Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing

By Lee Staples

Book Overview

The third edition of the manual for community organizers tells readers how to most effectively implement community action for social change, clearly laying out grassroots organizing principles, methods, and best practices.

Written for those who want to improve their own lives or the lives of others, this thoroughly revised how-to manual presents techniques groups can use to organize successfully in pursuit of their dreams. The book combines time-tested, universal principles and methods with cutting-edge material addressing new opportunities and challenges. It covers basic concepts and best practices and offers step-by-step guidelines on things an organizer needs to know, such as how to identify issues, formulate strategies, set goals, recruit participants, and much more.

The work focuses on six organizing arenas: turf/geography, failth-based, issue, identity, shared experience, and work-related. It offers new or expanded material addressing community development, use of social media, internal organizational dynamics, electoral organizing, evaluation/assessment, and prevention of burnout for key leaders. There are also nuts-and-bolts articles by experts who address topics such as action research, lobbying, legal tactics, and grassroots fundraising. Numerous case examples, charts, worksheets, and small group exercises enrich the discussion and bring the material to life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1440833710
• ISBN13: 9781440833717
• Release Date: February 2016
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 7 to 17 years

Customer Reviews

How to get your ideas acted on

If you want to bring about change (or stop change) in your neighborhood or in society at large, you should read this book. Organize a group, develop a leader, recruit members, foster their confidence that they do really have power. The book describes the role of the paid organizer in detail. It helps me understand better who Obama is. I'm a Tea Party free-enterprise advocate. This book has some good ideas for us, too.