Reflection Paper on Community Organizing with The Children’s Movement of Florida

1. Introduction (around one page)

a) Briefly introduce your organization, including: The organization is The Children’s Movement of Florida

• How old it is
• It’s mission
• Its major programs or campaigns
• Where it works (geographically)
• It’s constituency or base
• Whether it’s strategies primarily involve organizing, advocacy, social services, or community development (defined in Pyles, chapter 1, “Defining Community Organizing,” pp. 21-27)

b) Briefly summarize your role as a volunteer, including: (You can make this up, but I did Zoom meetings to organize different events, and research more on The Future Project of The Children’s Movement of Florida)

• The program or campaign you worked on
• Any training or orientation you received and how you received it (via Zoom, online organizing portal, etc.)
• The tasks you performed and how you did your work (by participating in meetings on Zoom, sending texts, creating social media postings, through an online organizing portal, etc.)

Sources of info: Your best sources of info in this section are likely to be the organization’s website, very recently-published background literature, and your postings (especially your posting for April 17).

2. Set your organization in context (around three quarters of a page to one page)

a) To which social movements and/or in what place in the social service system does your organization belong?

• For example, Planned Parenthood Action Fund is an advocacy organization that is part of the reproductive rights and health movement and that advocates for organizations in the reproductive healthcare services system.

b) What is your organization’s particular niche in this movement and/or social service system? This niche might be defined by the organization’s constituency, geographic focus, issues, organizational model, organizing framework, strategy, and/or tactics (but probably not by all of these characteristics).

• For example, how is the Sierra Club’s reliance on local chapters different from the organizational model used by many other large environmental organizations in the U.S.? How is the Loma Prieta chapter different from other chapters?

Sources of info: In this section, it is important to draw on the background literature about your organization, movement, and/or social services system. You could also draw on the Pyles book, the organization’s website and your postings.

3. Evaluate your organization’s greatest strengths for organizing (around 3 pages)

Identify the main strengths from an organizing perspective of your organization in two or three key areas and support your analysis with evidence. Choose from among the following key areas:

• Organizing Framework (Pyles, chapter 5)
• Organizing People: Individuals and/or Coalitions (Pyles, chapter 6)
• Organizational Capacities: Structure, culture, leadership, decision making, fund raising, research and evaluation (Pyles, chapter 7)
• Communications and Framing (Pyles, chapter 8; Blanusa et al.
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• Strategy (Pyles, chapter 9)
• Tactics (Pyles, chapter 10)
• Intersectionality and Solidarity (Pyles, chapter 11)
• Religious and Spiritual Aspects (Pyles, chapter 12)
• Global Justice and Climate Crisis (Pyles, chapter 13)
• Linking big-small and online-offline organizingLinks to an external site. (in-class writing exercise)

If your organization focuses much more on advocacy or community development than on community organizing, you should identify the organization’s strengths that it could use to engage in more community organizing in the future.

• For a community development organization, an example of a strength might be its organizational capacities (structure, culture, leadership, etc.) How could the group draw on those strengths to do more organizing or collaborate with a community-based group to integrate organizing into its work?
• For an advocacy organization, an example of a strength might be its ability to develop effective strategy and/or to attract strong allies. How could the organization draw on those strengths to do more organizing or collaborate with a community-based group to integrate an organizing component into its strategy?

Sources of info: Look for assessments of your organization and movement in the background literature, its own self-assessments, and the Pyles book. Test those assessments against the evidence from your own organizing experiences with the organization. You might agree, partially agree, or disagree with evaluations by your organization and in the literature.

4. Evaluate your organization’s greatest areas for improvement for organizing (around 3 pages)

a) Identify the main weaknesses from an organizing perspective of your organization in two or three key areas and support your analysis with evidence. Choose from among the key areas listed above for part 3.

• If you admire your organization, this section may be challenging for you to write, but it is also the most important contribution to the organization’s work that you can make. Be a “critical friend” to your organization by thinking about how it could fulfill its mission better, or broaden its mission or its approach to be more just or effective in the world. Self-critique is crucial for the success of any organization.

b) Make specific recommendations for how the organization could address its weaknesses by expanding or transforming these key areas to do more effective and/or just organizing.

• For example, if you think the organization needs to do a better job of centering the concerns of low-income people and/or people of color, what specific steps could it take to change how it cuts and frames issues, develops leadership, or chooses coalition partners? Use concepts you’ve learned in this course and be specific: what would be a new issue frame the organization should use, for example?

Sources of info: Look for critical assessments of your organization or movement in the background literature, the Pyles book (including chapter 7, “Organizing in the Nonprofit World,” pp. 166-168 on the potential limitations of all nonprofit organizations), and Speer & Hahn

. Test those assessments against the evidence from your own organizing experiences with the organization. With which critical assessments do you agree or partially agree?  Does the background literature or any of our readings (Pyles or Blanusa et al.

) suggest solutions? How about your response in linking big-small and online-offline organizingLinks to an external site.?

Can you think of additional ones?

5. Reflect on your own future in organizing or advocacy (around one page) You can make this up

What are the three most important insights about your own future organizing or advocacy that you want to take with you from your experience in this course?  Once again, draw on concepts learned in this course and be specific. You might discuss:

• the kinds of organizing frameworks or organizations you want to be involved in going forward, the issues that matter most to you
• the kinds of roles you want to play in the future (see Pyles, chapter 1, “Transformative Social Change: Roles and Approaches,” pp. 27-28)
• how you want to cope with the perils of organizing and enjoy its benefits (Pyles, chapter 2, “Perils of Organizing” and “Healing Power in Organizing,” pp. 40-50)
• communication skills or capacities you want to develop in yourself or others (Pyles, chapter 8; Blanusa et al.
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• strategies or tactics you want to explore
• how you want to practice allyship (Pyles, chapter 11, “Recentering and Allyship,” pp. 260-271)
• how you want to integrate your faith in your organizing (Pyles, chapter 12)
• or any other topic we’ve studied this quarter.

Sources of info: Your organizing experiences and reflections on it in your postings, linking big-small and online-offline organizingLinks to an external site. (in-class writing exercise), and relevant parts of our readings or your background literature, may all suggest future directions for you.

6. References

Cite your sources throughout your paper and provide a reference list at the end with full citations to all sources you cited in the paper. Use APA style, 7th editionLinks to an external site. to cite sources. (You don’t need to use other elements of APA paper formatting, such as a running header, etc.)

Citing in the body of your paper: 

Give the year of publication when citing a source in the body of your paper.  Give page numbers in the original source when quoting from that source.  Examples:

• Gastil (2008) outlines the criteria for good deliberation.  
• A group practices democratic inclusion by “welcoming into its political process all adults who exist within its boundaries” (Gastil, 2008, p. 5).  Otherwise, “the system cannot call itself democratic” (p. 5).
• You do not need to cite handouts or slides created by your professor for this course. 

Citing in your reference list: Only include sources in the reference list that you cite in the body of your paper. Provide a full reference in the reference list for every source you cite in the body of your paper.   

For more info: For a full guide to APA citation style, which you will need to cite the sources you have found, see this guide to APA style, 7th edition Links to an external site. (especially the links under the heading “APA Citations and Reference List”).