Proposal

The Core Value Tour (CVT) is a volunteer led project to gather and share the missions of the coalition members and discuss the strengths and vulnerabilities each organization brings to the work. We hope to document points of view and bedrock values and share them broadly amongst the coalition members as a way to get a better understanding of  who we are standing with and to draw more people to the work.

As the #Resist movement in Tennessee keeps growing and the opportunity to support one another and build collective political power expands, discussing and defining our core values is becoming more important. If we build our coalition on relationships of mutual respect and understanding, engagement by all our friends and allies should be more intense and substantial.

Ultimately, we hope this digital dialogue will be part of the work we do in front of a series of in real life gatherings convened across the State to ratify a living Declaration of Human Rights that guides us in reclaiming our political and social systems.

At this point in it’s infancy, the TCVT proposes the following three fundamental inquiries:

• What brings you to the work that consumes you and where do you want it to take you?

• How do you define freedom, dignity and human rights and what will it take for your vision to be manifest?

• How do you define the “enemy” and what would you say, do or become to win over your foe and win your struggle?

We expect to use digital surveys prior to the deeper interviews. All the results of the surveys and the complete interviews will be recorded, archived and posted for coalition members to see. In addition, our volunteer interviewers will provide an article/journal exploring the interview and summarize the information so that the process is progressive, transparent and produces further dialogue and collaboration.

There will be an opportunity to produce a blog, podcasts and other distribution means to facilitate “on-demand” access to this material. The material will be open-sourced and no entity or individual will own it, although the people surveyed or interviewed will retain all rights to have it destroyed and eliminated from the public record if they deem that necessary.

Organizational Sponsorship: At this point the CVT is asking the Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood to adopt the volunteer effort as a project. The CVT will raise its own funds.

Personnel: Sean Siple has decades of community organizing experience and a penchant or writing and podcast production. He will be charged with the launch of the CVT with the intention that he will recruit and on-board regional producers and contributors throughout the State as quickly as possible.