IN SEARCH OF -- |
-- THE CUTTING EDGE |
With an obligatory bow to the grand masters every generation of organizers and leaders must seize their moment and reinvent the nature and relevancy of the work. Saul Alinsky invented community organizing. Ed Chambers codified and professionalized what Alinsky initiated. Dick Harmon re-imagined what broad based organizations could do. Ernesto Cortes, Jr, Michael Gecan and Arnold Graf refined broad-based organizing in the crucible of urban and rural America. Sr Christine Stephens nurtured the nation's first truly powerful statewide network of broad based community organizations into sustained, constructive impact. Who's next?
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What's next will not be simply more of the same. What's next is happening now in unlikely locales, with daring leaders and organizers dissatisfied with existing models and paradigms seeking their own pathway, smelting their own ore, putting an edge on their own ventures.
Like the rest of the human race, organizational networks are tribal. The articulated upside of this reality is to establish a vision, culture and power base that is defendable and expandable. The downside is a resistance to new ideas, directions and locales that offer promise. Personal loyalties may reinforce tribalism in unhealthy ways. Innovation requires the freedom to explore, create and make mistakes. Cutting edge leaders and organizers understand the tension between received concepts and practices on the one hand and innovation on the other. They operate inside this tension. |
Who's Next? Here's a watch-list:
Emerging into national prominence from a base in the deep South, TBR represents the new breed of dynamic, institutionally based organization. TBR is a national model for crossing racial lines with highly innovative strategic initiatives and more importantly, leadership development and Scriptural reflection. TBR refuses to accept the the historic division between charity and justice and successfully reunites both where it matters most - on the ground, in the street, in congregations, in schools, in neighborhoods.
NCG launched on May 22, 2012 and has since taken the Las Vegas Valley by storm. Undeterred by a culture of gambling and sex, NCG is an innovator across a broad front: the first organization to push for and pass sex trafficking legislation at the state level; aggressive incorporation of digital video technology; focused regional cluster development; and top drawer leadership training.
Austin Interfaith, long the leader in Texas school reform, is a major driver of constructive urban investment that rejects public subsidies for low wage job creation. No broad based organization better defends vulnerable workers, including immigrants, than Austin Interfaith. Like other cutting edge IAF organizations AI is a national model for moving a community forward.
The Sound Alliance brings together labor and community in a way that is truly unique. Coupled with consistently strong strategic thinking this blend of institutional membership delivers concrete results while offering great hope for future expansion.
IAF Down Under? Yes. The Sydney Alliance is breaking new ground applying basic organizational methods in an entirely new environment. In so doing SA is refashioning institutionally based organizing in a new key.
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Common Ground is in the forefront of citizen organizing by virtue of stellar initiatives that include creation of a health care cooperative just launched, "Fair Play", a long needed push for improved parks and recreational opportunities for children, youth and families and neighborhood restoration efforts that combine political savvy with concrete action. Like TBR, Common Ground manifests superb use of technology without sacrificing on the ground, face to face organizing.
Times have changed in the metro Chicago area and DuPage United is living proof. No longer simply an escape valve for families seeking an exit from urban problems, DuPage United has dug in with successful initiatives responsive to the new circumstances. The latest example is a workforce strategy - DuPage Connect -that reinvents a Southwest IAF staple in fresh ways.
No grassroots organization in the US has
approached the mortgage crisis more aggressively or more effectively than VOICE. VOICE organized an unprecedented base of homeowners and faith community members to target financial institutions General Electric, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase through direct action organizing. 
Dallas Area Interfaith breaks new ground on Texas health care issues. DAI achieves national notice for work on the ground in congregations, schools and non profits.
It's impossible to determine where Los Angeles begins and ends these days which is why ONE LA is such a remarkable venture. With a rich mix of issues that includes housing foreclosures, health care expansion, infrastructure development and immigration highly unusual partnerships fashioned by leaders and organizers are redefining the possible in a sprawling metropolitan region.
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