May 15, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy
by Rinku Sen
To alleviate social problems such as poverty and discrimination, it is essential to involve the people who are most affected by them, writes Rinku Sen. Ms. Sen is publisher of ColorLines magazine and director of the New York office of the Applied Research Center, a public-policy, education, and research institution in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on race and social change. Her book presents advice on how to run a grass-roots organizing campaign to ensure that people from disadvantaged groups can help promote change.
To highlight successful approaches to community organizing, Ms. Sen draws on the experiences of 14 organizations that received grants through the economic-justice program of the Ms. Foundation for Women, in New York. Most of the groups featured in the book strive to improve working conditions or fight discrimination, or both.
To help organizers get started, Ms. Sen describes the benefits and disadvantages of incorporating a group as a union, or as an organization classified as a charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. She talks about how to recruit volunteers, train organizers, and stage protests and other events designed to influence the public. Ms. Sen also stresses that progressive groups continually need to provide political education to their members and conduct research to support their constituents.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94103-1741; (317) 572-3993 or (800) 956-7739; fax (317) 572-4002; http://www.josseybass.com; 211 pages; $25; I.S.B.N. 0-7879-6533-2.
