Grassroots Organizing School

Overview

re:power Fund’s Grassroots Organizing School is an 18-week course built to provide BIPOC grassroots organizers with the training and support necessary to develop a baseline of relational organizing skills. 

The curriculum, based on Professor Marshall Ganz’s successful “Leadership, Organizing, and Action” program, is designed to take participants through a full campaign learning journey and includes sessions on public narrative as a leadership tool, building organizing relationships, creating interdependent leadership teams, developing campaign strategy, and taking action with your community. 

Relational organizing is at the heart of Grassroots Organizing School’s approach. At re:power Fund, we believe that movements must center base building in all their strategies and that engaging new people, developing their leadership capacity, and placing them in positions of real responsibility is essential to long-term success beyond any individual campaign. With that in mind, our entire curriculum is built to enhance our organizers’ relational skills and their capacity to distribute responsibility and develop the leadership of others.

Course modules include:

• Introduction to Organizing
• Coaching as a Leadership Practice
• Public Narrative: Stories of Self, Us, and Now
• Relationship-Building
• Building Interdependent Leadership Teams
• Creating Shared Strategy
• Tactics & Timeline
• Mobilizing for Action

Who is the course for?

Ideal applicants come from all walks of life, from seasoned organizers and campaigners looking to sharpen their skills, to newer leaders who are passionate about organizing and want to bring rigor to their learning journey. Here are some attributes shared by all our applicants:

• Organizing Insight: You don’t need to be a professional politico, but we’re looking for applicants with experience doing organizing work on the ground. That work can be tied to grassroots, electoral, and/or issue organizing. We seek to support organizers who are currently part of a campaign effort or are seeking to build one. 
• Relational & people-focused: Ideal participants are excited to build relationships, to invest in the leadership of others, and to build teams of purpose-driven leaders.
• Dedication to Inclusive Politics and Intersectional solutions: At re:power, we center race, class, gender and sexuality across all our trainings—it’s part of our practice of inclusive politics. We are looking for organizers who share our values and are seeking to build power in historically marginalized communities.

Course Structure

The course will launch with an in-person convening from May 2nd–5th in Atlanta, Georgia. Starting on May 13th, we will meet virtually every week on Mondays until August 19, 2023. Participants will also be required to meet once every 2 weeks with an assigned small group of peers to complete a group assignment (a Skill Practice Assignment, or “SPA”). You can visualize the flow in the table below:

We’ll close with a final in-person convening, August 23rd–25th.

Expectations

This is an intensive, interactive course, with high expectations for participation. 

During lectures & sections:

• We ask participants to write in the chat box, share verbally, and participate in breakout group discussion. 

Outside of class time, participants will be asked to:

• Apply their learning to their work in real time, 
• Complete required readings,
• Write biweekly reflection papers, and 
• Complete biweekly short group projects alongside a small group of other participants. 

There are limited spaces available for participants in this course. If you feel you are not able to meet course expectations, we ask that you do not apply.

Make-up Policy

In case of a work or family emergency that cannot be rescheduled without putting jobs/health in jeopardy, participants may miss up to two scheduled sessions (lecture or sections). Make-up work will be required.