National Organizers Alliance

A joint project with the DataCenter of California. Assessing and dialoguing about the impact of the economy on organizing and movement building work. Sharing and creating solutions for the future. http://sustainingorganizing.tumblr.com/(http://sustainingorganizing.tumblr.com/)

The Organizer Mentoring Project was created to help keep talented organizers, mentor and support them, provide a context and organizational culture that meets the needs of the organizers as well as their organizations.
We envision a program where veteran organizers contribute a significant amount personally, financially, and also solicit others (including their organizations) to do the same. These funds would be pooled into one national fund, hopefully with hundreds of organizers participating, and the moneys available in perpetuity, allowing the interest to sustain funding for mentors to provide the kind of support and mentoring needed. A national board of directors would oversee the investments and all program decisions.  Training and mentoring organizers requires a significant investment of time and money. Although a number of effective training programs already exist, there has been a serious under-investment of resources and attention to organizer development and retention. We must not wait for foundations to step up. It has not happened -- despite concerted efforts to interest them. We organizers need to start to fund a mentoring and training program ourselves.