|
| Submit
a "tool" idea |
| Name |
Description |
Source |
|
| Adam Nagourney,
"Dean
Organizers Take Lessons from Labor."
|
News
article about Howard Dean's Campaign in New Hampshire, December 5, 2003. |
NY
Times |
| Alexis
De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II, Part II, Chapters 2-6
|
“In
democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is
the mother of all other forms of knowledge: on its
progress depends that of all others,” de Tocqueville
stated. |
Henry
Reeve Translation |
| Ariane
Liazos and Marshall Ganz, Duty to the Race: African
American Fraternal Orders and the Legal Defense of the
Right to Organize."
|
Ganz
and Liazos demonstrate the value of studying on
organizational histories through the example of
African American Frateral Orders. |
Social
Science History |
| Aristotle,
Politica, Book 1, Chapter 1-2
|
Aristotle
locates organizing within the broader context of
democratic politics. |
Clarendon
Press |
| Barack
Obama, "The Audacity of Hope." |
Barack
Obama: 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote
Address
|
www.americanrhetoric.com |
| Bono,
"Keynote Address at the 54th National Prayer
Breakfast" |
Bono
speaks at the 54th National Prayer Breakfast to
promote the ONE campaign.
|
www.americanrhetoric.com |
| Cesar
Chavez, "The Organizer's Tale." |
Chavez
describes how he came to terms with the challenges of
organizing.
|
Ramparts
Magazine |
| Charles
Dobson, The
Citizen's Handbook |
The Citizens Handbook is meant to encourage the emergence of more active citizens - people motivated by an interest in public issues, and a desire to make a difference beyond their own private lives. Active citizens are a great untapped resource, and citizenship is a quality to be nurtured.
|
Vancouver
Citizen's Committee |
Community
Organizing &
Economic Development |
These links provide
excellent models, stories, e-mail lists, newsletters,
strategies, tools, and relevent federal agencies and
national organizations.
|
University
of Michigan Institute of Labor and Industrial
Relations |
| Dr.
M.L. King, "The Drum Major Instinct."
|
King
challenges popular assumptions about leadership so we
can learn to lead more effectively.
|
A
Testament of Hope |
| Exodus,
Chapter 2-6
|
The
story of Moses' call to organizing. |
The
Bible |
| Exodus,
Chapter 18
|
The
selection from Exodus addresses the challenge of learning
leadership by letting others learn it. |
The
Bible |
| Hanna
Rosin, "People-Powered:
In New Hampshire, Howard Dean's Campaign Has Energized
Voters"
|
News
article about Howard Dean's Campaign in New Hampshire, December 9, 2003. |
Washington
Post |
| Ian
Simmons, “On One-to-Ones.”
|
Simmons
shows how organizers do relational work. |
The
Next Steps of Organizing: Putting Theory into Action |
| Jane
Addams, Twenty
Years at Hull House, Chapters 4-5.
|
Addams
describes how she came to terms with the challenges of
organizing.
|
The
Macmillan Co. |
| Jennifer
Gordon, “We Make the Road by Walking: Immigrant
Workers, the Workplace Project, and the Struggle for
Social Change.”
|
Gordon
offers an example of how to combine services and
claims-making in organizing new immigrants. |
Harvard
Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review |
| Jo
Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness"
|
Freeman
urges us to distinguish authority structures that
facilitate voice from those that repress it. |
Berkeley
Journal of Sociology |
| Kenwyn
Smith and David Berg, "A Paradoxical Conception
of Group Dynamics."
|
Smith
and Berg identify dilemmas that any organization must
manage. |
Human
Relations |
| Gregory
Dicum, "A Second Ganz."
|
"Enviros need to get social, says activist-turned-sociologist Marshall
Ganz." |
Grist
Magazine |
| Jacques Levy,
"Prologue"
|
Levy
shows how action tactics can be knit together
strategically. |
Cesar
Chavez |
| Jerome
Bruner, Chapter 2, “Two Modes of Thought."
|
Bruner distinguishes between two types
of thoughts, logical argument and story.
|
Actual Minds, Possible
Worlds |
| Kenneth
Andrews, Marshall Ganz, Matthew Baggetta, Hahrie
Han, Chaeyoon Lim, Sierra Club National Purpose, Local
Action Report Digest
|
This
digest summarizes the findings reported at the 2005
Sierra Club Summit about the effectiveness of their
Groups and the Chapters. |
Unpublished
Work |
| Kim
Voss, Marshall
Ganz, Teresa Sharpe, Carl Somers and George Strauss,
Against The Tide: Projects and Pathways of the New
Generation of Union Leaders, 1984-2001."
|
This
study focuses on the generation of leaders currently
heading the America labor movement. |
Rebuilding
Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union
Movement |
| Larry
Parachini and Sally Covington, Community
Organizers Tool Box |
A Funder's Guide to Community Organizing
|
Neighborhood
Funders Group |
| M.S.
Kierkegaard, “When the Knower Has to Apply
Knowledge” from “Thoughts on
Crucial Situations in Human Life.”
|
Kierkegaard
reminds us that learning practice requires emotional
resources, as well as cognitive and behavioral ones. |
Parables
of Kierkegaard |
| Malcolm
Gladwell, “Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg"
|
Gladwell
illustrates the power of relational networks in
everyday life– with people “like us” and people
not “like us”. |
The
New Yorker |
| Margaret
Weir and Marshall Ganz, "Reconnecting People and
Politics."
|
Weir
and Ganz argue a need for greater participation in
democratic governance. |
The
New Majority: Toward a Popular Progressive Politics |
| Mario
Cuomo, "A
Tale of Two Cities." |
Cuomo's Two Cities Speech in 1984
- Reagan
and Cuomo draw on distinct threads of the same
tradition to tell contrasting stories about the US in
the early 1980s. |
American
Rhetoric
|
| Mark
Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties.”
|
"The argument asserts that our
acquaintances (weak ties) are less likely to be
socially involved with one another than are our close
friends (strong ties)." |
American
Sociological Review |
| Marshall
Ganz, "Organizing for Democratic Renewal,"
TPM Cafe, 3/27/06
|
"We
may finally be coming to understand what De
Tocqueville saw – the promise of democratic politics
is in people’s ability to enter into relationships
with one another to articulate common purposes and act
on them. Organizing to bring people back into politics
is not a cost, but an investment in rebuilding the
democratic infrastructure of our public life under
assault for far too many years." |
Talking
Points Memo |
| Marshall
Ganz, "Staying Connected to Our Moral
Sources," TPM Cafe, 3/29/06
|
"Access
to our moral sources is exactly what we need to create
the possibility of winning. One of the key lessons of
the social movements of the past -- of the left and of
the right - is that their power grew out of the moral
energy of their people (not just their organizers),
their readiness to take risk, and their
resourcefulness - all of which was rooted in turn, not
in "self-interest" in any obvious sense, but
in the values at stake." |
Talking
Points Memo |
| Marshall
Ganz on Civic Participation and Effective Organizing,
Interview 2006
|
“Making
democracy work is not simply a matter of protecting
individual liberties; it’s also a matter of creating
collective capacity so that voices join together and
can find common concerns and mobilize the resources
together to act on them.” |
Kennedy
School Insight Interview |
| Marshall
Ganz, "Explaining Effectiveness in Local Civic
Associations."
|
Why
are some civic associations more effective at
developing leaders, engaging members and advancing
their public agendas than others? This paper reports
initial findings from a study of local Sierra Club
organizations. |
Working
Paper |
| Marshall
Ganz, Dean
House Meeting Campaign Information Packet
|
An
information packet about the Dean New Hampshire House
Meeting Campaign. |
Ganz,
Dean NH Campaign |
| Marshall
Ganz, Dean
House Meeting Campaign Host
Instructions
|
Instructions
for people hosting house meetings. |
Ganz,
Dean NH Campaign |
| Marshall
Ganz, The Israeli Organizing Project Report
|
Marshall
Ganz helped to launch the second round of an organizer
training program in Israel in collaboration with
Shatil, an Israeli community advocacy organization,
Tel Aviv College, and Hebrew University. Modeled on
his teaching at the Kennedy School, the core teaching
team offers a year long program of reflective practice
for full time community advocates that combines
theoretical work, skill development, and individual
coaching. |
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, Sierra Club Leadership Development Project
Syllabus Workshop #1
|
Building
powerful social movements requires identifying
recruiting and developing leadership, building
community among these leaders, and building power from
that community. This syllabus is intended to
help leaders harvest lessons about leadership, allow
you to learn from other’ experiences and enhance
their ability to lead. |
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, Sierra Club Leadership Development Project
Syllabus Workshop #2
|
The
second workshop of four in the Leadership Development
Series - We deepen our understanding of leadership as
“accepting responsibility to create conditions that
enable others to achieve shared purposes in the face
of uncertainty” by building relationships,
motivating participation, devising strategy, and
taking action. In
this workshop we focus on the first two components:
relationships and motivation.
|
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, Sierra Club Leadership Development Project
Syllabus Workshop #3
|
The
third workshop of four in the Leadership Development
Series - We continue to deepen our understanding of
leadership as “accepting responsibility to create
conditions that enable others to achieve shared
purposes in the face of uncertainty” by building
relationships, motivating participation, devising
strategy, and taking action.
In
this workshop we focus on the latter two components -
strategy and action – and how to structure your team
to do them well.
|
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, Sierra Club Leadership Development Project
Syllabus Workshop #4
|
The
last of the four workshops in the Leadership
Development Series – our opportunity to synthesize
our learning from the first three workshops. We have
deepened our understanding of leadership as
“accepting responsibility to create conditions that
enable others to achieve shared purposes in the face
of uncertainty” by building relationships,
motivating participation, devising strategy, and
taking action.
In
this workshop, we connect
together all of the structures, skills, and practices
that we have been working with this year. |
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, "Making Democracy Work?"
|
A
Book Review of Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building
to Revitalize American Democracy by Mark R. Warren. |
Contexts |
| Marshall
Ganz, "Notes on Storytelling."
|
"Stories
move us to act. Action requires risk and our
willingness to take risks is rooted in our emotions,
themselves rooted in our values. One way we can
translate our values into the emotions that can
inspire action is by telling a story.
" |
Working
Paper |
| Marshall
Ganz, "What is Public Narrative?"
|
In
this essay, Marshall Ganz argues that public narrative
is a leadership art through which we translate values
into action: engaging heart, head, and hands. As
narrative it is built from the experience of
challenge, choice and outcome. As public narrative it
is woven from three elements: a story of self, a story
of us, and a story of now.
|
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, Public Narrative Worksheet
|
You
may think that your story doesn’t matter, that
people aren’t interested, that you shouldn’t be
talking about yourself.
But when you do public work, you have a
responsibility to offer a public account of who you
are, why you do what you do, and where you hope to
lead.
|
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, Coaching Good Stories
|
Coach
a story teller by listening actively, asking
challenging questions, and providing constructive
feedback. Coaching has emotional, conceptual, and
behavioral dimensions. |
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz, from “The Power of Story in Social Movements"
|
Ganz
relates story telling to organizing. |
Working
Paper |
| Marshall
Ganz, The Rabbinical Training Institute Report
|
Marshall
Ganz led a four-day training session in organizing
with 25 Rabbis at the annual professional development
institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary in
January 2006. Concern by the fact that Rabbinical
leaders have no alternative to the business model of
organization, Marshall Ganz has begun work to develop
a constituency-based alternative that could be
introduced to seminaries, professional development
programs and elsewhere. |
Unpublished
Work |
| Marshall
Ganz. “Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic
Capacity in the Unionization of California
Agriculture, 1959-1966”
|
"By
analyzing leadership, organizational influences on
actors' choices, and their interaction within the
environment, this study shows that greater access to
salient information, heuristic facility, and
motivation generated more effective strategy" |
American
Journal of Sociology |
| Marshall
Ganz, ""Voters in the Crosshairs"
|
"Campaigns
and elections are the lifeblood of American democracy
and the principal means by which citizens form and
express political opinions. Any less than full and
equal electoral participation puts democracy at risk.
Today electoral participation is neither full nor
equal, and it is getting worse." |
The
American Prospect |
| Marshall
Ganz, "Organizing as Leadership",
2004.
|
This
article discusses the role of leadership in
organizing. |
Encyclopedia
of Leadership |
| Marshall
Ganz, "What is Organizing?"
|
This
article discusses what is involved in the work of an
organizer. |
Social
Policy |
| Marshall
Ganz, “Why David Sometimes Wins: Strategic Capacity
in Social Movements.”
|
Ganz
discusses how the strategic capacity of a leadership
team can help explain why "David" sometimes
wins. |
Rethinking
Social Movements |
| Mike
Gecan, “Chapter 10, Three Public Cultures.” |
Gecan
distinguishes between three types of public cultures:
the Market Culture, the Bureaucratic Culture, and the
Relational Culture. |
Going Public |
| Organizers'
Collaborative web site |
Newly
updated list of web resources most relevant to
nonprofits, technology, and social change
activism.
The Organizers' Collaborative is an organization that
fosters more effective use of computers and the
Internet by grassroots social change groups. |
The
Organizers'
Collaborative |
| Paulo
Freire, Pedagogy
of the Oppressed, Chapter 2.
|
Freire
focuses on the challenge of neutralizing the role of
power in shaping deliberation. |
Continuum
Books |
| Richard
Kearney, “Narrative Matters.” |
Kearney
offers an overview of how story – mobilizing emotion
for action - “works,” combining insights from
literature, philosophy, the law, psychology, and
sociology. |
On
Stories |
| Richard
Kearney, “Where do Stories Come From.” |
Kearney
points to the role of our “stories” in forming
relationship with others. |
On
Stories |
| Ronald
Reagan,
Inaugural Address |
Reagan's
Inaugural Address in 1981 - Reagan
and Cuomo draw on distinct threads of the same
tradition to tell contrasting stories about the US in
the early 1980s. |
bartleby.com |
| Samuel,
Chapter 17, Verses 4-49.
|
The
“classic” tale of strategy recounted in the Book
of Samuel, the story of David and Goliath, shows how
resourcefulness can compensate for lack of resources. |
The
Bible |
| Taylor
Branch, Parting
the Waters, Chapter 5, "The Montgomery Bus
Boycott."
|
Branch’s
account of the Montgomery bus boycott shows how
organizing can actually work. |
Simon
& Schuster |
| Thucydides,
“The Sixteenth Year – the Melian Dialogue.”
|
Thucydides
challenges us to consider the links between power and
right. |
The
Peloponessian Wars |
| Theda
Skocol, Marshall
Ganz, and Ziad Munson, "A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional
Origins of Civic Volunteerism in the United States."
|
This
study challenges the view that classic American
voluntary groups are tiny, local, and disconnected
from government. |
American
Political Science Review |
| Theda
Skocpol, "The Tocqueville Problem: Civic
Engagement in American Democracy."
|
Skocpol
locates organizing in debates about civic engagement. |
Social
Science History |
| Thich
Nhat Hanh,"The Raft is Not the Shore."
|
Thich
Nhat Hanh reflects on limits of theory in learning
practice. |
Thundering Silence: Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake |
| William
Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3, “We Happy Few.”
|
In
the scene from Henry V, Shakespeare allows us to
experience the link between emotion and action in
young King Henry’s “story of hope.” |
shakespeare-
literature.com |
| |
 |