Building Powerful Community Organizations

From Social Policy, Spring 2008, Review by James Mumm

BPCO — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:16:56 -0400

“Building Powerful Community Organizations is what you get when a wise veteran organizer…gets around to letting the rest of us in on his secret… Brown manages to be both reflective and disciplined, arranging his book so every chapter is filled with exercises, case studies and an innovative use of “Quick Tips” that offer the reader a fast way to integrate the tools in the book. he is also a gifted storyteller…

Practical and step-by-step, the book’s thirteen chapters offer grassroots organixers and leaders thinking about starting a group (or groups in need of renewal) a workbook and spirit guide….

Not just for beginners, he offers seasoned organizers refreshing wake-up calls throughout the book…a useful and personal guide.”

-James Mumm, Executive Director of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.

Local Economy Guide

BPCO — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:49:14 -0500

This just in from the American Booksellers Association News.

BUILDING POWERFUL COMMUNITY

ORGANIZATIONS: A Personal Guide to

Creating Groups That Can Solve Problems

and Change the World, by Michael Jacoby

Brown “A down-to-earth,

practical guide to building all kinds of grass-roots

organizations. Justifiably praised, with case

studies and exercises, it is the most useful book

on the subject I’ve seen.”—Frank Kramer,

Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA

Independent Book Store Review

BPCO — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:56:36 -0400

…”a very down-to-earth, unusually practical, and very useful guide to creating all kinds of community organizations. I think it should be in every display on building and sustaining vibrant local economies. With case studies and exercises, it is the best book on the subject I’ve seen.”

Carole Horne, General Manager, Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA

New Review from The Voice, Athabasca Student Union, Canada

BPCO — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:13:34 -0400

The Mindful Bard
Michael Jacoby Brown – Building Powerful Community Organizations

Books, Music, and Film to Wake Up Your Muse and Help You Change the World
Wanda Waterman St. Louis, Nova Scotia, Canada

An excerpt from a new review:
Building Powerful Community Organizations is a thorough and detailed course in grassroots organising. If you're serious about your cause, buy, don't borrow, this book. The workbook pages are necessary for an effective absorption of the principles. Brown has drawn on thirty years of activism in just about every social arena and in defence of nearly every communal cause you can name. He has also done extensive research in grassroots activism and spent a great deal of time listening mindfully to the stories of other organisers.

For a direct link to the full review from The Voice, of the Athabasca Student Union, go to:

http://www.voicemagazine.org/search/searchdisplay.php?ART=5456

Review from Bus Boys and Poets Books, Washington, DC

BPCO — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:21:37 -0400

Building Powerful Community Organizations is the perfect gift for any activist or person interested in the health of her or his community or already existing organization. It is an all-in-one, how-to for organizing. And by all-in-one, I really mean it. Recently, I recommended this book to a bookstore customer who was starting a new animal rights organization. A few days later he came back to thank me saying that the workbook exercises really helped him develop the mission, bylaws, and a plan for the first 6 months.

This book has a little bit of theory, a lot of worksheets (one, for example, to help you determine your organization's purpose), and practical advice on every step of the way. For instance, at one point the author says organizing is building an organization and building good leaders.

Here are examples of some of the chapters and subsections:
• Ch. 1. What Is Community Organizing, Anyway? (Subsection: Community Organizing: Power, Self-Interest, and Relationships)
• Ch. 2 Step by Step – Building a Community Organization
• Ch. 4 Structure: How to Build Your Organization to Last ( Structure Matters)
• Ch. 6 How to Recruit: The Nuts and Bolts (Listen. Don't Sell) (How to Recruit for A Task)
• Ch. 7 The Way to Develop Power Is to Develop Leaders (The Iron Rule of Organizing)
The book is very readable because it is laid out well with a lot of graphic variety. Every few pages there are very appropriate and motivational quotes and longer ...