Tending SOIL is a program developed by Side With Love (SWL) to build leadership skills and effective local teams among Unitarian Universalist congregations to advance our shared values. The SOIL acronym stands for Skills, Organizing, Interdependence, and Liberation.
The program debuted last year, but built on the foundation of Side With Love’s previous organizing schools in 2020 and 2022 to create an opportunity for participants who had shown their commitment to action through other SWL activities to gain more advanced leadership skills.
Seventeen congregations across 13 states participated in SOIL last year, which involved two to five people committing to the full program per congregation. Participants first gathered online in February, attended monthly online learning activities, convened for three days in May, and completed three or more self-directed learning activities over six months.
Each participating congregation was asked to fund the training program on a sliding scale of $5 per congregation member, meaning a team from a 100-member UU congregation was expected to raise $500. This was done both to help cover some of the expenses involved in developing and offering the SOIL program (about $30,000 total), and because fundraising is integral to effective organizing.
Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, Side With Love’s Congregational Organizer, and Rev Cathy Rion Starr, SWL Leadership Development Specialist, also wanted the investment for its own sake. They knew financial investment was also a way to help ensure participants had established relationships with their minister and congregational leaders / board), creating a stronger foundation for their work at home. Each participating team chose how to raise the funds which could come from their operating budget, ministers’ discretionary fund, fundraising, or personal contributions.
The Tending Soil components are:
Skills: Personalized Skill Building by learning & practicing 2-3 organizing skills/practices (connected to existing Side with Love resources)
Organizing Plans: Develop your Vision, Goals, & Organizing Plan for electoral and issue-based campaign work, begin to implement it, and reflect on it in our learning community
Interdependence: Put relationality at the center of your team’s organizing and build a faithful community of peers
Liberation: Root deeply in our Unitarian Universalist values, working in solidarity with the people and communities most impacted by injustice to gain liberation.
During the SOIL program, the Stop Cop City campaign served as a case study that encompassed a spectrum of Side With Love justice priorities.
While the inaugural six-month program concluded, communication with participating teams is ongoing. Early responses from participants were enthusiastic. Lora Powell-Haney, interim Director of Religious Education at Mount Vernon Unitarian Church in Virginia. said, “The collaborative nature of the training has shaped how I do the family ministry work and now made me ready to be a resource for congregations as they organize beyond their walls.” Diane Lange of Olympia Brown UU Church in Racine, Wisconsin, reported, “Becoming better at celebrating effort and building community was a definite result of attending the SOIL program.”
The SWL facilitators will assess the impact of SOIL to improve on any future offering by asking a range of questions, including:
Did congregational teams engage in a campaign back home?
Have they recruited new volunteers & trained new leaders?
Are participants asking for the program to be repeated?
Look for information on ongoing training and skills development opportunities from Side With Love in email updates and social media.
In this insightful conversation, Side With Love's Senior Communications Manager Rev. Brandan Robertson sits down with Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, Side With Love’s Congregational Organizer, and Rev Cathy Rion Starr, SWL Leadership Development Specialist, to explore Tending SOIL, a transformative leadership development program from Side With Love.
