Cycle of Orgainzing
At the Mass Leadership’s January 25 session called Organizing for Change, Lew Finfer did not have time to walk people through this particular handout called the Cycle of Organizing.
As an introduction Lew writes ………..
Listen Challenge Act Organizing is about listening, challenging people to come forward on their deeply felt interest, and acting together;
LEADERS are people who can organize others to act together around shared goals. If you listen to others and can effectively challenge them to act with you around shared goals, then you can be an effective leader; relationships through listening lead to the power of organized numbers which leads to the ability to accomplish meaningful changes.
All organizing involves a continuing cycle of listening campaigns, research/strategy, action, and evaluation:
campaigns within congregations/organizations to listen to the stories of people’s deeply felt concerns about where they live and where they work. This is done by either or both 1:1 relational meetings and house meeting/small group meetings. From these listening campaigns a congregation/organization can say these are the top priority problems our members are concerned about and these are the stories that illustrate that problem.This is one of the many training documents that Lew uses with the Massachusetts Community Action Network.
