Community Organizing
“The Three Radical Truths of Community Organizing:
1. Heart work is hard work.
2. You have to keep dancing even when you can’t hear the music.
3. The path that makes you afraid is the path to take.”
– FACE
Activity: How Organizing
Impacts Our Lives
Definition
Community organizing is a
process where people who
live in proximity to each
other come together into
an organization that acts in
their shared self-interest.
"bringing together the talents,
resources and skills of people in
the community in order to
increase their collective power
and work for social change” (Family
Violence Prevention Fund, 2002)."
What is community organizing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flXHRxc9q1k
POWER
What are the words and
images you think when you
hear the word power?
Key themes in organizing: POWER
The capacity to control
circumstances
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2 kinds of power
Institution: an influential
organization or structure that
helps to establish and
maintain norms ands rules in
society
◦ Institutional power – the
control that institutions have
over the way society is
constructed and maintained
◦ Institutional power
◦ People power

Power of the people- the
power that all of us have as
everyday people to
collectively make change in
the world
Activity: Pyramid of Power
Other Ways to Understand Power

Dominant Power
◦ Unilateral (one way)
◦ power over
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Relational Power
◦ Multilateral
◦ power with
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Activity: Tell a story
in your life when you
were acted on by
dominant power, and
what, if anything, you
did about it.
Sources of Power in a Democracy

Position
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Organized money
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Organized people
Key themes in organizing
Keep self-interests in mind
“Where do you want to go, and how is what you are
doing now going to get you there?”
For an organizer, understanding a person’s self-interest –
as they themselves see it – helps us engage and involve
leaders- , understand the self-interest of an institution, and
understand the self-interest of our targets
Key Themes in OrganizingRelationships
Reciprocal
 Build strong relationships
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Characteristics community organizing
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Community-based participatory processes
Development and expansion of community ownership
Community empowerment and inclusiveness
Collaboration and partnership
Accountability to and an opportunity for empowerment
through action by those impacted by the issues
Development of traditional and non-traditional leadership
Expansion of community participation (beyond the “usual
suspects”)
Emphasis on social justice and social change that can be
connected back to the founding
From the grassroots- Understanding community
organizing - CSMottFoundation
Build Democracy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJsSfZvPjMg
Current State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Ep4GFjIiw
Tools
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbfb6B7WjEM
Key Challenges
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NJlWd5-lkA
Rewards of a Career in Community Organizing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qeAnv9sIa8
Components of Community
Organizing
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Why we organize
Roles of leaders and staff
Membership recruitment
Developing an issue campaign
Planning and taking actions
Healthy organizations
Leadership development
Building strong relationships
Working with the media (Communcations)
Running good meetings
Grassroots fundraising
Campaign Strategy Development
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Campaign overview
Issue ID and Research
Power Analysis
Developing a strategy
Tactics
Activity: What is organizing?
“Raining Rocks”
Practice in Action
MODELS OF
COMMUNITY
ORGANIZATION
Wellstone Triangle
Models of Practice
Midwest
Academy
MAIZ (local)
The following models are
also used in CO practice”
Social Action
Social Planning
Community Development
Transformative
Feminist
Multicultural/Diversity
Resources
Building Power, Sharpening Minds:
The Political Education Workshop Manual
2007. SOUL
Cho, E. H., Arguelles Paz y Puente, F.,Yoon
Louie, M.C. & Khokha, S. 2004 Bridge, A
Popular Education Resource for Immigrant
& Refugees Community Organizers.
NNIRR