Case Study: When the Honest Answer Is "Not on This Timeline"

A national organizing campaign had an ambitious vision: convene a full political spectrum — community organizations, unions, environmental groups, and parties from across the spectrum — into a state-wide "laboratory" culminating in a sortition-based citizens' assembly tasked with drafting a new constitutional framework. Colorado, seen as uniquely anti-partisan rather than bipartisan, was chosen as the state to prove the model could work, with a goal of a statewide convention by year's end and a national convention the following year to mark a major historical anniversary. The campaign brought in outside help in April with that end-of-year deadline already set. The organization had never built a theory of change or stakeholder analysis, and couldn't yet articulate a credible path to its own goal — even internally.