Introduction to Community Organizing is an open source textbook by Cynthia Kaufman and Angélica Esquivel.
Introduction to Community Organizing contains all of the materials you need to teach a class that gets students started on their pathways to becoming community organizers. The book helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and abilities to make a difference in their communities. The three themes that run throughout the book are: Leadership Development, Organizing Skills Development, and Social Movement History. The book may be used as the curriculum and assignments for a full course. Or faculty may choose to take modules and use them in their own class. Because the materials are all OER, faculty can take and modify any of the materials in ways that serve their needs. You can access the book here.
Published by Cynthia Kaufman
Cynthia Kaufman is the Director emerita of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action De Anza College where she ran, and taught in, a community organizer training program.
She is the author of six books on social change: Solidarity Economics: Building Sustainable Social Relations, Consumerism, Sustainability, and Happiness, The Sea is Rising and So Are We, Challenging Power: Democracy and Accountability in a Fractured World, Getting Past Capitalism and Ideas for Action. She is the co-author with Angélica Esquivel of Introduction to Community Organizing
She is the board Preside of Fossil Free California Votes and a Steering Committee member of Jewish Voice for Peace Bay Area.
She received her PhD and MA in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her BA in Development Studies from UC Berkeley. She began her love of community college by attending Mira Costa College in Oceanside, California.
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