The Many Benefits of Local Organizing

To the Editor:

Pablo Eisenberg reminds us that community organizing — adult, community-based, experiential education in civic participation — is a key strategy as low-income people build economic and political capital in an era of welfare reform and the devolution of federal authority (“Foundations: a Step Behind in the Poverty Fight,” December 3).

The strategy is also key to the development of social capital. In the belief that community building is, by definition, the process of collective problem solving across lines that can divide community members, the James Irvine Foundation has made substantial investments in organizing to support the development of an effective pluralism in California.

Our partners have made measurable gains. The Center for Community Change, for which Irvine provides core support in California, has provided much of the leadership for the Alameda Corridor Jobs Coalition mentioned by Mr. Eisenberg. The Industrial Areas Foundation, forming strong relationships with applied researchers to help grassroots people put data to good use, is developing multi-institutional regional collaborations to counter the larger forces affecting local neighborhoods. The Pacific Institute for Community Organization won passage of statewide legislation providing $50-million for after-school programs. Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches worked with city officials and state legislators to enact a law making the achievement of a G.E.D. a condition of alternative sentencing or parole; LAM’s churches will become learning centers in the program. In collaboration with nine other organizations in the Central Valley Partnership for Citizenship, the American Friends Service Committee, El Colegio Popular, Valley Catholic Charities, and the Sacramento Valley Organizing Community are assisting newcomers to learn English and naturalize by means of experiential curricula in civic engagement.

The faith perspective of most of these groups provides an important values base of inclusiveness, tolerance, and respect for human dignity. The skills, understandings, and attitudes developed by these many thousands of people in their civic work together — and, importantly, the relationships developed among them and with those holding established positions of authority — are the building blocks of our communities and our democracy.

Craig E. McGarvey
Program Director, Civic Culture
James Irvine Foundation
San Francisco