"The world is changing rapidly and the practice of community organizing needs to change with it. Representing both an homage to, and a departure from the "alinsky traditions" of organizing, Consensus Organizing offers techniques that are specifically designed for urban and rural communities struggling to succeed in the global economy and the information age. Ohmer and DeMasi are experienced organizers who offer a relentlessly thorough examination of the process of bringing diverse communities together to make change and to bridge the ethnic and economic divisions that keep many communities from succeeding." —Bill Traynor Executive Director, Lawrence CommunityWorks Inc. A person doesn′t have to be a consensus organizer to think like one. Consensus Organizing: A Community Development Workbook—A Comprehensive Guide to Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Community Change Initiatives helps students and practitioners begin to think like consensus organizers and incorporate this way of strategic thinking into their lives and their work. Through a wide range of exercises, role-play activities, case scenarios, and discussion questions, this workbook presents the conceptual framework for consensus organizing and provides a practical and experiential approach to understanding and applying consensus organizing to address a range of issues. This workbook is designed to be used by itself or along with Mike Eichler′s text Consensus Organizing: Building Communities of Mutual Self Interest (SAGE, 2007). Key Features and Benefits Provides a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a community analysis of both internal and external neighborhood resources Brings consensus organizing to life through case studies based on the real-life experiences of the authors Offers field exercises that engage the reader in applying and practicing consensus organizing Provides practical tools that community organizers and practitioners can use in their daily work Includes a sample job description, work plan, monitoring report, and field report for hiring and supervising consensus organizers Presents tools for describing and evaluating consensus organizing and community-level interventions Accompanying Website Instructors and students have access to the many activities and cases on the accompanying website.

Empowering a community takes more than organizing and mobilizing its people; it takes a simple, yet radical, notion that consensus can be reached by creating mutual self interest between key individuals in the community and players of interest. In Consensus Organizing: Building Communities of Mutual Self Interest, author Mike Eichler shows how even poor and disempowered communities can achieve lasting results by implementing some key consensus organizing strategies. Through personal, lively, and relevant examples, Eichler takes the reader on a road trip through various communities and shows how collectively they were able to reach lasting results by finding key areas where consensus could be reached. Key features: The author shares his twenty-five years of experience as a community organizer, including the development of a national effort to train young people as consensus organizers in diverse locations such as Las Vegas, New Orleans, and New York City. Demonstrates how consensus organizing can be applied to a variety of settings, including public education, housing, economic development, health and crime. Gives readers the opportunity to learn more about themselves: It helps students to see the other side of any situation and understand how common ground can be achieved. It is written in a student-friendly, conversational manner, which will make students feel as if they have taken a journey with the author, struggled with the various communities, won the victories with the disempowered, and had a few laughs along the way. Intended audience: This book can be used as a core textbook for courses in community organizing and as a supplemental volume in various macro social work courses on community practice. It can also be used in departments of social work, urban planning, public administration, and public health.

Providing new insight into an important community development challenge, this text looks at how to stimulate the formation of community-based organizations and effective citizen action in neighbourhoods.

A person doesn't have to be a consensus organizer to think like one. Consensus Organizing: A Community Development Workbook—A Comprehensive Guide to Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Community Change Initiatives helps students and practitioners begin to think like consensus organizers and incorporate this way of strategic thinking into their lives and their work. Through a wide range of exercises, role-play activities, case scenarios, and discussion questions, this workbook presents the conceptual framework for consensus organizing and provides a practical and experiential approach to understanding and applying consensus organizing to address a range of issues. This workbook is designed to be used by itself or along with Mike Eichler's text Consensus Organizing: Building Communities of Mutual Self Interest (SAGE, 2007). Accompanying Website Instructors and students have access to the many activities and cases on the accompanying website at www.sagepub.com/ohmerworkbookstudy.

Encompassing community development, organizing, planning, & social change, as well as globalisation, this book is grounded in participatory & empowerment practice. The 36 chapters assess practice, theory & research methods.

Community organizers build solidarity and collective power in fractured communities. They help ordinary people turn their private pain into public action, releasing hidden capacities for leadership and strategy. In Collective Action for Social Change , Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy draw on their extensive experience participating in community organizing activities and teaching courses on the subject to empower novices to think like an organizers.

In a democratic country like India, community organization and development has a great significance. This concise yet comprehensive book explains the basic concepts of community organization and development and other related issues in an accessible manner. The book deals with different aspects of community organization and describes in detail the process of community development. It dwells on the concept of community mobilization covering needs, benefits and challenges related to it and explains different models of community organization for bringing social change. Besides, the book focuses on conflict management in a constructive way and suggests that conflicts, if dealt proactively, can bring positive changes and harmony among people. Finally, it concentrates on models and strategies used in social action and different roles of the community worker while working with the people. Examples, especially from the Indian situation, are given to clarify the topics discussed. Chapter-end questions will help the student to understand the subject in a better way. The book is intended for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of Social Work. Besides, professionals in the field will also find the book quite useful.