SpadeWork is an 8-month program that goes beyond individualized training and capacity building of a single organizer. Two premises undergird SpadeWork’s objectives. The first is that organizations will engage in sustained and long-term community organizing when everyone from senior leadership to managers to frontline staff to member constituent understands their critical role in advancing social change through community organizing. The second is that emerging, new and proficient organizers will stay active in the field if they are able to acquire experience in strategic campaigns that advance racial justice and guided by a seasoned mentor in the process.
The bedrock motivation of SpadeWork is to create the most conducive enabling environment for the resuscitation of organizing through the symbiotic relationship between individual organizer development and an organization that employs solid organizing principles and practices. Recognizing this dynamic, organizer “apréndices” or cohort participants will be trained and then placed within an organization to work on a live campaign developed with support from In-Advance. Prior to placement, host organization staff will participate in programs specifically designed to orient and prepare the host site for a cohort participant to successfully work on a live campaign in a supportive environment
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