Building the Field of Community Organizing

About this grant

This grant will enable the Center for Community Change to continue working to build the field of community organizing. Activities will focus on three major areas: strengthening low-income, grassroots organizations in selected regions of the country; building community organizing infrastructure in specific states; and establishing a community organizing "pool of talent" for the field. The goal of this work is to increase the resources and build permanent capacity in targeted regions of the U.S. to increase the ability of low-income residents to shape the programs that affect their lives.During the past two years, the center identified five geographic regions of the country; inventoried organizing activities in each region and created a national map of community organizations; developed a plan to build relationships with key organizing groups and allies in each region, with the goal of bringing organizations together to work on state issues; completed a demographic and infrastructure power analysis of each region and an issue opportunity analysis for each state and/or region; determined which target geographic areas and constituencies needed focused technical assistance to become more effective; and delivered national expertise on subjects such as taxes, fiscal policy, education, job creation and health care.