Digital Arts Service Corps - communityorganizing

Event Planning/Management

Colleen Kelly — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:48:49 +0000

Admit One: Online Event Registration Tools & Tips
Best practices for managing ticketing and registration online (see attached presentation)

Event Management Tools
(see attached presentation)

History of Community Organizing

Colleen Kelly — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:05:42 +0000

There are two major schools of community organizing:

Saul Alinsky: This focuses organizing on existing organizations. His book "Reveille for Radicals" (1946, updated 1969) describes how to build coalitions of groups within communities. Over the past ten years, the Industrial Areas Foundation has built organizations around churches. His last book, "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals," was published in 1971.
Fred Ross: Ross is not known nearly as well as Alinsky (a point which his partisans say is important in itself. A "real" organizer is not a leader. He/she stays in the background.) Ross is the guru of organizations that believe in building membership organizations one at a time. Ross himself had a great influence on Cesar Chavez (a point I make on a piece I did on Chavez years ago that appears on the Institute for the Study of Civic Values site). The National Welfare Rights Organization (a group active from 1966 to 1975) again, built on chapters of welfare recipients--is out of the Fred Ross tradition. And today, the leading group inspired by Fred Ross is Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

What are some other styles of community organizing you've learned about?

In Filipino slang, "ka-BLOG" would mean someone you blog with.

danielle martin — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:30:18 +0000

Check out this campaign to use blogging to get the discussion going about technology and violence against women!

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ka-BLOG! We want to take over the blogosphere for 16 days.

ka-BLOG! is a 16-day blog fest for the Take Back the Tech Campaign. It is open to anyone and everyone - girls, boys, everyone beyond and more -- who wants to share their thoughts, write poetry and prose, post graphics / pictures, rant, rave, heckle, make snide remarks, stick their tongue out at violence against women, and how online communications can exacerbate or help eliminate VAW.

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What is the campaign about?

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It is simply a call for every person– women and men, who uses online communications (ICTs), e.g. for chatting, emailing, blogging, doing websites or developing tools, to use ICTs for activism against VAW (violence against women) for 16 days. Primarily, we are asking women and grrls to “Take Back The Tech!” But you don’t have to be female to disagree with violence faced by women and be part of the campaign to transform gender relations. Unequal power relations lie at the heart of VAW, and this is apparent from the streets to online spaces. So we are saying technology should be used for equality, not to perpetuate violence.

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How to ka-BLOG?

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1. *commit*: commit yourself to 16 days of blogging about violence against women and technology.

2. *email*: Email ideas@takebackthetech.net, with your blog address and name/handle/nick if you want to sign up as a Ka-BLOGger, if possible, before 25 November. f you don't have a blog yet, this will be a great place to start! Email us, and we'll send you links on how to start your own blog :)

3. *identify*: make it known by putting a takebackthetech icon on your blog — create your own or grab a few icons from our Campaign Tools and Materials.

4. *post*: post something about the how you think violence against women connects with information communications technology? have a story? heard something quirky? snap a picture? think this is serious? doesn't make much sense? anything at all! just post one thing a day from 25 nov to 10 dec on thinking about violence against women

5. tag it: use "takebackthetech" to tag your posts (http://www.takebackthetech.net/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=blogathon#tag)

6. link back: send in your bloglinks and and we'll rss your posts to the campaign website throughout the 16 day

7. expand: widen the campaign to your readers by linking your blog to the campaign site .

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What to ka-BLOG! About?

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So long as it's about violence against women (well, against) and how it connects to ICTs (and vice versa). So long as it's about gender relations. So long as it's about how women can have more control over technology. So long as it's about women and gender equality.

It does not matter to us if the blog entries come in the form of jokes, limmericks, poetry, short stories, blurbs, graphics, pictures, articles, creative narratives.

We welcome bloggers in different languages! So ka-BLOG! with us!

For more information on ka-BLOG!, go http://www.takebackthetech.net

[FYI. In Filipino slang, "ka-BLOG" would mean someone you blog with.]

For more information and questions, send an email to: jac@apcwomen.org.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

My Letter to John Mayer...I'm Not Waiting

danielle martin — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:52:00 +0000

Dear Mr. Mayer,

I've been a fan of your songwriting and style for quite a while. I've persisted in this admiration even in the face of people calling you a "sell-out", your experimentation with new genres, and your screaming female co-ed fan base. Many times, I've marveled on how well you articulated moments of behavior and feelings around growing as a post college adult and finding a purpose in the world. I tend to actually pay for your albums and listen to what you have to say, as do millions of other people. In this way, I've become a consumer of both your goods and your philosophy.

But I am also an activist. I believe every person has a story and deserves to be heard. I speak out for what I believe, but I also made a now two-year commitment an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers In Service to America) to actually take action to support my beliefs as well. And while I try to read and listen to as many voices as I can to both support and challenge my beliefs, the one voice I refuse to give audience is one of apathy.

In my work as a VISTA (especially with my placement this year with the housing developments of Boston and Massachusetts), I've listened to many types of voices: voices of fear of walking down a street to participate in GED programs because of gang violence; voices of anger around misrepresentation in the media; voices of exhaustion about the powerlessness caused by bureaucratic systems and ignorance of opportunity. Many of these voices are not heard beyond the walls of small community centers, church basements, or under funded technology programs, and certainly not in the mainstream media or on the floor of Congress. And I have to admit there were moments in the past couple weeks where I was shocked that people were hesitant to share their voice with me because of who I am and where I come from.

Here’s why I’m writing to you. Your song "Waiting on the World to Change" angers me - not because I disagree when it calls out an unpopular war, media bias, or corporate owned media content, but because its proposed solution is to abide. I'm glad you “care” and have awareness that “the fight ain’t fair.” But I’m discouraged to hear that you know these things, but have chosen to use your far-reaching voice to encourage our shared generation to merely “wait” for it all to blow over until power comes to us by default.

While working with non-profits, I’ve encountered a surprising fear of change in the way we do things, even though our missions is often to exact change in other institutions, systems, and individuals. In the face of such stoicism, some fellow VISTAs have expressed frustration and say “why doesn’t that older generation just loosen up a bit or let us take the lead?” In our role of building capacity in the war against poverty and disempowerment in one short year, there’s no room for VISTAs to wait for the voice of the people we serve to be heard. We’re not volunteers in waiting for America. We’re “standing at a distance” from the sources of funding and power in our communities, but we’re trying to improve the system and enact change NOW because the need is not always in the far off future

So every “we” uttered in your song angers me, because you purport to represent my fellow VISTAs and I…and you don’t. If you feel misunderstood, Mr. Mayer, then I’d wish you’d turn your writing talent and power to reach millions of listeners toward highlighting the work of few who are trying to empower people to make change, if you’re not willing to do it yourself.

Sincerely,

Danielle Martin

VISTA Leader

CTC VISTA Project / MassIMPACT

P.S. Please note: the opinions in this letter are solely my own and do not represent those of the CTC VISTA Project or MassIMPACT. In addition, you could also begin to remedy this situation by providing free tickets to your shows to any interested AmeriCorps volunteers and giving them a chance to share their work with your audiences. VISTAs love free tickets.