What is Organizing?
Organizing is leadership that enables people to turn the resources they have into the power they need to make the change they want. As we’ll learn throughout this guide, community organizing is all about people, power, and change – it starts with people and relationships, is focused on shifting power, and aims to create lasting change. Organizing people to build the power to make change is based on the mastery of five key leadership practices: telling stories, building relationships, structuring teams, strategizing, and acting. That is, to develop our capacity for effective community organizing, we must learn:
The Five Leadership Practices
- How to articulate a story of why we are called to lead, a story of the community we hope to mobilize and why we’re united, and a story of why we must act.
- How to build intentional relationships as the foundation of purposeful collective actions.
- How to create structure that distributes power and responsibility and prioritizes leadership development.
- How to strategize turning your resources into the power to achieve clear goals.
- How to translate strategy into measurable, motivational, and effective action.
Though organizing is not a linear process, organizers use the first three practices (stories, relationships, structure) to build power within a community, while the last two practices (strategy, action) are about wielding that power in order to create change. Read More.
Upcoming event: Orientation to Organizing – Community Power to Achieve Immigrant Justice-UK
Are you searching for effective ways to build power and drive change in your communities?
Look no further! Our Orientation to Organizing on January 19th at 10 AM- 1 PM EST is the perfect opportunity. This 3-hour introductory session delves into the organizing and public narrative practices developed by Marshall Ganz at the Harvard Kennedy School and his associates. It’s one of our most sought-after sessions at LCN.
For this session, we’ve teamed up with George Gabriel to explore organizing with a special focus on empowering communities to achieve immigrant justice. We’ll draw insights from Citizens UK’s 2015 campaign, which successfully resettled 20,000 Syrians in the UK, showcasing how it scaled during a time of crisis.
Who should attend this session?
This session is ideal for individuals seeking effective ways to drive change in their communities. It offers a basic understanding of organizing and how it translates into practice.
We also encourage you to invite other members of your team, organization, and community to join you in this learning experience. Having a shared language of organizing and leadership can be powerful when working together!
Even if you’re familiar with organizing and narrative pedagogy but need a refresher on the framework’s basics, or are looking for case studies, you’ll find this session beneficial.
Finally, the timezone for this session is convenient for organizers and leaders based across Europe, Asia and Australia.
What will you gain from this session?
- Gain an introductory overview and a basic understanding of the five practices of community organizing, illustrated with a real example from a Refugees Justice campaign.
- Have the opportunity to learn from and connect with other organizers and leaders from around the world.
- Get an introduction to the Leading Change Network and our programs.
We will walk you through the five leadership practices of our community organizing framework: public narrative, relationship building, team structuring, strategizing, mobilizing people to action, and coaching. These practices are at the core of transforming our communities’ resources into the power needed to achieve the desired change.
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This year has taken a lot from us. As we move through deep uncertainty — politically, socially, and personally — and experience great injustice, many of us have found ourselves questioning how best to respond, and where our leadership is most needed. At times we’ve acted boldly, at times we’ve paused, adapted, or leaned into care. This session is an opportunity to reflect on how we've each acted in response to challenge — and to reconnect with the agency and clarity we need to move forward. Together, we’ll surface the range of ways people across our community have navigated this moment — whether by building bridges and connections, disrupting and raising the stakes, or other meaningful ways — and explore what each of these approaches makes possible. This isn’t about finding the one “right” way to respond, but about learning from the diversity of leadership choices and archetypes that