National Education Association Center for Organizing Fundamentals of Organizing Toollkit

Organizing is people coming together to collectively create the change they want to achieve. It is people joining together to work toward common goals. This toolkit breaks down the fundamentals of organizing. In 2002, Marshall Ganz’s article in Social Policy, titled What is Organizing? described organizing this way: Organizers identify, recruit and develop leadership, build community around leadership, and build power out of community. Organizers challenge people to act on behalf of shared values and interests. They develop the relationships, understanding, and action that enable people to gain new understanding of their interests, new resources, and new capacity to use these resources on behalf of their interests. Organizers work through “dialogues” in relationships, interpretation, and action carried out as campaigns. Introduction: What is Organizing....................................................................................................... 1 One-on-One Conversations ............................................................................................................... 2 Issue Identification ............................................................................................................................... 4 Mapping the Workplace ..................................................................................................................... 9 Bargaining – Issue Campaign...........................................................................................................12 Campaign Planning ...........................................................................................................................14 The Campaign Debrief......................................................................................................................15 Organizing for Community Support ...............................................................................................16