Capacity Building

I work with grassroots groups to help them strategize on their goals, campaign tactics, or relationship-building. I participate in their meetings or actions as they invite me.

I also assist with strategic planning -- I have completed Technology of Participation (ToP) Strategic Planning Training conducted by the Technology of Participation (ToP) Network and the Institute of Cultural Affairs -- or fundraising.

Finally, I am a seasoned trainer and facilitator in core materials on fair and affordable housing, how to build bottom-up support for causes of justice, and Dr. Martin Luther King's brand of nonviolence conflict resolution.

Adapting to All Needs: Sudanese Delegation Comes to Chicago, May 2010

I am especially proud to have been able to tailor my citizen participation course, which I developed and taught at Northwestern University's School of Professional Studies, for a visiting delegation from the Sudanese Parliament as they prepared for the referendum in which they eventually represented the new nation of South Sudan. Rather than assume what they needed, I met with the delegation in their hotel room as soon as they arrived, simply to listen and elicit their needs. As a result, I built my lectures and guest speakers around the issues of a free press, outreach to remote areas, dealing with corruption, and asset-based community development. We also went to visit with United African Organization on the south side of Chicago. You can read more in the Medill Reports story, Sudanese leaders learn to strategize with local community organizers and in Continuum Magazine.