the support of community radio station WMPG are an integral part of the this podcast coming to fruition.

Episode 6 with Quinn Gormley – Quinn is the Executive director of Maine Transgender Network and one of the panelists at the launch event.

Episode 2 with Samaa Abdurraqib – Samaa is doing resiliency organizing in, with, and for, communities of color and I was also honored to have her join us on the stage for the launch of this podcast.

Episode 9 with Monna Wong – Monna is a dear friend and mentor, she was actually the organizer that invested in me and hooked me into organizing when she was the regional field director for the campaign to when marriage for same sex couples in Maine in 2012. She also was someone who helped in the brainstorming of the initial 6 week training program that summer of 2016. She also was someone who helped guid and support me through organizing the launch event of Ocean of Organizing.

• Transcript

  Benn Marine 0:16

  Welcome to the Ocean of Organizing Podcast, where every Thursday we explore what it means to build community and create change. I'm your host, Ben Maureen, and in today's episode, we're going to dive into the origin of this podcast and the idea of Ocean of Organizing. I'm going to share with you why this podcast has come into existence, where the name Ocean of Organizing even comes from, a peek behind the curtain as to how it has come into existence, and then last but certainly not least, I'm going to share with you some of my ideas for the future. Alright, are you ready to jump on in, team? Let's dive on in. Why start a podcast about political organizing and activism and what makes this one so different? Well, that is a great question. Let's start with how we got here. For a very long time, I have wanted to build a resource for and by community organizers and activists. Back in the summer of 2016, I had just stepped down from being the statewide field director for the ranked choice voting referendum in Maine, and still very much wanted to support the new field director that I had recruited to replace myself and the up-and-coming organizers on that team. And in connecting with other organizations and getting requests to help and coach support different field efforts, it just made sense to do one big free training series to make the content as accessible as possible and to invite all those different organizations to the table. So with the help and support of a lot of really incredible folks, including Mona Wong, Arlo Hennessy, Maria Woodbury, and countless others, we built a six-week free training program that anyone could attend, with space generously donated to us by Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in their Portland office. So it was accessible by bus and also they had an elevator too, so it was the most accessible space to folks in town. And then we also did a version of all the trainings up in Bangor, Maine as well. And at that time, my vision for Ocean of Organizing was simply a website with resources to help support folks in the work. Of course, in 2016, not only was there the presidential race, but here in Maine, we had five issue referendums on the ballot as well. So to say that there was a lot of organizing happening would be a gross understatement. We had a great turnout in response to the training series, which was really exciting, and I had these big ideas for having a website and tools up and ready to support more folks by that fall, thinking in in such a big crowded race, those would be really needed tools. However, in a cycle as busy and as important as this one, I myself could not just sit on the sidelines. And it wasn't very long before I found myself wearing two hats, marching towards Election Day, as a deputy field director for a campaign to pass background checks on all firearm sales, and as a field director to educate voters on universal health care. Needless to say, I was a little bit busy and Ocean of Organizing was put on the back burner. Since then, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my own experiences of burnout, the asks for help that I have had as I grow as an organizer, and the asks for help I often receive from other organizers and organizations, and have always dreamt about building that resource. After many walks in the woods, chats on the phone, pacing around the kitchen table, and mornings spent floating on a surfboard out in the lineup waiting for waves, all while chatting with friends and colleagues about what the resources could look like, should look like, all signs seem to point towards a podcast. If you're in the throes of a campaign or you're pouring your heart and soul into a community organizing project, the feedback I have gotten is that it would be a lot easier to consume that information through audio while walking, driving, running, doing chores, working out, or whatever else you do while listening to podcasts, than it would be to sit and sift through lengthy articles. Now, I recognize the medium of audio is not accessible to all, as there are folks with varying hearing impairments and disabilities, not to mention the world of organizing is large and is made up of more than just English speakers. Podcasting is not perfect. And I do have some ideas as to how this can be even more accessible, and I'll get to that a bit later. Going back, in the wake of 2016, I returned to the University of Southern Maine to work towards completing my undergraduate degree in political science at the age of 34. With my focus on finishing school and working to pay my bills, Ocean of Organizing continued to just be an idea rolling around in the back of my brain. Until I learned that I could launch Ocean of Organizing as part of my undergraduate studies as an independent study. I was super lucky and fortunate to connect with Professor Francesco Basallo, who is hands down the best accountability buddy ever. And if you want to know more about her, you should definitely check out episode five as I interview her there, and that's oceanforganizing.com slash episode five. I'm lucky that she was up to the challenge of guiding me through studying organizing from an academic perspective and launching this podcast. She has a lot of experience studying protest movements, contentious politics all around the world, especially in Europe. She's a great resource, and I feel super lucky to uh have been able to work with her on this and continue to work with her on this. And so on April 18th, 2019, in front of a small group of 40 folks, uh we held a launch event and released the first three episodes of Ocean of Organizing and had a panel discussion with Maine State Representative and fierce activist in her own right, Rachel Talbot Ross, Quinn Gormley, the executive director of Maine Transgender Network, which I'm just gonna give them a quick shout out because they're amazing. They are the largest peer-to-peer support network for trans folks in the country, serving over 2,500 trans people every year in one of the most rural states in the country. They are amazing. Definitely check them out. Uh you can find them at main transnet.org. I'll definitely link to them in the show notes as well. Um, and to tune into Quinn's episode, that's episode six at the Oceanoforganizing.com site. We also had on stage Sama Abdurrakib, who is doing resiliency work in communities of color, and Nikki Sakara, a water justice advocate and organizer. We talked about how to get started in organizing, self-care, and so much more. And I was definitely honored and humbled to share the stage with these four incredible people. Since then, I've been releasing an episode every week, learning loads as I go. This has definitely very much been a learning process for me. Probably the biggest lesson to date, which has become kind of my mantra, is to not let the perfect get in the way of the possible. Can you say that again? Because I feel like that's something that maybe other folks out there might be struggling with, right? Not to let the perfect get in the way of the possible. I think for a long time I was waiting for the perfect time for to know all the things about podcasting. And the reality is, there is never a perfect time to start a thing. And I'll never know everything there is to know about podcasting. Or at least I hope not. I hope that the journey of learning and growing continues on, and that as cheesy as it sounds, you all get to learn and grow with me. For now, this continues to be a passion project that I am committed to. I have three primary goals. One is to share organizers' stories with each other. I think there's a lot that we can learn from one another, and I think being able to connect with someone else's story can inspire us and give us strength. The second is to share tools and tips and resources with each other. I think it can help the work just be more effective. I think we can work smarter and not harder. I think that odds are uh there's likely someone else who's probably done what we're trying to do already and can probably save us a lot of time and energy if we just take the time to talk to those folks or hear those folks out. The third is working with fellow organizers to find solutions to common problems. The first one that I am the most eager to tackle is finding ways to make the work more sustainable and reduce the rate of burnout in organizing. To do that, I want to conduct a survey of organizers to find out what conditions are in our control and what conditions can we advocate for that would help reduce burnout. And are people burning out, or are they simply losing interest and shifting their attention elsewhere? Which is great. And these are questions I'd love for us to find answers to, right? Okay. About that name, Ocean of Organizing. I will admit I am a lover of the ocean and water. And of course, as an avid surfer, when looking for inspiration, I look to the ocean, which just happens to make the most perfect acronym organize, create, educate, advocate, and network ocean. Organize kind of speaks for itself in this context. Creating can be creating art, creating visions for the future, creating safer spaces, creating new organizations, and on and on. And really kind of circling back to that, creating art, art moves people. Art can very much be the heart of culture. It can be what shapes public discourse, what can change opinions and thoughts and feelings on different issues. So I feel like art is really powerful and certainly can't be left out of the conversation of organizing as a whole. So creating, super important. Educating is the sharing of knowledge and skills with each other and also with the world at large. So that could look like doing education campaigns or teaching, right? Teaching about skills, teaching knowledge, teaching about culture and diversity and understanding and how to best interact with each other. Education is a huge part of how we learn and grow. And I think that there is and because of that, it has a a very important place in in the world of organizing. Advocating, fighting for what we believe in, whether that involves knocking on doors, constituent meetings, or protesting in the streets. And last, but certainly not least, is networking. Reaching out to others in the work, maybe organizers that are organizing on other issues but are in the same communities as you're organizing in, or maybe there is someone organizing on the same issue as you, but they are on the other side of the country or the world. Reach out, ask for the help you need, and build strong networks of folks for not just skill sharing, but also for support. I think you know, remembering that we're all in this together and that all of these issues intersect in multiple ways, I think is really important to keep that framework in mind. So that's so there you have it, the acronym OSIN. Organize, create, educate, advocate, and network. Onward to the future. So I have some pretty exciting ideas that I'm working towards bringing to fruition. So far to date, many of the interviews have been with folks that came from within my own network. And I want to expand that. And I want to expand that not just who I'm speaking to, because I'd love to talk to a lot of folks outside of my network. Obviously, that feels really important for a lot of reasons. I think starting with my own network kind of felt uh kind of made a lot of sense because I've been learning as I go and um was kind of a great place for me to test all of this out, you know. And in growing, wanting to kind of reach beyond that, reach beyond my network, reach beyond the the country to there's there's so many organizing efforts happening around the world that I think we can all learn a lot from. And expand the style beyond just interviews, but also inject some storytelling narrative. Think more NPR style, just with a progressive organizing and activist focus. I also want to build a way for organizers to more easily connect with each other the work and issues that y'all care the most about. Jumping back to accessibility, I want to get every episode transcribed and translated into some of the most spoken languages in the world, including Mandarin, Spanish, and Hindi. This is actually not that hard of a thing to do. It just comes down to dollars and cents. I have found a vendor that will transcribe and have a human person translate every episode into those languages. And to transcribe and translate into these three languages would cost roughly $250 per episode, assuming the average episode is about 45 minutes in length. Those of you that have been listening know that there have been some that have been as short as 25 minutes and some as long as almost an hour. Uh but assuming that most fall somewhere in that 45 minute range, that would be about $250 per episode. Definitely outside the realm of my current budget. That being said, if you are enjoying this content, want more of it, and want to join me in this journey, please consider making a contribution. It's super easy to do. Just swing by oceanoforganizing.com, click on contribute at the top, and you can choose to do a one-time gift, a recurring monthly or annual gift, and you can log in and update your gift or cancel at any time. All right. So to close us out, I know that this has been a fairly short and sweet episode. I'm curious what you all think of this shorter format. I want to share a moment gifted to me from organizing that has had the largest impact on my everyday life. And I will never forget it, and I think about it often. I was knocking doors in this community in Rhode Island for marriage equality. We were asking folks to call their legislators and to write letters of support. And we would later be hand hand delivering those letters to key legislators. It was a beautiful day. In the early spring, warm enough that I didn't have to wear a jacket, which was really exciting. I went up to this one door, just like the hundreds of doors before it, knocked, rang the bell, and waited for the voter I was looking for to come answer the door. I was relaxed, and in an instant, that all changed. The door flies open, and a woman standing there began screaming at me at the top of her lungs to get off of her property. Like, really going for it. Now, if you're listening to this and you've never knocked doors before, I think there is a perception that this is what every door is like, and I'm happy to report that I have knocked on probably thousands of doors, and reactions like this one are actually fairly rare. My look of shock was impossible to hide. I mean, she didn't even know why I was there. I was just in regular street clothes. Whatever, on to the next door, I'm not gonna think too much about it. It was unsettling, but my feathers weren't too ruffled. Until about a half hour later, I was walking down the street, and I see this very same woman running down the street at me. Holy wow. So this is this is how it ends, right? Like this is terrifying. Great. So she runs right up to me, and out of breath, she puts her hand on my shoulder, so she's touching me now, so I'm thoroughly freaked out. She looks me in the eye. Mind you, I'm totally freaking out here. This is all probably happening over the course of 30 seconds, but it definitely feels like an eternity. She looks me square in the eyes, and then her face began to soften. And she said, I'm sorry. And I can see her eyes starting to water. And she says, I'm sorry. And she starts to stutter a little bit. She says, I'm sorry, I I'm just, I, I just, when you when you knock on my door, I had just found out. I had just gotten off the phone. And and now the tears are starting to stream down her face. I had just found out my mom died. And then she hugged me and started to cry. And I just hugged her back. And I don't know how long we stood in the street like that for. But I'll never forget that. And I'll tell you why. It's a constant reminder to me that we never truly know what other people are going through. Even our closest friends and family. And it's easy when someone slams a door in your face or cuts you off in traffic or seems ridiculously rude for no reason to write that person off or to take it personally. And really, maybe if you knew why that person was acting that way, it certainly wouldn't justify their actions, as it's never okay to treat someone like that. And it would be easier to have patience, to have empathy, to be kind. The reality is, in most cases, we don't get to know what people are going through. So whether you're knocking on doors, visiting family for dinner, and someone blows up at you, no, it's not about you. It's about them. It's their own internalized fears. It's their own anger in their own life. It's their own pain manifesting. It's not about you. Because you, my friend, are worthy of love and respect. Remember that, and don't let anyone else ever let you think otherwise. And that is one of the many lessons that I have gotten out of organizing, and I'm really excited to hear some of the biggest ones that have come up for you. All right, as always, check out the show notes as there's a lot of great links and resources in there. You can find those at Oceanoforganizing dot com forward slash episode 13. Also, I want you to know that I deeply appreciate you tuning in and joining me on this wild ride. Thank you. I genuinely appreciate you. Be well, friends.