Introduction
The Community Organising Guide is the second instalment of the People Power Manual, a resource created for organisers, activist educators and facilitators. The Community Organising Guide is available for purchase, in hard copy or download, from the Change Agency.
The Community Organising Guide is a unique resource for campaigners, community leaders and activist educators. It’s a collection of 39 process guides, 50 handouts, 4 original case studies and 3 sample workshop schedules; essential ammunition to design and lead participatory workshops on community organising with activists, organisers and citizens. The 296 pages of training resources deepen our understanding of core organising skills: relational meetings and self-interest, the power of story in organising, building alliances, coalitions and networks, holding decision-makers accountable, leadership development, recruitment, doorknocking and phonebanking.
The Community Organising Guide draws on wisdom gained in social movements over several decades. It doesn’t advocate ‘one right way’, but integrates broad-based, social movement and grassroots organising approaches.
The Guide is the second of six instalments in the People Power Manual series and follows the August 2015 launch of the Campaign Strategy Guide.
The People Power Manual
The People Power Manual is a resource for activist educators. It is a collection of participatory and experiential processes and handouts organised around six themes:
1. Campaign Strategy (released late 2015)
2. Community Organising (October 2016)
3. Civil Resistance
4. Working with Groups
5. Returning to Strength: Movement Resilience in the Face of Repression
6. Educating the Activist Educator (Ed²)
The People Power Manual has been created to support facilitators and educators working to help local action groups and social movements win environmental and social justice goals. The manual is published electronically as a series of guides. Hard copies of each guide are also available. All funds generated by the sale of the manual go back into supporting grassroots social movement education projects.The manual has been written primarily for educators, trainers and facilitators who are looking for processes to use in their activist education work. We don’t expect people will read the guides cover to cover like a book. Instead, we imagine most people will dip in and out of these pages. We’ve written the guides for readers who already understand the concepts and theory that the processes and handouts are based on. For those interested in further reading, each guide recommends our favourite books, manuals and online resources.
The People Power Manual is not a cookbook; it is a menu of options. Even so, the processes and handouts contained the Manual’s six guides are no substitute for experience and the skill of listening, creating a sense of safety and trust in a group, and creatively responding to the needs of participants by adapting and designing new processes in situ. Having said all that, we hope the People Power Manual will enable transformative education and dialogue.Purchase sections of the People Power Manual as a download or in hard copy here.
Outline of the Community Organising Guide
There are ten sections in this guide. We begin with defining the terrain, coming to grips with what organising is and what it is not, examining different types of community organising as well as the difference between organising, mobilising, advocacy and community development. Right up front you will find a glossary of some of the key words that are used in the Community Organising guide, many of which have very specific meanings.
The next section concerns relational organising, which is the foundation of all forms of organising. Here we explore relational meetings, the central concepts of self-interest and dialogue, along with the shift from private concerns to public action. Closely related to relational work is the role of stories and the use of personal biography in organising. Mastering the role narrative plays in connecting with and mobilising others is an essential skill to organising, although we maintain that this is much less about flawless public performances and more about invoking imagination, feeling and human solidarity.
In the following section we use three of our favourite adventure-based learning tools to explore the challenging work of forming and maintaining coalitions and alliances. This is followed by sections on strong teams and developing leadership, two areas that we will return to in more depth in our guide on Working with Groups.
The final three sections are understanding your community, moving people to action and holding decision makers accountable. ‘Understanding your community’ includes processes to explore entering, mapping and exiting a community. ‘Moving people to action’ provides a suite of tactical tools around recruitment, petitioning, door-knocking and phonebanking. While the section ‘Holding decision-makers accountable’ revolves around the skill and technique of organising accountability sessions.
The guide ends with some sample workshop schedules, several case studies that illustrate different examples of organising, online resources, and reference material for further reading.
Contents
- Acknowledgements 9
- The People Power Manual 10
- Glossary of Terms 12
- What is Community Organising? 16
- Process Guide | Defining Community Organising 26
- Handout | Defining Community Organising 28
- Process Guide | Three Community Organising Approaches 32
- Handout | Community Organising Typology Worksheet 34
- Process Guide | Different Types of Organising 36
- Process Guide | Cyclone Warning 38
- Handout | Four Different Approaches To Change 42
- Handout | What is an Organiser? It’s a Skill, Not a Mystery 43
- Process Guide | The Organising Cycle 46
- Handout | The Industrial Areas Foundation Organising Cycle 48
- Process Guide | From Little Things Big Things Grow 49
- Handout | Wave Hill and the Gurindji Struggle for Land Rights 53
- Handout | Community Organising Method 57
- Process Guide | Organising, Mobilising and Advocacy 58
- Handout | Organising, Mobilising and Advocacy 60
- Handout | People Power from the Grassroots 62
- Relational Organising 75
- Process Guide | Relational Meetings 77
- Handout | What Is a One-to-One Meeting? 79
- Handout | Ten Rules for Relational Meetings 82
- Process Guide | Self-Interest 85
- Handout | Understanding Self-Interest 87
- Handout | Stick Figure Worksheet 89
- Process Guide | From Private Concern to Public Action 90
- Handout | Private Versus Public Life 94
- Process Guide | The Heart of Organising: Dialogue, Bonding and Relationships 96
- Handout | Tagore: ‘See What the People See’ 102
- Handout | Buber’s Three Movements in Dialogue 103
- Handout | Community Script (Version 1) 104
- Handout | Community script (Version 2) 105
- Handout | The Heart of Organising: Dialogue, Bonding and Relationships 107
- Sharing Our Stories: Personal, Public and Campaign Narratives 109
- Process Guide | Personal Narrative Practice 111
- Handout | Developing Your ‘Story of Self’ Worksheet 114
- Handout | Personal Narrative 116
- Handout | Introduction to Public Narrative and the ‘Story 0f 59″ 117
- Handout | Story of Sam Coaching Tips 118
- Handout | Coaching Your Team’s Story of Self 120
- Process Guide | Personal and Political Biographies 122
- Process Guide | Discovering the Power of Your Stories 124
- Handout | Three Generations of Story 126
- Handout | Telling Your Story Powerfully 128
- Handout | ‘Story of Self’ Worksheet 130
- Coalitions, Alliances and Networks 133
- Process Guide | Power in Coalition 136
- Handout | Alliance-Building and Coalitions 140
- Process Guide | Ankle Walk 145
- Process Guide | Stepping Stones 147
- Process Guide | The Egg 150
- Process Guide | Frameworks for Community Coalitions 154
- Handout | Framework of Union-Community Coalitions 156
- Handout | The Rainbow Framework for Coalitions 158
- Process Guide | Network Health Scorecard 159
- Building Strong Teams 162
- Process Guide | Circles of Commitment (The 5 Cs) 164
- Handout | Circles of Commitment Role Cards 163
- Handout | Circles of Commitment 170
- Handout | Circles of Commitment Planning Template 176
- Process Guide | Building Your Base 178
- Process Guide | Mediating Institutions (Paper Balls) 180
- Developing and Supporting Leaders 182
- Process Guide | Team Structures and Leadership Development 184
- Handout | Leadership Planning Template 188
- Handout | Sample Leadership Plan 190
- Process Guide | Self-Leadership 192
- Handout | What is Self-Leadership? 194
- Understanding Your Community 196
- Process Guide | Community Mapping 197
- Handout | Guiding Questions to Map your Community and Issue 201
- Handout | Getting Started on Your Community Mapping 203
- Handout | Community Map Example 204
- Handout | Assessing Community Network Relationships (Diversity and Depth) 205
- Process Guide | Entering a Community 206
- Process Guide | Exiting a Community 209
- Handout | Exiting a Community 211
- Moving People to Action 213
- Process Guide | Listening Campaigns and Table Talks 216
- Handout | Community Conversation Hosting Guide 219
- Handout | Table Talk Note-Taking 222
- Handout | Recording Table Talks 223
- Process Guide | Recruitment Skills and Stories 224
- Process Guide | Recruiting People and Building the Movement 226
- Process Guide | Petitioning and Tabling 228
- Process Guide | Doorknocking Training 230
- Process Guide | Doorknocking Debrief Session 233
- Handout | Doorknocking Work Plan 234
- Handout | Doorknocking Materials List 235
- Handout | Doorknocking Guide 236
- Handout | Phonebanking Resources and Workshop Outline 237
- Handout | Community Organising Metrics 242
- Holding Decision-Makers Accountable 244
- Process Guide | Accountability Sessions 246
- Handout | Accountability Session Checklist 249
- Handout | Accountability Session Scenario 252
- Handout | How to Hold an Accountability Session 254
- Bringing it all Together: Case Studies and Application 260
- Community Organising Workshop Outlines 261
- Process Guide | The Community Organising Challenge 266
- Handout | Community Organising Challenges 269
- Case Study | It’s Only a Garden! 271
- Case Study | Community Organising and Asylum Seeker Concession Cards 274
- Case Study | Community Organising for Climate Action 279
- Case Study | Ten Minutes to Organise: The Tongoi Papua Strike 287
- Further Reading and Useful Resources 292
Access Resource
The Community Organising Guide is available for purchase, in hard copy or download, from the Change Agency.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA