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Network: Community Organizing (2016)

How can we effectively work for justice, while maintaining our energy and keeping our members involved?

Facilitated by Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at RRC and student rabbi Ariana Katz, rabbinic intern for the Reconstructionist Tikkun Olam Commission

For members already involved in Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO) and for those seriously exploring CBCO

Wednesdays 12 p.m.-1 p.m. EST – Nov. 9, Dec. 14 & Jan. 18

Have you already invested time in organizing your community? How can you continue to build and maintain momentum? Bring your experiences, triumphs and challenges in working within a CBCO network to share with and learn from others. We will talk about how to maintain involvement, respond to concerns and use the organizing to enliven our congregations. 

The following resources will be used as workshop reference materials. Workshop participants who have not received them can contact Rory Schonning to obtain access. 

  1. McNeil, Larry B. “The Soft Arts of Organizing,” Social Policy Winter 1995, pp.17-22. Powerful organizations can be built using the concepts and practices of relational power, a power that is “democratically shared with as many people as possible.” Relational power uses the “soft arts” of organizing — listening, empathy, thoughtfulness and ritual – the daily practice of which can “build the most powerful organizations for change, filled with leaders undaunted by attack and criticism, unafraid to risk, undiluted in optimism.” https://www.socialpolicy.org/

  2. Ohmer, Mary L. and Karen DeMasi. “Approaches to Community Organizing and their Relationship to Consensus Organizing” in Consensus Organizing: a Community Development Workbook: a Comprehensive Guide to Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Community Change Initiatives, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Books, Inc., 2009, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452274744 “Representing both an homage to, and a departure from the ‘Alinsky traditions’ of organizing, Consensus Organizing offers techniques that are specifically designed for urban and rural communities struggling to succeed in the global economy and the information age…” “This chapter defines community, civic engagement, and social capital, and their relationship to community organizing. Various approaches to community organizing, including consensus organizing, are discussed and compared.” (from the “Abstract” and Chapter 1 introduction)