Max Smith, co-director of the Community Organising Fellowship, reviews the Tools for Radical Democracy guide to electoral organising, and draws out some key considerations for deciding whether or how to engage in elections.
This chapter by Marshall Ganz, lecturer and activist, investigates social movement leadership and takes us through examples from history. He outlines Leadership Practices: Relationship, Story, Strategy, Action; Structuring Social Movements; and Leadership Development.
A list of resources about decentralised organising collated and shared by Richard D. Bartlett finding lessons across diverse contexts, from social movements to formal workplaces.
Australian Progress has prepared this 40-point summary of Pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose Driven Church. The resource is based on Rick Warren’s experience of growing his church, Saddleback, from scratch to 20,000 members attending every week. Saddleback is now the eighth biggest church in the United States.
Rick Warren focuses on five ‘circles of commitment’ – community, crowd, congregation, committed and core, and argue that it’s important to recognise where your supporters fall in these categories, and develop processes to move them from the outside in. An excerpt from Purpose Driven Campaigning.
Civic associations depend upon volunteers to get their work done. Joel Dignam distils insights from Ruth Wageman and Richard Hackman’s “Designing work for individuals and for groups” from Perspectives on Behavior in Organizations.
Joel Dignam reviews Marshall Ganz’ treatment of structure as a craft of organising. As Ganz notes “Developing leadership requires structuring the work of the organization so it affords as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to lead.”
This post reviews Marshall Ganz’ approach to craft of relationships in organising. Relationships foster the commitment that is needed for success and allow us to understand the interests, values and motivations of others.
Decentralised, grassroots-led digital campaigning has taken off in the last decade. This report looks at the impact these campaigns are having, what lessons we can learn from them about success, and what these new campaigns platforms mean for the future of social change.
Joel Dignam reviews Jane McAlevey’s No Shortcuts: Organising for Power in the Gilded Age. McAlevey outlines a critique of most contemporary union campaigning, using case studies and other analysis to argue for a deeper more rigorous approach to organising.