To deepen your understanding of community organising, especially if you’re planning to participate in one of our workshops, we recommend the following online readings:

Community organising for climate action
James Whelan (2012) describes how parts of the environment and climate change movements are adopting the techniques and logic of community organising. This challenges them to learn new habits of political analysis and engagement, and unlearn old ones.
There are four fundamental strategies available to neighborhood groups to address community problems: community organizing, advocacy, service delivery or development. There is no right or wrong strategy – each organization has to choose among them constantly. Each group should specialize – the skills needed to do a good job in one are seldom those needed for another. Sometimes, groups use a combination of strategies. What is important here is that you know what you’re doing – that the method matches the strategy you’ve chosen and they both match the mission the group has adopted. This article will focus on defining and developing the ideas behind community organizing. A great guide to community organising, based on campaigns run by the Centre for Community Change, written by Dave Beckwith and Christina Lopez. Moderated and edited by Randy Stoecker, Comm-org’s mission is to link academics and activists, and theory and practice, toward the goal of improving community organizing and its related crafts. Terrific resources, case studies and links. Useful tips and perspective from legendary organiser Dave Beckwith, based on his review of articles on the Comm-Org site. John Kretzmann reflects on the actual experience of activist neighborhood organizations in recent years and the need for a critical revision of a number of the classic Alinsky strategies and tactics. Sandy O’Donnell and Ellen Schumer examine the problem of organizing in housing and community development. The Shelterforce website is a great online resource for community organizers.
Community Organising: People power from the grassroots
Comm-Org
10 ways to work together: An organizer’s view
Community organizing in the 1980s Towards a post Alinsky agenda
Community building and community organising
Our Campaigners Toolkit has an extensive collection of resources on community organising. Click here for the full collection, or build your own tailored toolkit by narrowing your search. For instance, click on the ‘favourite’ tag as well before searching, or specify ‘environment’, ‘climate change’ or ‘human rights’ for resources specific to those movements.