Organizing: People, Power and Change

Fulfilling the democratic promise of equity, accountability, and effectiveness requires the participation of an “organized” citizenry able to formulate, articulate, and assert its shared interests. Organizing, in turn, requires leadership: accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty. Organizers ask three questions: who are my people, what challenges do they face, and how can they turn their resources into the power they need to meet these challenges? Organizers identify, recruit, and develop leadership; build community around that leadership; and build power from the resources of that community. In this capstone course, you will intern with organizations that engage in this type of organizing and are willing to assign you a role in this work. In our weekly classroom meetings, you will learn five core leadership practices: building public relationships, turning values into motivation through public narrative, turning resources into power by strategizing, turning good intentions into effective action, and structuring organizations to develop leadership, engage constituents, and achieve goals. You will be coached, and in the process learn how to coach others, in these five practices.