Getting Involved - Community Organizing

Image by baratunde via Flickr

Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest.

The key action here is to, "come together into an organization". In other words to organize around something you need a group. If you are not already part of a group, then this is where you need to start.    

As for the shared self-interest part, this is either a atheist, free-thought, humanist, secular or similar group.

While this is all certainly new to me I have learned a lot in a short time. To be sure though, I am certainly no expert.  However, I got a chance last night at my Meetup group's movie night (We saw, "The God Who Wasn't There"). During a great free flow conversation after the movie we got around to discussing individual and group goals. Note: This was only our 7th meeting.

Individual goals ranged from spreading awareness to combating lies and misconceptions to community activism. Group goals largely focused on building the group membership and letting people know we are here.

Fortunately, most of the individual and group goals intersect. Here a few early ideas on how we can achieve our goals:

• Potluck Movie Night or a Movie Hosted at a Theater
• Entertainment to build membership - Meet for coffee after Music in the Park... or a BBQ at the beach...
• Billboards/Bus Ads
• Adopt a highway
• Speakers - Atheist, Secular, Constitutional

So to recap you need to belong to a group with a shared interest. Once you are part of a group with a shared interest you can start talking about goals and work towards them.

Now get out there and get involved.