In 2013, visionaries Ben Brandzel and the Leadership from MoveON, GetUP, Campact, 38 Degrees and LeadNow—came together on the East Coast of the United States to explore the power of connection. These founding members envisioned this day. Then they manifested that vision, and here we are.

Thank you to our founders for their foresight and commitment. Thank you for understanding the need. Thank you for having a vision ten years ago that the world needed this and thank you for making it happen. Thank you for putting in the money, the time and the brain power to create and sustain this network.

Thank you to the people who aren’t in this room but who nevertheless got us here today. The past techies, activists, donors, HR people, board members, fundraisers, campaigners and executive directors who advanced the work and kept the fires burning.

We have a lot to be proud of. I could list out so many accomplishments in the last ten years, such as:

●    Growing from five member organizations to twenty.

●    All the fantastic summits, workshops, secondments, campaign trainings that we’ve done.

●    All of the impactful wins of each of our member organizations in their respective national contexts.

●    All the amazing collaborations we’ve done such as BLM, EU Elections, TIPP and many others. 

●    Most impressively, we can celebrate the incredible diversification of OPEN.  From leadership that was entirely white and mostly male in 2013, we have evolved into a Network that is truly diverse: sixty percent of our executive directors are female-identified and 75 percent are people of color.

Let’s celebrate these accomplishments! We have made massive change in national, regional and international contexts. We have activated millions and made real change in people’s lives.

Riding the wave of these accomplishments, let me share with you what I believe are the ten most important lessons of OPEN’s first ten years:

Lesson #10: We are not immune to the pain that comes with change. We are still licking our wounds from an extraordinarily terrible period in world history. Due to the pandemic, these last three years have been grueling: our vulnerabilities came to the surface and the discomfort was intense. We are getting through it, together, by acknowledging these difficulties, working our butts off and leading with understanding, kindness, empathy and grace towards each other.

Lesson #9: Like our member orgs, OPEN needs to be nimble and adaptable with change. Over these past four years we have discovered our collective capacity to step up to the challenges that change can bring. Since the last time we gathered in 2019, an astonishing forty percent of our groups —43 percent if you count OPEN itself— have undergone transitions in leadership.

Lesson #8: Our Model is strong. Depending on context, on history and organizational culture, we apply this model in different ways, but these fundamental pillars are baked into who we are and they continue to serve us as effectively as ever.

Lesson #7: Honoring difference makes us better. Each of us has an opinion about how our network should function, and no two opinions are the same. We operate at our highest capacity —individually and organizationally— in the moments we are able to fully value one another not despite those differences but because of them.

Lesson #6: Collaboration equals impact. When we work in partnership, we exercise our power to manifest outcomes we could never have imagined. Collaborative campaigning, whenever possible, exponentially magnifies our impact and success.  And it feels amazing too!

Lesson #5:  Keeping up to date with ever-changing technology is critical to our success. This proactive approach helps us do our work bigger and better. Our network refuses to fall behind. On the contrary, we can count on our member groups to step up to these challenges with gusto, developing and sharing leading edge tools and brilliant homegrown solutions.  Our organizations have done it in the past and are planning for even more tech developments in the future.

Lesson #4: Sharing is caring on steroids. Our love for humanity and our willingness to share drives our work but it isn’t what gets us to the finish line. We share our technology, our learnings, tactics, and our methods with deliberate, strategic intention, understanding that we flatten the long curve of justice by engaging thoughtfully with our fellow members of the network.

Lesson #3: Understanding power is crucial. For better or worse, the ways in which power operates inside our network reflects how power operates in the world. As progressives we are attuned to these dynamics and we understand what it means to be a truly global network. We are ready to challenge patterns that don’t serve the movement. Our shared goal toward shifting power from the global north to the global south is more than a gesture toward equality; it is a strategy for success.

 Lesson #2: Inspiration is fundamental. Knowledge sharing is essential but it’s not our morning coffee. Inspiration however is the cleanest energy source on the planet, the power that charges our batteries and keeps us coming to work. Inspiration is artful, ephemeral, precious and above all practical. We find it right here, together, when we bolster one another with our creativity, our originality and our boldness.

 Lesson #1: Our superpower is connection.  OPEN is more than just an assembly of groups, more than the sum of our parts. Tired ideas around “networking” don’t serve us. Instead we reach for the domino effect that comes only from cross-pollination, strategy sharing and peer learning. No other digital-first campaigning network has been able to do what we do.

Now, our responsibility is to use these lessons by extending our vision for a world none of us could have imagined ten years ago.

Who will we be ten years from now? Here we are in the thick of it, figuring out what’s next. Today we planned, we began to envision, and we started to imagine the next phase of our journey.

In that spirit, I’d like to share my vision for OPEN.

Internally, I envision OPEN as a safe, nurturing, invigorating workplace where each team member has the opportunity, the support and the resources to be effective at what they do and reach their full potential.

Programmatically, I envision OPEN as providing exceptional value to our member groups by incubating winning strategies, diverse teams and pioneering technology. By generating efficiencies, opportunities, and resilience. By accelerating innovation, collaboration, and global impact.

But really my overall vision is pretty simple: ten years from now, I see OPEN as the network that supports nationally-based, digital first, multi-issue and people-powered organizations fighting the systematic issues of the day. I see a network  that is authentically global, reflecting our values of equity and justice. I see a network that mobilizes millions in minutes on the issues that matter to us: climate change, migration, racial injustice, global authoritarianism and the rise of the alt right. 

At our last summit, I was brand new to this job. Never did I imagine how tough the following years would be. But despite–or perhaps because of—the extremely difficult times we’ve experienced since then, I am energetic for what comes next. The OPEN team wants you to know that we feel your enthusiasm and we see your generosity. We are so grateful for every one of the exceptional humans in this room.

We can do this, together. Whatever we do, whoever we become in the next ten years—as Andi pointed out so eloquently in the video—is up to us!

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