Product Description

Compiled by members of the Midwest Academy this book is a bible for anyone who wants to effectively organize to change the quality of their lives or the lives of others. Now in its third edition this book has already sold 60,000 copies in all of its editions since 1991. With new information on the trends, technology, and concerns of the new millennium, this edition of Organizing for Social Change will help concerned citizens bring about needed changes by learning from the experiences of those who have succeeded.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149638 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 425 pages

From the Publisher
This book has been an ideal work book for social movement groups for over a decade. It has been used as a textbook in major universities including Harvard and Johns Hopkins. From local to international issues, this book helps organizers create attention and affect change.

About the Author
Kim Bobo is the founder and director of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. She was a trainer with the Midwest Academy for ten years.

Jackie Kendall, Executive Director of the Midwest Academy worked extensively with senior, student, and citizen action organizations at the local, state and federal levels.

Steve Max has 35 years of experience in civil rights, labor, and community. He is a key trainer and the designer of the economic education program.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
This is a handbook on the fundamentals of direct action organizing. Direct action implies a majority strategy. Much of its power derives from the fear haunting all elected officials that they will be defeated at the polls by angry citizens, or a corporation's fear that it will face massive consumer pressure. This means that direct action works best with issues that a majority of the population would support or at least not actively oppose. Nonetheless, most of this book's guidelines for thinking and acting strategically and its recommendations on organizing skills are also useful for working on other, less popular, justice issues. We focus on direct action because we believe it is the best method for building local activist-based membership organizations as well as larger state and national coalitions.

Customer Reviews

This is it!
This manual takes you through waht you need to know about organizing. From strategy development to research to implementation, this book shows you how to do it. Well written and simple to understand. Outstanding reference for novice to experienced organizer.

The best purchase you can make and you won't need to buy others.

Not as good as their old mimeographs
This book is disappointing. While it may help a college student or other really new person grasp some of the concepts of organizing it is not useful to practioners.

The Midwest Academy used to have a very good training manual covering many issues. As the book got slicker looking the information got worse.

Get Shel Trapp's old Basics of Organizing instead - much more useful, and free on the internet.

Well Said
I've done a LOT of community organizing and a lot of training. I think a fair amount of the resources anybody uses in this area came out of this book. It's most interesting if you have a campaign you're working on. But it provides a thorough review of community organizing techniques. While it doesn't specifically engage social networking technology or digital stuff so much, readers can apply the broader principles and figure out how to work these things in. Quite thought-provoking, also.