S1E12: Hannah Sassaman on making Comcast pay, ensuring your victories stick & planning the next campaign before your current one ends

Craft of Campaigns

In this episode, Hannah talks about first learning of a once-every-fifteen-years campaign opportunity (7:21), learning how Comcast had been secretly fighting against paid sick days and “running the Chamber of Commerce from the back” (10:46), coming up with campaign demands that were “legally impossible to get” (15:54), “learning how to count to nine” Council votes & the legislative “sausage-making” (38:02), and “testing the appetite” for different demands from storytellers, coalition members and potential Council allies (38:19), what she wishes the coalition had done after winning (1:01:45) and how the campaign influenced fights in other cities (1:07:36).
For more about this campaign and Philadelphia's progressive movement infrastructure, check out:

• The People's Platform for a Just Philadelphia
• Why the Left Is Winning Over Philly | The Nation
• CAP Comcast - Movement Alliance Project

Hannah Sassaman is the executive director of the People's Tech Project. She was previously policy director at Movement Alliance Project (MAP), helping to build and shape coalitions and networks working across issues of injustice, particularly around the intersection of technology, race, and inequality. She is also a member of the board of directors of Fight for the Future and a national coordinating committee member of Leftroots. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.

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Visit www.trainingforchange.org for workshops and training tools, or to make a donation. Follow us on social media @tfctrains. The Craft of Campaigns podcast is made possible by grassroots donors. We welcome your feedback; if you like these episodes, please consider donating, to keep the show running. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Willis Garcés and produced by Ali Roseberry-Polier.