Building Powerful Community Organizations

Professor Robert Fisher Reviews the Book

BPCO — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:46:00 -0500

. “Michael Jacoby Brown’s Building Powerful Community Organizations is a splendid “how to” book on community organizing. I used it this semester in my community organizing class at the University of Connecticut, and the students found it tremendously helpful and highly accessible.”

-- Professor Robert Fisher, University of Connecticut

Journal of Community Practice Book Review

BPCO — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:44:00 -0500

From Vol 16 (1), 2008, by Mitchell Kahn, MSW, Ramapo College of New Jersey, VP and Director of Organizing, New Jersey Tenants Organization. (excerpts):

“This no nonsense, user-friendly guidebook is replete with sound organizing advice…The book is creatively designed to actively engage the reader with the material being presented…There is a lot to chew on her, and a reader new to organizing might feel overwhelmed by this soup to nuts approach, but the book’s nicely illustrated, jargon-free, pragmatic and skilled pedagogical format makes it a wonderful textbook for teaching community organizing.”

From Social Policy, Spring 2008, Review by James Mumm

BPCO — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:16:00 -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 21:49:00 -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 11:56:00 -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