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New Organizing Institute Blog

Four Faces of RootsCamp 2010

While you were leading sessions and meeting new friends at RootsCamp, NOI Fellow Jamiah Adams sat down and interviewed as many participants as possible. The result is a compelling series highlighting some of the amazing organizers in attendance. Here are the first four clips. Follow @neworganizing on Twitter for updates as we release a new interview each day.

Andrew Mwavuna, former Obama Campaign field organizer and current activist gives his perspective on the progressive movement and the important role Rootscamp has in it: More...

Looking back and looking forward

Admittedly, the week of RootsCamp I'd lay awake at night worried about everything.  Most importantly, I worried about what was mostly beyond my control in the 6 months that I'd spent making phone calls, writing e-mails, and talking to individuals that were making real impact in their respective fields. I thought, "If all of these great organizers get to DC, and have been working in their own issues, in their own towns, in their own organizations, would there be space for colloboration? What would the conversations look like, and what would be the genuine take-aways?" More...

RootsCamp Retrospective

Clear the table, Dining Organizers is launching

DC is going to be teeming, crawling, swarming with organizers this weekend. My good friend, Helen Adeosun, has successfully snagged many of you into coming to the un-conference of the decade, RootsCamp 2010More...

Telling our story.

This is cross-posted from itsgettinghotinhere.org

Obama graced the House chamber yesterday with a speech reminiscent of his candidacy rather than his presidency. That's a good thing, because his so-called base needed a reminder that he's in Washington not just to wade knee-deep into the political swamp of DC, but to affect change from inside out. He wasted no time before really digging into Congress:

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills.  And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well.

I sincerely hope congress takes at least this piece to to heart, because for clean energy advocates, the rest of the speech was a mixed bag. He bulked up his language on nuclear, coal and offshore drilling, a questionable political move in support of questionable technologies, while at the same time rightly highlighting clean energy legislation as a jobs-creator. More...

22 Readings from the Progressive Devotional

Each week at New Organizing Institute, we take a little time to read and discuss an important essay, speech or report on organizing and new media. I've only been here a couple of weeks, but I already look forward to these selections for their intellectual depth and the broad range of perspectives and topic matter.

This week, Santiago shared "Solidarity," by S.A. Stocker: More...

Why the World Needs RootsCamp

Learn, Act, and Reflect...

These three parts in equal measure make up great organizers. There are few moments, however, when organizers can truly pause and reflect together -- informing how we learn and act in the future.

Until now. More...

A Hidden Gem - Career Services

May Your (Job Seeking) Days Be Merry

Holidays can be tough if you're a job seeker. Whether you've been looking for months or are just starting your search, it's tempting to think that you might as well stop, pick up a large glass of eggnog, and just relax for a while. More...

Introducing Data BootCamp 2010

As candidate and advocacy campaigns become more effective by using better data, there is a growing need for professional, trained data managers. We wanted to help fulfill that need for the 2010 election cycle, so today we launched the application for Data BootCamp 2010, an intensive, five-day training for future data managers hosted by the most successful practitioners in the industry.
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