Consensus Organizing: A Community Development Workbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Community Change Initiatives

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412939836 ISBN 13: 9781412939836

Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2008

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.

About the Author:

 Mary Ohmer has over twenty years of experience working in community organizing and development around the country with national and local nonprofit and community based organizations, foundations, and government.  Dr. Ohmer has taught consensus organizing approaches as part of macro practice and community organizing social work courses.  She received her Ph.D. in social work from the University of Pittsburgh in August 2004, and she is currently an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at Georgia State University.  Dr. Ohmer is also currently working with the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta to help them develop and implement an evaluation of the community training.

Karen DeMasi has over twenty years social work experience with nonprofit agencies with expertise in program development, strategic planning, fundraising, community development and administration.  Ms. De Masi later worked with the Consensus Organizing Institute developing and implementing new training and consulting opportunities in both the private and public sector markets across the United States.  She is a graduate of the University of Dayton, with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work and a Master’s degree in Public Administration.  Ms. DeMasi currently works as an independent consultant to community building organizations throughout the Ohio/Kentucky region, including LISC.

Review:

"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." Author: Bill Traynor, Executive Director Published On: 2008-09-04

"The case studies and class activities are excellent. The concise summary of consensus organizing would be useful." Author: Gary Paul Green Source: American Sociological Association Published On: 2010-06-08

"Mary Ohmer and Karen DeMasi have carefully (and possibly lovingly) written a book that can be used as a workbook and/or a resource in both the classroom and for staff trainings, and with some adjustments, in community settings to enhance resident capacity and skills." Author: Patricia W. Murphy Published On: 2009-10-06