Philanthropy Must Proudly Support Community Organizers

To the Editor:

Our historic presidential contest has finally opened the door for a long-overdue discourse on the important role of community organizing and why foundations should invest in these efforts.

Regardless of what transpires over the next four years, President-elect Barack Obama can already be likened to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Not as a president, at least not yet. But rather as a wise and courageous leader whose ascendency to the White House is grounded in his experience as a Chicago community organizer.

During the recent presidential campaign, some candidates and their surrogates attempted to suggest that there is something “un-American” about being a community organizer. Efforts to malign Barack Obama included attacks on the Woods Fund because our foundation supports community organizing and because Mr. Obama served on our board for eight years.

The bogus charges against Mr. Obama and the Woods Fund are not only cynical and mean-spirited, they conveniently ignore the rich tradition of community organizing as old as our country itself.

Americans, of all people, should remember that our Founding Fathers launched a grass-roots movement to gain better governmental representation for an underserved public and that we owe our individual rights and independence as a country to that movement.

In reality, there are few things more quintessentially democratic than when citizens coalesce around a common purpose. From the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage, civil rights, and many, many other movements, we are a stronger country because people are free to identify their common interests and then fight for their enactment.

Community organizing is not the sole province of one side or another of the ideological divide. Both conservative and liberal movements use community organizing as a vehicle to mobilize constituencies for the issues they believe are important. But when it works best, community organizing sparks universal engagement that leads to mobilization for change that serves the common good.

A grass-roots campaign in Illinois, for example, that began with one priest’s efforts to combat predatory payday lenders culminated in bipartisan passage of a state law that regulated practices that primarily exploit the less advantaged and saved consumers $26-million. Similarly, 133,000 low-income children in Illinois now have access to a healthy school breakfast thanks to legislation advanced by a community group started by a Chicago-area grandmother troubled that so many neighborhood kids were attending class on an empty stomach. The Woods Fund of Chicago was proud to support both of these achievements.

We are deeply dismayed that the recent political crossfire may have harmed perceptions of the countless numbers of people across America who work to improve their communities, often against great odds and with very little support.

But the problem is even larger. Our country and other nations are facing a great number of challenges in the coming years that must be resolved if people of the world are to survive and thrive.

If we don’t empower our grandmothers, teachers, young people, working moms and dads, local businesspeople, and everyone else to become involved in finding and working for solutions, our chances of success are diminished greatly.

Community organizers bring people together.

When people come together in the spirit of democracy to identify and work on common problems, the best solutions rise to the top, universal values are forged, and nations get stronger.

Now more than ever before, the field of philanthropy can and should play a significant role in strengthening the democratic process through supporting the field of organizing.

Community organizing remains a core value upon which our great country was founded and is an essential mechanism for us to meet the daunting local, national, and global challenges that lie ahead.

We hope many other foundations will join the Woods Fund in investing in these efforts. We think it’s the American thing to do.

Deborah Harrington
President
Woods Fund of Chicago