My 0.02EU (now finally up from where I bought 'em, even taking the xaction fees into account):
(a) identify strategic goals. Not just this piece of legislation or that social program or policy initiative, but answer for ourselves, "What's the sort of society we want to live in?" The right obviously did this; now we're all finding out the answer.
(b) identify existing organizations that can serve as venues for activism. The right has their BAC churches. What do we have? The more lib Xtian denominations?
(c) identify potential organizations that can serve as venues for activism. Dunno what these might be.
NB: this isn't and can't be three separate steps, because the groups in (b) and (c) will rightly want to be part of (a)
(d) develop or expand funding for groups in (b) and (c)
(e) map out actual strategy for putting (a) in place. Also, for every candidate, ballot initiative, whatever--think about what to do in case it doesn't fly. Analyze ahead of time so you don't have to mourn or organize if some part of your plan doesn't work. Note that this is now possible since there's agreement on what the strategic goals are now. In other words, since you know you want some X to be the case, and candidate c can contribute certain things towards that X, you can also think about and have ready other actions, candidates, etc., in case c doesn't get elected.
I know--it's horribly vague and incredibly difficult to implement. But even if it's only a target of criticism, it's something.
Curtiss