You can access Dr. Marshall Ganz's Curriculum here: http://marshallganz.com/teachings/

 

Olivia Chow's Syllabus

WEEK 1 | INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZING AND PEDAGOGY | 

Welcome! Today we discuss course goals, our strategy for achieving them, and the course requirements. We will provide a brief overview of what organizing is, and introduce you to the model of learning in this class (which will be different from other classes you have probably taken). It was during the 2008 Obama campaign that Ganz and millions of fellow organizers built on best practices and techniques of community organizing from past movements and codified an approach to grassroots organizing and training that many credit as the key to his victory. Many Canadians and corresponding organizations were inspired by this shift in approach and adopted the Ganz framework. Canadian progressive groups have begun shifting their strategies to focus on community organizing (that is, putting people and relationships at the center of the work), modelled after the Ganz method.

 

Required:

a.                   *Marshall Ganz. Organizing Notes: “What is Organizing?” (2015).

b.                   *Marshall Ganz. Organizing Notes: “Learning to Organize” (2015).

c.                   *Building Skills for Change, What is Organizing?, 2016, (pp. 10-14).

d.                   *John McKnight, “Services are Bad for People”, (pp. 41-44).

Optional:

1. Marshall Ganz, “Organizing for Democratic Renewal”, TMP Café, March 27, 2007.

f.                    Anand Giridharadas, “Real Change Requires Politics”, New York Times, July 15, 2011.

g.                   David Bornstein, “The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur” New York Times Opinionator Blog, Nov. 13, 2012.

 

WEEK 2 | A HISTORY OF ORGANIZING |

The discussion of organizing is often centered around the idea of social change relative to other approaches to change. We will discuss what organizing is and the way in which it can challenge power effectively. What is power, how is it (in)visible, and how can organizing challenge the status quo? Organizers will typically start by asking three questions: (1) who are my people, (2) what is their problem, and (3) how can they use their resources to solve the problem? This class will enable you to design a campaign to achieve an outcome based on implementing the material taught in this course.

 

Required:

 

a.                   *Michele Landsberg, “Charting Equality: Feminist Activism and the Charter of Rights.” (pp. 263 -270).

b.                   *Nancy Williams And Marie Scott-Baron, “Recollections of a Neighbourhood:Huron-Sussex from UTS to Stop Spadina” (pp 164 - 167)

c.                   *Olivia Chow, “My Journey”, Chapter 10 in Giving Voice to the Voiceless, (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2014), (pp. 140-153).

Optional:

 

1. Bernard M. Loomer, “Two Kinds of Power,” The D.R. Sharpe Lecture on Social Ethics, October 29, 1975, Criterion, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1976 (pp. 10-29).

e.                   Rothman, Joshua. "How to Restore Your Faith in Democracy." The New Yorker, Nov 11, 2016.

 

WEEK 3 | STORYTELLING: PUBLIC NARRATIVE AND THE STORY OF ‘SELF’ - IMPORTANCE OF COACHING|

Organizers challenge people to act on their shared values. Today we learn how stories equip people with the emotional capacity to act. Come to class having completed your “Public Narrative Worksheet”.

 

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Telling Stories: Public Narrative, 2016, (pp. 16-19); worksheet: (pp. 51).

b.                   *Marshall Ganz, Organizing Notes: “What Is Public Narrative?” Charts, Questions. 2013.

c.                   *Alana  public narrative video.

d.                   *Marshall Ganz, “Why Stories Matter: The Art and Craft of Social Change”, (March 2009), pp. 18-19.

Optional:

1. Cole, Desmond. "The Skin I'm In: I've Been Interrogated by Police More than 50 Times-all Because I'm Black." Toronto Life., 21 Apr. 2015.

f.                    Sylvia McAdams, “Armed with nothing more than a song and a drum: Idle no more”, The winter we danced: voices from the past, the future, and the Idle No More Movement, (Winnipeg: ARP Books), (pp. 64-67).

 

WEEK 4 | MOBILIZING RELATIONSHIPS |

Today we explore how organizers build relationships among members of a constituency to create commitment to a common purpose. We learn how to use your personal stories to recruit volunteers to join your team. Learn how to maintain them and turn them into leaders of your teams. There is great power of relational networks in everyday life – with people “like us” and people “not like us.” Relationship-building is an active process that consists of managing “online” and “offline” contact.

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Building Relationships, 2016, (pp. 22-29).

b.                   *Peter Montague, “Why the Environmental Movement Is Not Winning” in The Huffington Post, May 23, 2016.

Optional:

1. Elizabeth McKenna, “Counting Protesters vs. Making Protests Count: Evidence from Brazil,” May 16, 2015, pp. 1-65.

d.                   Farhad Ebrahimi, “What We’ve Learned After a Decade of Climate Funding, and What We’re Doing Instead” in Medium, November 30, 2015.

e.                   Malcolm Gladwell, “Small Change: why the revolution will not be tweeted”, in The New Yorker, October 4, 2010.

f.                    Ben Brandzell, “What Malcolm Gladwell Missed About Online Organizing and Creating Big Change”, in The Nation, November 15, 2010.

 

WEEK 5 | ORGANIZING VS MOBILIZING |

 

Tonight we learn the difference between Organizing, Mobilizing and Advocating. How to develop transformative tasks for volunteers so they experience meaningfulness, responsibility and skills development. How to build a movement powered by volunteers leaders by learning from the Bernie Sanders Campaign.

 

Required:

a.                   *Hahrie Han, How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21^st Century, Chapter 1.

b.                   *Becky Bond and Zack Exley, “Rules for Revolutionaries - How Big Organizing Can Change Everything. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. Rule 8: The Work is Distributed. The Plan is Centralized. (pp. 49 - 63)

 

WEEK 6 | CREATING AND MANAGING YOUR TEAM |

What is leadership? A position? A person? Or a practice? We argue it is a practice that we can structure in different ways. Today we show how we structure leadership so it enables a constituency to achieve its goals.

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Structuring Teams, 2016, (pp. 33-38).

b.                   *Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 1970, (pp. 1-8).

c.                   *Marshall Ganz, “Organizing Notes”, Structuring Leadership, 2015, (pp. 1-14).

d.                   *Becky Bond and Zack Exley, “Rules for Revolutionaries - How Big Organizing Can Change Everything. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. Rule 9 Fight the Tyranny of the Annoying. (pp. 83 - 89)

WEEK 7 | STRATEGY: TURNING RESOURCES INTO POWER |

Strategy is how we turn what we have into what we need to get what we want. It is a function of resources and interests put together to form power. Today we learn five principles to strategy and strategizing in five steps:  identifying actors, activities, and power, making clear goals and developing the theory of change. We will also examine readings and cases on creative strategizing.

 

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Strategy, 2016, (pp. 39-44).

b.                   *Henry Mintzberg, “Crafting Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, July 1987, (pp. 66-74).

c.                   *Jane F. McAlevey, “No Shortcuts - Organizing for Power - in the New Gilded Age. Chapter 5 SmithFoods: A Huge Success You’ve Hardly Heard About. Oxford University Press, 2016. (pp. 157 - 176)

d.                   *Nick Licata. Becoming a Citizen Activist - Stories, Strategies and Advice For Changing Our World. Seattle: Sasquatch Books. Chapter 7 People Tools for Organizing. Chapter 9. Protest. The Tea Party Crashes the Party.  (pp 155 - 161).

Optional:

1. Si Kahn, Organizing, Chapter 8 “Strategy,” (pp. 155-174).

f.                    Ruth A. Frager and Carmela Patrias, “Discounted Labour: Women Workers in Canada, 1870-1939” (pp.154-158)

 

WEEK 8 | TACTICS |

Effective tactics require putting strategy into action. A strong and methodical strategy can only go so far if your practices are not effective or organized. Strategy without tactics is just a bunch of nice ideas. Organizers mobilize and deploy resources to take action based on commitments they secure from others. Acting to make change involves risk, and risk requires courage. We examine what makes action possible and probable.

 

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Acting: Tactics and Timelines, 2016, (pp. 45-48).

b.                   *Tim McCaskell, “Backlash and Response”, Chapter 6 in Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality, (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005), (pp. 89-93).

c.                   *No Tanker campaign from the Dogwood Institute

Optional:

1. Hahrie Han, Thundering Silence: Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake (pp. 30 -33)

e.                   Clayton Thomas-Muller, “The Rise of the Native Rights-Based Strategic Framework: Our Last Hope to Save Our Water, Air, and Earth”, 2013.

f.                    Richard Hackman, “Designing Work for Individuals and for Groups”, adapted from J.R. Hackman, Work Design in J.R. Hackman & J.L. Suttle (Eds.) Improving Life at work: Behavioral science approaches to organizational change. Santa Monica: Goodyear Publishing Company, 1977. (pp. 242-255). Please take special note of pages 242-244, and 248-250 and the Job Characteristics Model and how to use it.

 

WEEK 9 | BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH ‘US’ AND ‘NOW’ |

Now that you understand the importance of developing your story, it is equally significant to be able to share that narrative to your community to maximize outreach. When done effectively, this action can lead to a sense of unity, togetherness, and focus on the shared values of your listeners. We will also pay particular attention on how to best coach others to ensure personal narratives are clear, concise, and impactful.

 

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Telling Stories: Public Narrative, 2016, (pp. 20-21); worksheet: (pp. 52-54).

b.                   *Building Skills for Change, Coaching: Enabling Others, 2016, (pp. 30-32).

c.                   *Ed Yong. No, Wait, Short Conversations Really Can Reduce Prejudice. The Atlantic.

d.                   *Maung Nyeu, video

Optional:

1. Benoit Denizet-Lewis. How Do You Change Voters’ Minds? Have a Conversation. The New York Times. 2016.

f.                    J. Richard Hackman and Ruth Wageman. A Theory of Team Coaching. The Academy of Management Review. 30(2). 2005, (pp. 269-287).

WEEK 10 | TYING IT ALL TOGETHER |

We will use this class to tie in the concepts we learned from the lectures and readings and discuss best practices for real-world application. We will revisit students’ Organizing Statements and review different theories of change. We will have an informal discussion of where our projects are, how we can best move forward, and lobby for progressive change in our communities.

 

Required:

a.                   *Building Skills for Change, Tying it All Together, 2016, (pp. 49).

b.                   *Jack Layton. “Speaking Out Louder”, Chapter 7 in Speaking Out Louder: Ideas that Work for Canadians, (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2006), (pp 273-301).  

c.                   *Facing History and Ourselves. Section 8, Reading 2: Blue Quills, Reading 4: Feathers of Hope in “Stolen Lives - The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.” (pp 202 - 205, 208 - 211).

Optional:

1. Nick Licata. Becoming a Citizen Activist - Stories, Strategies and Advice For Changing Our World. Seattle: Sasquatch Books. Chapter 7. People Tools for Organizing (pp 134-140)

 

 

WEEK 1 | INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZING AND PEDAGOGY| September 6, 2017

 

Welcome! Today we discuss course goals, our strategy for achieving them, and the course requirements. We will provide a brief overview of what organizing is, and introduce you to the model of learning in this class (which will be different from other classes you have probably taken). It was during the 2008 Obama campaign that Ganz and millions of fellow organizers built on best practices and techniques of community organizing from past movements and codified an approach to grassroots organizing and training that many credit as the key to his victory. Many Canadians and corresponding organizations were inspired by this shift in approach and adopted the Ganz framework. Canadian progressive groups have begun shifting their strategies to focus on community organizing (that is, putting people and relationships at the center of the work), modelled after the Ganz method.

 

Required:

1. *Marshall Ganz. Organizing Notes: “What is Organizing?” (2015).

2. *Marshall Ganz. Organizing Notes: “Learning to Organize” (2015).

3. *Building Skills for Change, What is Organizing?, 2016, (pp. 10-14).

4. *John McKnight, “Services are Bad for People”, (pp. 41-44).

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Marshall Ganz, “Organizing for Democratic Renewal”, TMP Café, March 27, 2007.

2. Anand Giridharadas, “Real Change Requires Politics”, New York Times, July 15, 2011.

3. David Bornstein, “The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur” New York Times Opinionator Blog, Nov. 13, 2012.

 

WEEK 2 | A HISTORY OF ORGANIZING | September 13, 2017

 

The discussion of organizing is often centered around the idea of social change relative to other approaches to change. We will discuss what organizing is and the way in which it can challenge power effectively. What is power, how is it (in)visible, and how can organizing challenge the status quo? Organizers will typically start by asking three questions: (1) who are my people, (2) what is their problem, and (3) how can they use their resources to solve the problem? This class will enable you to design a campaign to achieve an outcome based on implementing the material taught in this course.

 

Required:

 

1. *Michele Landsberg, “Charting Equality: Feminist Activism and the Charter of Rights.” (pp. 263 -270).

2. *Nancy Williams And Marie Scott-Baron, “Recollections of a Neighbourhood:Huron-Sussex from UTS to Stop Spadina” (pp 164 - 167)

3. *Olivia Chow, “My Journey”, Chapter 10 in Giving Voice to the Voiceless, (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2014), (pp. 140-153).

 

---

 

Optional:

 

1. Bernard M. Loomer, “Two Kinds of Power,” The D.R. Sharpe Lecture on Social Ethics, October 29, 1975, Criterion, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1976 (pp. 10-29).

2. Rothman, Joshua. "How to Restore Your Faith in Democracy." The New Yorker, Nov 11, 2016.

 

WEEK 3 | STORYTELLING: PUBLIC NARRATIVE AND THE STORY OF ‘SELF’ - IMPORTANCE OF COACHING| September 20, 2017

 

Organizers challenge people to act on their shared values. Today we learn how stories equip people with the emotional capacity to act. Come to class having completed your “Public Narrative Worksheet”.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Telling Stories: Public Narrative, 2016, (pp. 16-19); worksheet: (pp. 51).

2. *Marshall Ganz, Organizing Notes: “What Is Public Narrative?” Charts, Questions. 2013.

3. *Alana  public narrative video.

4. *Marshall Ganz, “Why Stories Matter: The Art and Craft of Social Change”, (March 2009), pp. 18-19.

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Cole, Desmond. "The Skin I'm In: I've Been Interrogated by Police More than 50 Times-all Because I'm Black." Toronto Life., 21 Apr. 2015.

2. Sylvia McAdams, “Armed with nothing more than a song and a drum: Idle no more”, The winter we danced: voices from the past, the future, and the Idle No More Movement, (Winnipeg: ARP Books), (pp. 64-67).

 

 

WEEK 4 | MOBILIZING RELATIONSHIPS|September 27, 2017

 

Today we explore how organizers build relationships among members of a constituency to create commitment to a common purpose. We learn how to use your personal stories to recruit volunteers to join your team. Learn how to maintain them and turn them into leaders of your teams. There is great power of relational networks in everyday life – with people “like us” and people “not like us.” Relationship-building is an active process that consists of managing “online” and “offline” contact.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Building Relationships, 2016, (pp. 22-29).

2. *Peter Montague, “Why the Environmental Movement Is Not Winning” in The Huffington Post, May 23, 2016.

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Elizabeth McKenna, “Counting Protesters vs. Making Protests Count: Evidence from Brazil,” May 16, 2015, pp. 1-65.

2. Farhad Ebrahimi, “What We’ve Learned After a Decade of Climate Funding, and What We’re Doing Instead” in Medium, November 30, 2015.

3. Malcolm Gladwell, “Small Change: why the revolution will not be tweeted”, in The New Yorker, October 4, 2010.

4. Ben Brandzell, “What Malcolm Gladwell Missed About Online Organizing and Creating Big Change”, in The Nation, November 15, 2010.

 

WEEK 5 | ORGANIZING VS MOBILIZING |October 4, 2017

 

Tonight we learn the difference between Organizing, Mobilizing and Advocating. How to develop transformative tasks for volunteers so they experience meaningfulness, responsibility and skills development. How to build a movement powered by volunteers leaders by learning from the Bernie Sanders Campaign.

 

Required:

1. *Hahrie Han, How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century, Chapter 1.

2. *Becky Bond and Zack Exley, “Rules for Revolutionaries - How Big Organizing Can Change Everything. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. Rule 8: The Work is Distributed. The Plan is Centralized. (pp. 49 - 63)

WEEK 6 | CREATING AND MANAGING YOUR TEAM |October 18, 2017

 

What is leadership? A position? A person? Or a practice? We argue it is a practice that we can structure in different ways. Today we show how we structure leadership so it enables a constituency to achieve its goals.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Structuring Teams, 2016, (pp. 33-38).

2. *Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 1970, (pp. 1-8).

3. *Marshall Ganz, “Organizing Notes”, Structuring Leadership, 2015, (pp. 1-14).

4. *Becky Bond and Zack Exley, “Rules for Revolutionaries - How Big Organizing Can Change Everything. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. Rule 9 Fight the Tyranny of the Annoying. (pp. 83 - 89)

 

---

 

 

WEEK 7 | STRATEGY: TURNING RESOURCES INTO POWER | October 25, 2017

 

Strategy is how we turn what we have into what we need to get what we want. It is a function of resources and interests put together to form power. Today we learn five principles to strategy and strategizing in five steps:  identifying actors, activities, and power, making clear goals and developing the theory of change. We will also examine readings and cases on creative strategizing.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Strategy, 2016, (pp. 39-44).

2. *Henry Mintzberg, “Crafting Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, July 1987, (pp. 66-74).

3. *Jane F. McAlevey, “No Shortcuts - Organizing for Power - in the New Gilded Age. Chapter 5 SmithFoods: A Huge Success You’ve Hardly Heard About. Oxford University Press, 2016. (pp. 157 - 176)

4. *Nick Licata. Becoming a Citizen Activist - Stories, Strategies and Advice For Changing Our World. Seattle: Sasquatch Books. Chapter 7 People Tools for Organizing. Chapter 9. Protest. The Tea Party Crashes the Party.  (pp 155 - 161).

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Si Kahn, Organizing, Chapter 8 “Strategy,” (pp. 155-174).

2. Ruth A. Frager and Carmela Patrias, “Discounted Labour: Women Workers in Canada, 1870-1939” (pp.154-158)

WEEK 8 | TACTICS | November 1, 2017

 

Effective tactics require putting strategy into action. A strong and methodical strategy can only go so far if your practices are not effective or organized. Strategy without tactics is just a bunch of nice ideas. Organizers mobilize and deploy resources to take action based on commitments they secure from others. Acting to make change involves risk, and risk requires courage. We examine what makes action possible and probable.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Acting: Tactics and Timelines, 2016, (pp. 45-48).

2. *Tim McCaskell, “Backlash and Response”, Chapter 6 in Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality, (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005), (pp. 89-93).

3. *No Tanker campaign from the Dogwood Institute

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Hahrie Han, Thundering Silence: Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake (pp. 30 -33)

2. Clayton Thomas-Muller, “The Rise of the Native Rights-Based Strategic Framework: Our Last Hope to Save Our Water, Air, and Earth”, 2013.

3. Richard Hackman, “Designing Work for Individuals and for Groups”, adapted from J.R. Hackman, Work Design in J.R. Hackman & J.L. Suttle (Eds.) Improving Life at work: Behavioral science approaches to organizational change. Santa Monica: Goodyear Publishing Company, 1977. (pp. 242-255). Please take special note of pages 242-244, and 248-250 and the Job Characteristics Model and how to use it.

 

 

WEEK 9 | BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH ‘US’ AND ‘NOW’ | November 8, 2017

Now that you understand the importance of developing your story, it is equally significant to be able to share that narrative to your community to maximize outreach. When done effectively, this action can lead to a sense of unity, togetherness, and focus on the shared values of your listeners. We will also pay particular attention on how to best coach others to ensure personal narratives are clear, concise, and impactful.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Telling Stories: Public Narrative, 2016, (pp. 20-21); worksheet: (pp. 52-54).

2. *Building Skills for Change, Coaching: Enabling Others, 2016, (pp. 30-32).

3. *Ed Yong. No, Wait, Short Conversations Really Can Reduce Prejudice. The Atlantic.

4. *Maung Nyeu, video

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Benoit Denizet-Lewis. How Do You Change Voters’ Minds? Have a Conversation. The New York Times. 2016.

2. J. Richard Hackman and Ruth Wageman. A Theory of Team Coaching. The Academy of Management Review. 30(2). 2005, (pp. 269-287).

WEEK 10 | TYING IT ALL TOGETHER | November 15, 2017

 

We will use this class to tie in the concepts we learned from the lectures and readings and discuss best practices for real-world application. We will revisit students’ Organizing Statements and review different theories of change. We will have an informal discussion of where our projects are, how we can best move forward, and lobby for progressive change in our communities.

 

Required:

1. *Building Skills for Change, Tying it All Together, 2016, (pp. 49).

2. *Jack Layton. “Speaking Out Louder”, Chapter 7 in Speaking Out Louder: Ideas that Work for Canadians, (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2006), (pp 273-301).  

3. *Facing History and Ourselves. Section 8, Reading 2: Blue Quills, Reading 4: Feathers of Hope in “Stolen Lives - The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.” (pp 202 - 205, 208 - 211).

 

---

 

Optional:

1. Nick Licata. Becoming a Citizen Activist - Stories, Strategies and Advice For Changing Our World. Seattle: Sasquatch Books. Chapter 7. People Tools for Organizing (pp 134-140)