This is another contribution to Campfire from Michael Foley (user greenuprising). As a rather recent inductee to the process of community organizing, I found myself nodding along to this essay and wishing I had had this sort of background before beginning my work in Willits.

In a previous post, I argued that an important part of preparing at the local level for an uncertain future lies in strengthening our communities and making them more resilient. That takes community organizing, or making use of existing organizations. Mobilizing for policy change at both local, state/provincial, and national levels also requires organization. A few letters to the editor or cranky phone calls to your representatives won't cut it, though it may occasionally be personally satisfying. So how do we organize? And what sorts of organizations can we put to use? The following is an effort to lay out the basic models I've seen in action in the United States and Latin America. With minor differences, I suspect they're pretty much universal in the “modern” sector of societies around the world.