About After Action 2024
Are you a democratic campaign staffer who just spent the last few months, or even years, pouring your heart into the 2024 election? Are you a progressive advocate whose issue work is hugely impacted by the outcome of the 2024 election? Are you worried about what happens next, for yourself and the country, but also in need of some serious rest and reflection? Do you have a lot to process but aren’t quite sure where, when or how to do so? If so, this is the place for you.
After Action 2024 is an online workshop intentionally designed to support campaign professionals in the post-election period. Whether you are an experienced executive or a first-time staffer, in a job transition or remaining in your position, this workshop is here for you. Over 5 weeks, from November 11 - December 15, we provide you with a structured approach to personal reflection and rejuvenation that is based in research, easy to follow and, most importantly, designed specifically for campaign professionals. You will hear from an array of campaign experts and receive tools and techniques to get you through the post-election period. Think of it as a personal, structured debrief process about your most important asset: YOU. And best of all, you’ll be with a community of people who also just went through the intense, all-consuming experience of the 2024 election.
Why should I participate?
Elections are tough, and the end of the election can hit especially hard. Whether your candidate wins or loses, the end of the cycle marks the close of a monumental experience that was all the things: hard, amazing, exhausting, exhilarating, motivating, depleting, sometimes all on the same day. This is true even if you weren’t on the ground directly—the total and complete investment in the election outcome is an intense experience for all of us who do this work for a living. The election experience is full of community but can also be incredibly lonely, especially when it ends. You’re left with a lot to process and very little structure or clarity for how to do so.
This 5-week workshop fills the post-election void. This workshop will provide you with a structured program designed to help you debrief the experience for yourself, pull out your lessons learned, and develop some new tools you can apply in your work moving forward. It will also keep you connected to other campaign staff during the post-election period, and include a link to job search activities being sponsored by GAIN Power. Whether this was your first campaign or you are a seasoned campaign professional, this workshop will provide a home base for reflection, restoration, and community after the election.
What does “after action” mean?
As campaign professionals, we are great at post-election “after action” reports. In the days and weeks following the campaign, we debrief everything from overarching strategy to voter contact scripts, from polling accuracy to precinct turnout numbers. We have “walls down” meetings to share our strategic reflections with each other, and we write memos to capture our lessons for use in future cycles.
But in all that debriefing and information gathering, we rarely take time to reflect and process the same lessons for ourselves. What did I learn from this experience? What could I have done better? What will I change next time? How do I prepare for my next campaign? That’s what this 5-week guided workshop is all about. This “after action” is in service to you, the staffer.
How will it work?
Each week you will receive guided programming around a specific theme. The weekly themes are:
Week 1 (Nov 11 - 17): RESET
Week 2 (Nov 18 - 24): RECALIBRATE
Week 3 (Nov 25 - Dec 1): RECONNECT
Week 4 (Dec 2 - 8): RESTORE
Week 5 (Dec 9 - 15): REJUVENATE
You will receive an email each Monday with a video describing the goals and programming for the week, and on the After Action 2024 page you will find three guided lessons to follow throughout the week. These lessons will be from subject-matter experts, and they will center on research-based information designed to assist in your personal debrief process. This includes practical skills to learn and explore, prompts for personal reflection, specific “action items” to accomplish, and additional resources for digging deeper if you choose.
Additionally, each week will include one or two live events on zoom with subject-matter experts to further explore one of the lessons, as well as opportunities to engage with other workshop participants.
The content for each week will also be available on the After Action 2024 Substack page throughout the program, so you can refer back to it as necessary.
Please note that while this program is designed to support you in your post-campaign reflection process, we are not psychologists and therefore not equipped to fully and properly help you process any specific traumas you may have experienced. If you require additional support beyond the scope of this program, we recommend reaching out to your HR Director and/or a professional therapist. If you need help connecting with these resources, we will do our best to help you.
Let’s go!
We’re so excited you’ve decided to join this 5-week After Action workshop to reflect on your experience, gain some new skills for processing and performance, and ready yourself for what comes next! Our hope is you leave this workshop with clarity about your lessons learned, tools to help your reflection processes in the future, and renewed energy for the work ahead.
