Center for Participatory Change
Programs
| Grassroots Organizing | Capacity Building and Leadership Development | Building Networks | Grantmaking |
CPC's mission is to bring people together, help them recognize their own power, and transform their communities. In practical terms, we support the development of grassroots, community-based organizations, which we believe are the fundamental vehicle of lasting social change. This strategy has three levels:
1) Each grassroots organization carries out development projects to improve their local community in concrete ways: workshops to promote immigrant workers' civil rights; educational programs for underserved children; cooperatives that make traditional crafts as a source of supplemental income; markets for farmers to sell their products. Each group determines its own projects and is fully responsible for its own plans, actions and decisions.
2) The development process results in trained leaders and strong organizations that have both the skills and the membership base to influence policies, decisions, and control of resources in their local area.
3) When these community organizations from across the region come together in networks and coalitions, they have the power to share ideas and strengthen each other, and they are also able to develop a shared agenda for broader social change.
CPC
supports community groups through four programs:
Grassroots Organizing
CPC's Grassroots Organizing Program includes all the work involved in bringing groups together for the first time. Organizing begins with conversations with established and emerging grassroots leaders. These conversations generally focus on asking folks what the community's most pressing issues are, and what they think should be done about them. Sometimes CPC staff are the ones doing the one-on-one outreach work, but more often it will be members of that community engaging in conversation with each other.
When there is a group of individuals who are concerned about a similar issue and who are thinking about a similar solution, the group comes together for an initial meeting. Usually these initial meetings are small (five to ten people). From these first meetings, the group and its work tend to grow quickly. Much of the early work involves planning - assessing the community's most pressing issues, analyzing the causes of those issues, and planning projects that address those issues. But we've found that it's equally important to move quickly to action that will focus the planning process, and achieve some short-term successes to build confidence.
Because CPC is committed to participation, the issues, discussions, and actions of these groups are always controlled by group members. We have found that local people know local issues best, so we work to help communities define and carry out their own projects and plans - whatever they might be.
The Toolbox: How to Enter a Community as an Organizer
Capacity Building and Leadership Development
Many grassroots organizations engage in a daily struggle to accomplish their projects, and they rarely have the time or resources to build their organization or train their members and staff. CPC recognizes that long-term change relies on making grassroots efforts sustainable, by building strong organizations with skilled leadership.
Our training and technical assistance program focuses on experiential learning: working hand-in-hand with community leaders, so that they develop the skills to run and maintain their organization independently. We don't have a set program, but respond to each group's particular needs as they develop. Training topics include the wide range of skills needed to build and maintain a community organization: planning projects, running a meeting, managing conflict, working with the media, raising money, evaluation, advocacy, and group decision making.
Read more about CPC's Capacity Building Program
The Toolbox: Skills and Techniques for Building Community Organizations
Building Networks and Coalitions
While each community group makes a difference in its local community, they have much more power when they work together in networks and coalitions. Every group determines its own relationships with other groups; however, CPC helps to foster partnerships in three different ways:
- Building connections between groups with common needs and interests. This could include groups that are developing cooperative economic projects, groups that are running community centers, or groups that are committed to anti-racism efforts. These connections result in shared learning, better programs and sometimes cooperative projects. The most dramatic success in this area has been the development of the Coalición de Organizaciones Latino Americanas (COLA), a network of Latino groups and organizations from across Western North Carolina.
- Building connections between groups in the same area. Even groups whose work is very different--say a farmers market and an African American community center--share a commitment to grassroots participation and the experience of developing a community group. When these groups connect, they can help teach each other new perspectives, create innovative partnerships, and support each other's organizational development.
- Building regional, multicultural networks and coalitions. Ultimately, the most significant grassroots power will come from networks and partnerships that cross racial, cultural, geographic and language boundaries. When such a diverse group of community leaders comes together, they have a wealth of understanding that can create a deeper analysis of social injustice than any group could create on its own, and the potential to develop a shared agenda and common goals that would dramatically transform Western North Carolina.
Grantmaking: The Western North Carolina Self Development Fund
CPC also manages a microgrants program called the Western North Carolina Self Development Fund. Seed Grants of up to $1,000 provide start-up funds for grassroots groups in their earliest stages of development, and Grassroots Fundraising Matching Grants match money raised in community fundraisers by more established groups. Grant applications are reviewed by a panel of grassroots leaders from groups that were previous recipients of seed grants from the Self Development Fund--so that participating groups get to sit on both sides of the funding table.
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2006 Center for Participatory ChangeAll rights reserved. Contact CPC for permission on reprinting or use of materials on this site.