COURSE OUTLINE - Fall 2004

 

Assignments for this course:

 

• Weekly paper (1-3 pages) applying one of the points raised in class or in readings to field placement, work situation, volunteer work or issues described in media. Due each week.
• Other assignments as determined throughout the semester.      

 

Course Outline:

Week 1-3:

Introduction

Organizing for power

Purpose of organizing: building powerful organizations through winning issues

Personal rules vs. public rules

Programmatic vs. participatory organizations

Describe process of organizing from issue identification through action

 

Alta Lash. UCAN Fact Sheet: Personal and Power Situations

UCAN Fact Sheet: Organizations - Programmatic through Empowerment

Community Toolbox: “Strategies for Community Change and Improvement”

Stephen Valocchi: “A Way of Thinking About the History of Community Organizing”

Bill Moyers: Text of speech to the Take Back America conference, June 4, 2003

Robert Putnam: “The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life”, American Prospect

Herbet J. Gans. The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All.  Social Policy.  July/August, 1971, pp. 20-24

John McKnight. Services Are Bad for People: You’re Either a Citizen or a Client.  Organizing.  Spring/Summer. 1991

Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. “The Uses of City Neighborhoods”, 1989, pp.112 – 140.

Week 4:

Identification of issues

Talking to people about issues - role of self-interest

Case Studies on issue identification

Relationship of issues to power and organization building

 

UCAN Issue Case Studies

Community Toolbox: Eric Wadud: “Building and Sustaining Commitment”

UCAN Fact Sheet: Motivating People

Community Toolbox: Jeanette Nagy & Rebecca Wolff: “Influencing People”

Community Toolbox: Bill Berkowitz: “Making Contact with Potential Participants”

Week 5:

Purpose of a planning meeting

Preparation for planning meeting

Agenda for planning meeting

Conducting effective meetings

Action meetings

Techniques for controlling meetings

 

UCAN Sample Planning Meeting Agenda

UCAN Sample Action Meeting Agenda

Community Toolbox: Gillian Kaye: “Conducting Effective Meetings”

Week 6:

Posters and Flyers

Reports on internship experiences - update on groups, issues, research and your observations

 

Community Toolbox: Chris Hampton: “Creating Posters and Flyers”

Ralph Abernathy: And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott” 

Week 7:

Qualities normally associated with leadership

Use these ideas to come up with concept of collective leadership

Identifying and testing leaders

Common problems with leaders in lower-income constituencies and other groups difficult to organize - e.g., immigrants

 

UCAN Fact Sheet: Shared Leadership

James MacGregor Burns: “Prologue: The Crisis of Leadership”

Harold Leavitt & Jean Lipman-Blumen, “Hot Groups,” Harvard Business Review, July-August, 1995

Community Toolbox: P. Kramer: “Developing a Plan for Increasing Participation”

Community Toolbox: Phil Rabinowitz: Styles of Leadership 

Week 8:

Identify kind of research needed to win an issue

Identifying leverage needed to win issue

Techniques for developing a sound strategy

 

Community Toolbox: Eric Wadud and Prue Breitrose: “Studying the Opposition”

Community Toolbox: Chris Hampton, Jenette Nagy, Eric Wadud, Aimee Whitman: “How to Respond to the Opposition”

Community Toolbox: Overview of Opposition Tactics: Recognizing the 10 D’s”

Robert Baer.  The Fall of the House of Saud.  Atlantic Monthly. May, 2003. Pp53 - 62. 

Week 9:

Winning an issue means winning the fight for public perception

Use examples to illustrate point

Selling an issue inside vs. outside

Creative tactics to highlight issue

 

Center for Community Change: “How to Develop a Communications Plan”

Community Toolbox: “Developing a Plan for Communication”