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Cohort Call for Executive Directors and Senior StaffOn Wednesday, May 18th, the Building Movement Project hosted the second of our ongoing series of “cohort calls” that concentrate on the different roles/activities of service providers involved in social change work. The purpose of the calls is to build connections and share information among staffers across the country working in service delivery groups that are also looking to address larger issues affecting their clients. This call focused on the experience of Executive Directors/Senior Staff and was led by Jim Mangia, President & CEO of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center in Los Angeles, CA.
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Somos Mayfair
The mission of Somos Mayfair is to cultivate the dreams and power of the people of Mayfair in the Silicon Valley of southern California through cultural activism, social services and community organizing. They are extensively connected to the region, valued for their contributions to society and engaged with the broader movement for justice.
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Building Community from the Inside Out: A Series of 5% Shifts
This report, the first in a series about organizational "5% shifts", includes two case studies of community building efforts by nonprofit organizations in Detroit and New York City. St. Matthew’s & St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church’s hot breakfast program in Detroit offers a model of a small shift in engagement with community members seeking healthy meals in the midst of an urban food desert. Their decision to shift from using a soup line mode of serving individuals to serving groups with shared ‘family-style’ meals leveraged the power of ritual around meals, which are both nostalgic and deeply affirming, to transform dynamics between clients and volunteers. But more importantly the shared meal time became a way to model the kind of community the church envisions for Detroit—one of mutual aid, sharing and abundance. The other case—Queens Community House—provides an example of community building among staff. The organization took on the challenge of fostering relationships among staff; not to boost morale and retention, but to live its values and principles in all parts of the organization.
Small Shifts, Big Change
Sean Thomas-Breitfeld kicks off our series of blog posts focusing on our slate of upcoming reports on the "5% shifts" in nonprofit work and social service provision that lead to organizations raising up constituent voice, fostering community cohesion and increasing engagement in advocacy efforts. In this post, Sean reflects on his own volunteer experiences growing up in Milwaukee, and how they compare to the work highlighted in Detroit.
Hiring: Service and Social Change Coordinator (New Mexico)
Too often in the nonprofit sector, service providers, advocates and organizers have little opportunity to connect on a personal level, learn from each other and collaborate on cross-cutting issues. Given this reality, a group of nonprofit professionals – representing an array of organizations and approaches – is interested in working more closely together to increase their collective impact for lasting social change that builds the voice and power of New Mexico’s vulnerable children and families. In order to move this process forward, we are seeking to contract with a part-time “Service and Social Change Coordinator” who will help guide the organizations who have committed to collaborate, and build out the project for future opportunities to grow and expand.
Call for Submissions: Uniting Detroiters People’s Atlas Project
The Uniting Detroiters Project is seeking submissions from current and former Detroit residents, activists, students, scholars, visual artists, poets, and cartographers for Detroit: A People’s Atlas. They are interested in critical essays, oral histories, timelines, neighborhood maps, poetry, photographs, and other forms of artwork that speak to social justice in Detroit, particularly in relationship to land, governance, education, food justice, housing, and transit.
Building Movement Detroit Video: “People’s Atlas” Convening
As part of Building Movement Detroit's Uniting Detroiters project, the BMP Detroit team is building a "People's Atlas"- an interactive set of resources that will serve as a multimedia illustration of the progressive movement in the city. On August 10th of this year, community residents and project participants came together to discuss citizens' right to the city, collective power, and new political geographies emerging in Detroit. The discussion of these ideas was framed by a series of existing and participant-created maps of the city, giving participants the opportunity to think about space and place differently. Check out this video, put together by the planning team, to see the results!
New Resource: BuildingMovementDetroit.org!
Our partners in Detroit have recently launched an exciting new resource for the progressive movement in the city- BuildingMovementDetroit.org. this new web portal seeks not only to capture all of the great work that the BMP Detroit team is doing, but also serves as a communal landing page for other organizations and activists who are working to build a movement for social change in Detroit.
Detroit Accountable Community Governance Event
In July, 2012 William Copeland and Rayven Roberts represented EMEAC at the Accountable Community Governance Convening held by the South by Southwest Experiment in Jackson, Mississippi. This event, to be held at The Commons on Thursday, August 30th from 6-8pm, will serve as a community report back. But furthermore will be a discussion about what does Accountable Community Governance look like in Detroit.
Uniting Detroiters Convening
Please join the BMP Detroit team for the second Uniting Detroiters Convening on August 10, 2012, at the Solanus Casey Center (1780 Mount Elliot Street) from 10am to 3pm to discuss our right to the city, collective power, and new political geographies emerging in Detroit.