ON PRUNING FOR POWER
Pruning is one of the most important disciplines in caring for trees, particularly those that are grown to bear fruit. Left untouched, a tree will put its energy into endless new shoots, tangled branches, and dense foliage. At first glance, this might look like health and vitality, but the abundance of unchecked growth often works against the tree’s true strength. When too many branches compete for light and nutrients, the fruit becomes small, scarce, or fails to ripen at all. The tree exhausts itself in growth rather than in flourishing.
A skilled grower understands that restraint produces abundance. Each season, they walk among the trees with sharp shears, deliberately cutting back healthy branches as well as dead ones. This is not an act of harm but of renewal. By thinning the canopy, sunlight can reach the inner branches, and air can circulate freely, reducing the risk of disease. By removing excess shoots, the tree can direct its resources into fewer, stronger branches and into fruit that is full, sweet, and worth harvesting.
There is an art to this. Cut too much, and the tree is weakened. Cut too little, and the branches sprawl without purpose. The grower must know the tree well – its age, its shape, its balance – so that the pruning serves the long-term health of the tree rather than just its appearance in the moment.
Over years, the rhythm of growth and pruning forms a kind of dialogue between tree and caretaker. Each cycle brings fresh shoots, and each season of pruning shapes them into something stronger, more fruitful, and better aligned with the tree’s true capacity. Pruning is not a setback but a preparation, ensuring that the tree’s energy is always directed towards what matters most.
As Community Organisers, we must be reminded again and again to keep our eyes on the main task: to build power by strengthening institutions and training ordinary people to step into the public arena with courage and clarity. It is far too easy to lose ourselves in the noise of the moment, to chase after initiatives that sparkle with promise but pull us away from the core. Campaigns can linger well past their usefulness, consuming energy that ought to be redirected. Tempting grants and ‘soft money’ can lead us into projects that are exciting, but ultimately distracting from the long arc of institution-building. Political headlines can pull us in intoxicating ways.
Our role is to remain faithful to the slow and patient craft – what Ella Baker called ‘spade work’. It is arduous work, often unglamorous, and frequently frustrating. There are few quick wins, and recognition is rare. But if we stay methodical, taking one step at a time, one relationship at a time, this is the work that endures. It is through this kind of relationship building that people and their families and communities discover they can work across difference, finding common cause where before there was division.
Developing people-owned organisations is not a side activity – it is our purpose. Keeping people at the centre of all we do, inviting them in, bringing them along, allowing them to lead – this is what ensures our organisations remain vital and alive. Institutions grow strong not when organisers run ahead, but when communities walk forward together, steady and sure, owning both the struggle and the victories.
Like the fruit tree shaped by careful pruning, our organisations must be continually tended, refined, and renewed so that they can bear lasting fruit. This is not work measured in months or even years, but in decades and generations. As Sr Judy Donovan, former IAF Lead Organiser, said: “My mentor Ernesto Cortes, Jr. is fond of quoting physicist Fredrick Dyson who says that having the right timeline matters. For the CEO it’s the quarterly statement. For the bureaucrat it’s the budget cycle. For the politician it’s the next election. But for the grandparent, it’s a generation. Those of us committed to social change have to have the perspective of a grandparent. Our work is generational. When done right we are privileged to help build organizations that outlive the comings and goings of politicians, pastors, executives and organizers alike and become a living and powerful part of the culture of how a community operates. Only then will we have taken up Rustin’s timely and prophetic challenge to move from protest to politics.”
As Organisers, our task is to build what outlives us – institutions rooted in communities of people, capable of standing the test of time. We build organisations that do not fade with one campaign or one issue, but which remain ready to fight again and again for what is right and just. This is the fruit of our pruning, our spade work, and our long patience – organisations that endure, people who lead, and communities that thrive across generations.
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