“What is the problem in our community, and how do we turn it into an issue?” “How do we tell stories in the public arena, and create change by being at the table?” “How do we build power?”
These are some of the essential questions every community organizer needs to ask, which more than a hundred and forty participants from across the country sought to answer together as they participated in People’s Action Institute’s Fundamentals of Organizing virtual training and Training For Trainers in August.
“Organizers from across the nation trained and told their stories, focusing on deep relational organizing through intentional conversations that lead into action,” said Christian Parra, who led participants through the virtual curriculum.
Participants ranged from experienced organizers to first-timers. The free, two-day Fundamentals course is held online every quarter, and balances an expansive sense of how a multiracial democracy should operate with very practical advice about how to build power in the world as it is today.
“Community organizing seemed overwhelming to me,” wrote one participant. “As a result of the training, it now feels manageable to me.”
The Fundamentals course is part of People’s Action Institute’s expanded training curriculum, which was revamped during COVID to accommodate online participants and to introduce more people to the tradition and craft of community organizing and foundational skills every organizer needs to know to create effective organizations.
“Without the fundamentals of organizing, we will never build base,” said Parra, who was joined in leading the training by other members of the People’s Action Institute training staff and staff from member organizations, including Michigan United, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, The People’s Lobby Education Institute, Citizen Action of Wisconsin Educatinon Fund, Communities United for Action (CUFA) in Ohio, and Missouri Jobs with Justice.
After introducing participants to understanding how power works in local communities, these trainers zeroed in on the foundational techniques to building stronger organizations and initiatives: how to understand your own self-interest, how to achieve goals based on a community’s shared self-interests and how to to build leaders within your organization through intentional conversations that build deep relationships.
“Community organizers are building relationships every single day and are intentionally having uncommon conversations to build power and trust in the public arena,” said Parra.
The Western T4T in Denver was an intensive, in-person “Training for Trainers,” geared specifically in helping experienced organizers to deepen their fundamental skills as trainers, honing in on how to analyze power in a community, identify self-interest and develop leaders through one-to-one conversations.
38 organizers took part in the event, which was the third in a series of regional trainings held for People’s Action and People’s Action Institute members around the country this year. In attendance were organizers from the Colorado People’s Alliance (COPA), OneAmerica, People’s Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), Ground Game LA, the Southwestern Organizing Project (SWOP), Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), the Center for Health Progress and San Francisco Rising.
