Erica Smiley asks hard questions and puts a big vision on the table. — It’s no secret, the craft of organizing is a bit all over the place right now. It makes sense. We’re in a period of massive transition. In this season of the Fundamentals of Organizing podcast, I’m talking with organizers and strategists about the craft. Who and what experiences most formed…

Somehow, on your way to becoming a great organizer, you became an executive director. Suddenly you are reviewing bylaws, trying to make sense of a balance sheet, and wondering how your ability to organize people prepared you for this? Let me be the first to say: it didn’t. And that’s…

Though not dead yet, I believe the fundamentals of organizing are in need of a revival. To build a big enough “We” to solve the crises of our era, we need organizers fully grounded in fundamentals like starting where people are at, a good local issue cut, and developing leaders. …

I first learned to organize in a soup kitchen in Southern Indiana. Our first action was taking over a city council meeting in a fight for affordable housing. One after another, 40 members stood up and told their story of being homeless or damn near. …

The time has come for an organizing revival. Where we celebrate the evolution of the craft, and reground in organizing fundamentals that transcend form and context. We have shifted an organizing field that was largely designed to win the best thing possible in the existing political and ideological landscape, to…

There’s no getting around it. Organizing is hard. But the context you are organizing in? It’s a whole different thing. When I was coming up, the expectations felt big. People in the neighborhood were being screwed seven ways to Sunday. So, each night we’d knock 50 doors, have a dozen…

Like all of us, I’ve sorted through many feelings this week. And, there’s been one constant. Gratitude for organizers. If you take organizers and the local institutions they’ve built off the table, Donald Trump is a two-term President. I feel certain of that. To be clear, I am talking about…

Racism continues to be the dominant force in American political life. The killing of George Floyd and the uprising of people across the country, followed by the aggressive overreaction by the police and Donald Trump, have focused the nation like a laser on the incredible amount of work we have…

There’s an old Creole proverb, “Tell me who you love, and I’ll tell you who you are.” By standing up for migrant families and children, people from small towns and small cities across the country are telling us who we love and what they stand for. On June 30th, hundreds…