Coalitions Are How Values Become Outcomes
- Don Schweitzer
- Mar 25
- 8 min read
The Discipline of Integrity-Based Advocacy
"Once we start using dehumanizing language—terms like 'animals,' 'thugs,' 'scum,' or 'infest'—we have crossed the line from advocacy to destruction." — Brené Brown
Justice work often begins with clarity. A problem is named, harm is identified, and a clear vision for something better takes shape. Then people gather around that vision with energy and conviction.
And yet, many efforts stall not because people stop caring, and not because the problem disappears, but because the work never expands beyond those who already agree.
This is where many justice efforts quietly fail. They do not fail at the level of intention, but at the level of coalition. The people who need to be engaged with are outside of the group of agreement.
If a strategy only works with people who already share your views, instead of a strategy for change. It's a strategy for affirmation.
Why Coalitions Matter
Real change requires more than agreement. It requires reaching those who don't yet have the same vision.
Policies shift when enough people support them or when enough pressure is applied to those in positions of authority. Cultural norms change when ideas move beyond a small group and begin to take hold across different communities. Neither of these happens through isolated effort or social media campaigns.
Coalitions extend both influence and legitimacy through sustained relationships. They bring together people who do not agree on everything but do align on enough to move something forward. Alignment allows ideas to travel, gain traction in other communities, and hold over time.
Without that breadth, wins tend to be narrow and fragile; advocacy's version of a vanity metric. A policy passed without broad public support is easier to reverse. One message embraced within only one group struggles to cross boundaries. A movement that doesn't expand eventually turns inward.
Human coalitions are how social values become social outcomes.
Why We Avoid Them
So why is coalition-building so often neglected if it's so central?
A big reason is psychology. Certainty feels safe. Organizational wins feel good. It reinforces a sense of clarity and identity. It tells us who we are and where we stand. The more certain we feel, the easier it becomes to draw lines between those who are “with us” and those who are not.
Coalitions disrupt that clarity. They require working with people who are incomplete, inconsistent, or differently motivated. Working with different people than our own introduces complexity and ambiguity. Coalitions force us to sit in conversations where agreement is partial, and progress is uneven—all while requiring us to set down whatever pitchforks and hatchets we may have grown accustomed to.
Identity is another reason. In many spaces, belonging is tied to holding the “right” views in the “right” way. Group vernacular and saying the "right words" become subconscious gatekeepers that fuel a movement's mission while simultaneously keeping others out. Coalition-building can feel like a risk to that identity. If someone outside the group is welcomed in, it can be experienced as dilution rather than expansion.
As belonging is tied to group approval, the human ego plays a role. Minor differences and major disagreements can feel like equal threats, while throwing dirt only loses ground. While movements protect and advocate for people, they can do so in ways that drive egoism. Coalitions require shared ownership. That means less control, less recognition, and sometimes less credit. For individuals and organizations alike, that can be difficult to accept. The fear of crossing invisible boundaries and forming real working relationships isn't about losing an argument; it’s about losing personal credit and control.
Another profound factor is history. Many groups carry legitimate mistrust based on past harm or exclusion. Trauma and social norms tend to be generational and as such proliferate within classes and groups as each advocates on its own behalf. A muddy past does not clear up simply because someone talked about it. History shapes the narratives we carry, how people approach one another, and why coalition work is necessary.
This is why advocacy is social work in the first place. Intentionality, sustained conversations, and building relationships are not something that can be outsourced or relegated to a policy opinion. It must be believed, behaved, and bridged. And that takes people.
"The process of dehumanizing people begins with language. It starts with the names we call each other and the words we use to describe those who are different from us." — Brené Brown
What Coalitions Actually Require
Coalition-building is often described as coming together. In practice, it is closer to a community discipline.
Identifying shared outcomes is the first step. Not shared beliefs or identical language, but mutually beneficial outcomes that different groups can support for their own reasons. This distinction matters. People rarely arrive at the same place through the same path. Expecting that level of agreement in advance limits who can participate and who would want to.
This also requires clarity about what is essential and flexible, necessary and excessive. Every group has core values that guide its work and also define and limit it. Social expectations, lifestyles, assumptions, blind spots, identities, and values are just a few things at play. Values do not need to be abandoned. At the same time, not every preference or framing carries the same integral weight. Coalitions depend on the ability to distinguish between the two, Essential vs. Flexible, and make working compromises framed as progress rather than contrition.
Translation is another central skill. Different communities respond to different moral frameworks and ideological semantics. An argument framed around fairness may resonate with one group, while another responds more to stability, loyalty, or responsibility. One culture may draw heavily from family honor, while another prioritizes a personal work ethic.
Much of advocacy involves understanding the psychological roots—the deep, complex connections that shape how people perceive the world. Effective coalition-building is the discipline of expressing a universal concern in the specific language that others can truly hear
Rhetoric and campaigns based on fear are not translation. We're also not discussing manipulation and coercion. This is about communication.
Coalitions require staying in a relationship through disagreement. Conflict is not a sign that the coalition is failing, but that there's coalition work to be done. It is a normal part of bringing different perspectives together. Not surprising. The work is not to eliminate disagreement, but to navigate it without collapsing the relationship.
None of this is fast. None of it is clean. It demands patience, restraint, and a willingness to keep working when progress feels slow.
What Happens Without Them
When coalition-building is absent, the consequences are predictable.
Movements fragment into smaller and smaller groups, each more internally aligned and less externally effective. Brene Brown calls this "sorting" in Braving the Wilderness. It was written in 2017 and described how society has continued "sorting" itself into smaller and smaller categories. It's only accelerated over the past 9 years.
"When we 'sort' ourselves into groups where everyone thinks like us, we stop seeing people and start seeing categories. And once we see people as categories, it’s a very short step to seeing them as less than human." — Brené Brown
Maintaining these boundaries requires energy rather than freeing influence and dialogue. Disagreements that could be worked through instead become points of division that fester from the inside out.
Efforts that do achieve change can often struggle to sustain it, in part because society works against it. After all, the methods didn't match the means. Without broader support, policies face resistance and reversal. Gains remain vulnerable because they were not anchored in a wider base.
An increase in backlash is also an expected consequence. When people feel excluded or dismissed, they're more likely to resist, even if they might have been open to aspects of the change. What could have been an opportunity for engagement becomes a source of conflict. The pursuit of understanding is sacrificed to gain ground, and both end up being lost as trenches get dug.
Over time, the work shifts. The focus moves away from outcomes and toward internal alignment and outcomes that are only "fair" from a single perspective. Being right begins to take precedence over being effective, and that usually means a popularity shouting match.
This is not a failure of commitment; it's a failure of communication and approach.
The Tension at the Center
One of the reasons coalition-building is so challenging is that it is often perceived as a compromise. There is a concern that working with others will require giving up core values or weakening the integrity of the work. Optics and popular opinion can prevent the idea from being introduced before it can have time to be entertained.
In practice, the issue is usually not compromise, but clarity. Engaging with people's misunderstandings and opinions is part of the work itself. Authentic communication, collaboration, and social engagement are how mislabels of compromise are converted to early adopters.
Values can remain intact while strategies adapt. A commitment to fairness, dignity, or safety does not depend on a single method or message. What changes is how those values are pursued in a complex environment.
Coalitions do not require abandoning principles. They require applying them in a way that allows others to engage.
This distinction is easy to forget as comfort becomes normal. When it's lost, coalition-building feels like a threat rather than a safe path forward.
"Conflict is the cost of connection. If you're going to be in a relationship, there's going to be conflict." — Brené Brown
A Practical Shift
If coalition-building is treated as a discipline, the question becomes how to practice it.
That starts with mapping who is already aligned, who is persuadable, and who holds influence over the outcome. Not everyone needs to agree, and not with everything, but enough people need to be engaged around a clear concept to create movement.
From there, the work is to identify where alignment exists, even if it is partial. What outcomes can multiple groups support, even if their reasons differ? Where is there an overlap that can be built on?
Language matters. How an issue is framed can either open or close doors. Being able to express the same concern in multiple ways increases the likelihood of connection.
Relationships matter as well. Coalition-building is not only about ideas. It is about trust developed over time. That trust allows groups to stay engaged even when tensions arise.
Finally, there is a need to measure success differently. Not by the level of internal agreement, but by the extent to which something actually changes in the world.
"If a movement is to have an impact, it must belong to those who join it, not those who lead it." — Simon Sinek
Conviction to Collective Action
Justice work is often driven by a clear sense of what is right and good. That clarity has value. It provides direction and purpose.
On its own, it is not enough.
Change requires more than conviction and a sense of what is right. It requires the ability to work with others, listen, share, and patiently build relationships with those who do not see the issue in the same way. It takes building coalitions that can carry an idea beyond a single group and into broader systems, because real change cannot be done alone.`
Far from a soft skill, this is a central discipline that requires intentional work.
Coalition-building is where values move from principle to practice, and finally, to people. It is how ideas gain traction, how policies endure, and how change becomes more than a moment.
It is not easy, but it is necessary and good work.
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