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We all remember when Sarah Palin “criticized” Barack Obama for being a “community organizer” at the Republican National Convention in 2008. This spurred a lot of conversations around defining what a community organizer is. Hearing this myself as a community organizer and knowing that someone like me is now in the White House, makes it exciting to be able to define myself in the context of my work. I’m sure many thoughts, terms and images come to mind now when we hear the words community organizer. I didn’t really know what it was until I started my first full time career job. I’ve worked in the non profit industry for a while, mostly in education and service based organizations, however all of my work involved organizing. These folks are the people on the ground, making the connections and building relationships for change, and that which will benefit the community. Not the rich folks up the hill who’ve donated this or funded that, but in most cases the people who’ve banded together for change that will most likely benefit all.

Thinking more about this after the start of a national dialogue, I also began to  reflect on what it means to be an activist and how this connects with our current generation- or my own at least. Activism is stereotypically seen as the protestor, the demonstrator the extremist who is so passionate about their cause that they will go to any length to get their voice heard. There are definitely these people still out there. However, I feel like the culture of activism has evolved and is in many ways connected to community organizing. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are one example. They still engage in traditional activism, however they are also lobbying policy makers for the change they want. The lobbyist culture in this country, has encouraged activists to work as organizers and connect to the decision makers with a collective of community members behind them.

The challenge with organizing is that 1) there are so many non profits out there with different agendas; we must compete with them to promote our own agenda and hopefully collaborate if our aim is to truly benefit the community and not just our platform 2) organizers are competing with corporate lobbyists; they have millions more in funds and clearly have influenced politicians with their money. The benefit I see though is that to be more competitive and effective, organizers have become more organized. Non profits often have a structure that in many ways resembles corporations. Some of this may be because organizers often rely on government money to do their work, however, we are organized, we are strong and our work will help create the shift in our society that we really need. Organizers create the we, you add the I, and when we come together with a strong team you and I will find the answer.

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