Today we continue Meet a Community Organization with a look at the DART Center. You can find out more about the DART Center at http://www.thedartcenter.org/.
Based in Miami, Florida, the Direct Action and Research Training Center is "committed to building powerful, diverse, congregation-based, and democratically run organizations capable of winning justice on issues facing the community. Since 1982, DART has built and strengthened over twenty local affiliated organizations in six states and trained over 10,000 community leaders and 150 professional community organizers."
This proud organization has won powerful victories in the areas of reading instruction and fair school suspension policies in public schools, new pre-school programming for children from at-risk families, clean-up of drugs and crime, multi-million dollar investments in an affordable housing, reinvestment by banks in previously redlined communities, expansion of effective community-oriented policing, massive multi-million dollar expansions of public transportation, accessible health care reform in several major metropolitan cities, investment in job training for those coming off public assistance, fair immigration policies, and dozens of other issues important to low-income communities.
You can contact the DART Center at 305-576-8020 or DARTCENTER@aol.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Don't Forget the Church!
As community organizing continues to develop and become a greater fixture in American public life, many groups are drifting from the church as a base. I think that community organizing ignores religious communities at its peril.
The church has been the cornerstone of organizing efforts dating back to the Catholics support of labor unions and the Christian and Jewish communities support of the Civil Rights movement. The church provides several key elements essential to the well being of good organizing: a readily available constituency for turn out purposes, strong foundation of many communities, and a moral imperative to do good works above self interest.
When organizing groups leave this critical group on the sidelines, they expose themselves to potentially fickle coalitions of groups seeking to only address their narrow interests. This can make long organizing campaigns especially difficult since some of the toughest issues requires enduring long suffering. Although non religious groups can do this, religious organizations are uniquely positioned to carry out the role of being the soul of a campaign.
Therefore, I encourage community organizations to re-engage the church as a primary partner in the fight to improve communities through organizing.
The church has been the cornerstone of organizing efforts dating back to the Catholics support of labor unions and the Christian and Jewish communities support of the Civil Rights movement. The church provides several key elements essential to the well being of good organizing: a readily available constituency for turn out purposes, strong foundation of many communities, and a moral imperative to do good works above self interest.
When organizing groups leave this critical group on the sidelines, they expose themselves to potentially fickle coalitions of groups seeking to only address their narrow interests. This can make long organizing campaigns especially difficult since some of the toughest issues requires enduring long suffering. Although non religious groups can do this, religious organizations are uniquely positioned to carry out the role of being the soul of a campaign.
Therefore, I encourage community organizations to re-engage the church as a primary partner in the fight to improve communities through organizing.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Meet a Community Organization: Family Support Network
Today we will examine the Family Support Network as we continue out Meet a Community Organization series. You can find out more about the Family Support Network at www.familynetwork.org.
The Family Support Network, founded in 1993, seeks to connect caring neighbors with one another through community weaving projects, acting as a catalyst to manifest a culture of living democracy, and connecting people to one another and to resources in order to promote healthy, joyous, prosperous and fear-free communities in which individuals may thrive and empower one another. This group does a great job of fostering a spirit of community organizing with continuous family and community building activities.
You can contact the Family Support Network at fsninquiries@familynetwork.org or you can call at 206-240-2241 or 425-820-2224.
The Family Support Network, founded in 1993, seeks to connect caring neighbors with one another through community weaving projects, acting as a catalyst to manifest a culture of living democracy, and connecting people to one another and to resources in order to promote healthy, joyous, prosperous and fear-free communities in which individuals may thrive and empower one another. This group does a great job of fostering a spirit of community organizing with continuous family and community building activities.
You can contact the Family Support Network at fsninquiries@familynetwork.org or you can call at 206-240-2241 or 425-820-2224.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Looking for Jobs in Wisconsin!?!?
In light of the massive job layoffs, and with my home state of Wisconsin being one of the hardest hit in the nation, I asked around for any employment opportunities in Wisconsin.
As it turns out, the Urban League of Madison, WI, holds an 8 week free training program. This program trains people to become medical document staffers. They told me that graduates of the program easily find jobs within the health care industry with pay starting at $10-$12 an hour. If you are interested send me an email at qdblackwell@gmail.com.
As it turns out, the Urban League of Madison, WI, holds an 8 week free training program. This program trains people to become medical document staffers. They told me that graduates of the program easily find jobs within the health care industry with pay starting at $10-$12 an hour. If you are interested send me an email at qdblackwell@gmail.com.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Meet a Commuity Organization: The Gamaliel Foundation
In today's segment of Meet a Community Organization we will examine a community group recently thrust to center stage: the Gamaliel Foundation. You can contact the Gamaliel Foundation at http://www.gamaliel.org/default.htm.
The Gamaliel Foundation was swept up by the presidential campaign since one of their former organizers, Barack Obama, was on his way to winning a historic election. Gamaliel Foundation is a national community based organizing network. They organize around issues such as health care reform, jobs, immigration, and transportation. This is a well known and very credible organization operating in several states.
You can contact the Gamaliel Foundation at info@gamaliel.org
The Gamaliel Foundation was swept up by the presidential campaign since one of their former organizers, Barack Obama, was on his way to winning a historic election. Gamaliel Foundation is a national community based organizing network. They organize around issues such as health care reform, jobs, immigration, and transportation. This is a well known and very credible organization operating in several states.
You can contact the Gamaliel Foundation at info@gamaliel.org
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Reassessing Measuring Social Sector Success
I've been reading Jim Collin's distinguished book, Good to Great, and the accompanying monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors.
He makes an important point for all of us involved in any social sector organization: knowing how to assess and separate our inputs from out outputs. Too many of us make the mistake of assessing our performance by assuming our inputs are the same as our outputs. For example, most people analyzing a non-profit with a high percentage of its budget allocated for administrative, fund raising, and salary costs would think that this group is performing poorly since not enough money is not going to its "mission". The problem with this analysis is that for social sector groups money is an input not an output. Therefore, it is possible for an organization, such as a community's orchestra group, to have relatively high admin costs, but to produce stellar musical shows, attract large audiences, change the morale of a community, be invited to exclusive festivals, etc.
In this case, the outputs for the orchestra group would be measured by the quality of music, show attendance, impact on community feeling, etc. Therefore, according to these measures they would be fulfilling their mission. If each community group could develop a set of quantitative and/or qualitative output measurements to assess their ability to fulfill their mission, then this would be a better gauge of whether high input costs such as money for administrative purposes are justified.
He makes an important point for all of us involved in any social sector organization: knowing how to assess and separate our inputs from out outputs. Too many of us make the mistake of assessing our performance by assuming our inputs are the same as our outputs. For example, most people analyzing a non-profit with a high percentage of its budget allocated for administrative, fund raising, and salary costs would think that this group is performing poorly since not enough money is not going to its "mission". The problem with this analysis is that for social sector groups money is an input not an output. Therefore, it is possible for an organization, such as a community's orchestra group, to have relatively high admin costs, but to produce stellar musical shows, attract large audiences, change the morale of a community, be invited to exclusive festivals, etc.
In this case, the outputs for the orchestra group would be measured by the quality of music, show attendance, impact on community feeling, etc. Therefore, according to these measures they would be fulfilling their mission. If each community group could develop a set of quantitative and/or qualitative output measurements to assess their ability to fulfill their mission, then this would be a better gauge of whether high input costs such as money for administrative purposes are justified.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Meet a Commuity Organization: Grassroots Global Justice
We continue our examination of community organizing groups by taking a look at the Grassroots Global Justice organization. You can find GGJ online at http://www.ggjalliance.org/.
Grassroots Global Justice is organizing to push an agenda for poor and working people. They see themselves as part of a larger global movement for justice and actively seek to build relationships with other like minded groups in the US and abroad. Recently, they have focused on job and economic issues in light of the economic downturn.
You can reach Grassroots Global Justice at http://www.ggjalliance.org/contact.
Grassroots Global Justice is organizing to push an agenda for poor and working people. They see themselves as part of a larger global movement for justice and actively seek to build relationships with other like minded groups in the US and abroad. Recently, they have focused on job and economic issues in light of the economic downturn.
You can reach Grassroots Global Justice at http://www.ggjalliance.org/contact.
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