Chefs often rave about key ingredients. Educators, and good organizers, seek out the teachable moment. For realtors, it’s all about location.

Smart leaders of ballot measure campaigns have three key factors at the top of their minds: coalition, money, and timing. All three loom large in weighing how to go back to California voters with a measure to overturn Prop 8. For those of us whose goal is regaining the right to civil marriage for committed same-sex couples, evidence should drive our decisions. On all three fronts, a growing corps of leaders has reached the same conclusion. We need to work together in a three-year effort to build the pro-equality majority required to win a “yes” vote for equality in 2012.

Just this week, the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council and Unite-Here Local 30 joined groups like Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights in signing onto an important declaration of principles called “Prepare to Prevail” at www.PrepareToPrevail.com. P2P, as some in the media have dubbed the statement, is an effort by GLBT leaders of color in California to indicate why the 2012 election would be a clearly superior choice to next year in going back to the ballot to reclaim marriage equality. So far, more than 40 major organizations and leaders in our freedom struggle, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and powerful allies in labor who fought with us to stop Prop 8, have endorsed it.

The statement underscores the fact that advocates of marriage equality enjoy less than 50 percent support from California voters and do not yet command a strong majority. Despite this reality, and still smarting from last year’s loss, some activists demand an immediate return to the ballot to seek a “yes” vote from Californians. To say the least, such a high-stakes gamble would be hasty and extremely risky.

The statement focuses on the goal of effectively targeting and moving voters in the communities of color that make up the majority of the state. We note that among the handful of groups most avidly promoting an immediate rush back to the ballot to overturn Prop 8 are some who vowed in the wake of its passage not to mount a repeal drive without broad support from people of color organizations.

Let us be clear on this point. Building support for marriage equality among African American, API, and Latino Californians through empowering community leaders and speaking fluently and persuasively with the state’s diverse electorate is a crucial goal and one that all our allies should get behind. Coalition, money, and timing will determine the success of this goal. They also shape the fate of our overall undertaking.

The next campaign in California to win back marriage, unlike the battle against Prop 8, is one governed by our choices. In a diverse state, we should choose to build the broadest and deepest network possible. In a down economy, we should choose to be especially prudent in seeking, collecting, and spending donors’ dollars and ensure that when we campaign statewide, we are poised to win. Losing a “yes” vote that we scheduled, and gave dearly to help place on the ballot and fight for, would be a cruel and costly double whammy.

And choosing more time actually plays to our advantage. With every day that elapses in California, more young pro-equality voters are registering to vote and replacing senior voters, the demographic with whom we struggle most for recognition and respect. This trend, by 2012, will have wrought small but significant changes in the statewide electorate, with an increase in overall pro-equality sentiment expected. Why rush to cut an expensive road across steep terrain when the current of the river will help carry us to our destination?

Politics is the art of the possible, and we know from experience that prudence in marshaling friends, funds, and timeframes improves the odds of winning a campaign. The truth is we are stronger when we build our movements, gather our resources, and stand together with allies to achieve important goals at the ballot box.

It’s time to unite in the three-year effort to win back marriage equality in 2012. We need all the help we can get. And we don’t have a moment to lose.