Strategic Power Building with Communities

3 Units

This course will prepare students to design an organizing campaign to build grassroots power among those who have been historically marginalized and among constituents within a community and to effectively use that power to leverage social change. Students will explore and share learnings from several traditions of organizing including those for civil rights, labor, neighborhood work, anti-colonial struggles, and consciousness raising. The course will explore a variety of different approaches including organizing institutions, social movements, and organizing campaigns around specific issues or in conjunction with other approaches for social change. It will also examine the opportunities and ethical considerations of organizing within a variety of important contexts including various community geographies, online/offline, and working with social service participants and agencies.