Toolbox for Community Organizers & Social Entrepreneurs

Inside you will find:

INTRODUCTION
An increasing number of communities are engaging in place-based development to improve their quality of life.

Community residents are taking on leadership roles to solve problems and acting as community organizers to bring about the changes they, and their neighbors, have identified as priorities.

Many residents are reluctant to take on a leadership role due to a lack of confidence and uncertainty of possessing the skills needed for success.

The fields of leadership, problem solving, and community organizing have vast amounts of information, guides, how to manuals, to educate and support people taking on leadership roles. The volume of information presents challenges in selecting and applying tools that best meet users current challenges.

This Toolbox was assembled to introduce potential community leaders to some of the basic tools, concepts, best practices, lessons learned, needed to organize successful change efforts.

In addition to providing potential leaders with a short introduction to some basic tools the resources listed here can serve as a gateway to additional related material.

The order in which the resources, aka Tools, are discussed is not intended as a sequence for application.
Community organizers will select the tools needed for specific tasks, and circumstances will determine
the sequence of tasks and their respective tools.

The Tool Box can be used as a stand on its own resource for community groups and potential community organizers, change agents; it can also be utilized by organizations as a resource in a training program.

CONTENTS
Part 1 reviews 13 tools, commonly applied to leadership, problem solving, and community organizing along with an appendix of complementary schematics.

These, and related tools, will assist community organizers to implement improvements selected by residents, as well as assisting collaborating with allies in social movements.

In this Tool-Box the term “tool” can be a method, methodology or set of principles.

Part 2 reviews broader-based methodologies for organizing social movements to complement local initiatives seeking to improve quality of life, followed by a brief Appendix of US social movements.

These methodologies will assist local leaders to collaborate with allies on projects that affect quality of life in communities, US regions, and the globe, e.g., global warming.

Some Food for Thought As You Get Started

Resource: A helpful resource is Mind Tools at https://www.mindtools.com/ You can review the wide array of problem-solving tools for different aspects of problem solving. For $1.00 you can review material for one month.

Pause for a moment and watch: Want to Help Somebody? Shut up and Listen

My Key Takeaway from Parts 1,2.
Positive, lasting, social change requires integrating grassroots organizing with social movements, Strategy guides the change effort.

Click here to download the entire Toolbox by Joseph Szocik.