New Study Being Launched:
Congregation-Based Community Organizing:
State of the Field 2010-11

True or False?  In the last ten years, congregation-based community
organizing (a.k.a. broad-based or faith-based organizing) has:

Grown by more than 50% -- going from 130 known organizing projects in
2000 to a current estimate in the range of 200 projects.

Diversified its staff structure where younger and more diverse staff are
increasingly entering the ranks of senior organizers.

Gained capacity to act in state and national level political arenas,
parlaying its long-time foundations in local neighborhood and cities into
higher-level influence.

Deepened issue expertise enabling policy work on more ambitious issues
(e.g., national healthcare reform, regional economic development,
immigration reform, and financial/foreclosure practices).
Gained strategic coordinating capacity by cultivating bipartisan
relationships and operating simultaneously at national, state, and local
levels.

Engaged youth and young adults by successfully drawing on their energy
and commitment in ways that invigorate both policy work and the internal
lives of community organizations.

Reached beyond their traditional organizing core (e.g., Catholic, mainline
Protestant, and historic African- American denominations) to involve
Jewish, Islamic, Black and Hispanic Evangelical or Pentecostal, and
Unitarian Universalist congregations.

True or false? We have significant anecdotal evidence to defend these
statements. But we cannot know for sure how widespread these patterns
are and cannot document them adequately, without doing the hard work
of research. In conjunction with the 10th anniversary of our
groundbreaking study Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State
of the Field, Interfaith Funders and the Southwest Institute on Religion
and Civil Society (SIRCS) at The University of New Mexico announce the
launch of the State of the Field 2010-11 research study.
Beginning in January, 2011, the first stage of research will focus on data
collection by Brad Fulton of Duke University.

The data will be compiled as a census of congregation-based community
organizations, including information about CBCOs' organizing efforts,
their member institutions, constituents, staffing patterns, issue work,
resources, and religious-secular collaborations. Subsequent phases will
address thematic questions, such as
youth outreach and engagement, cross-racial and anti-racism work,
immigration, theological underpinnings of the work, social media &
organizing, strategic dynamics of national-level organizing, and other
areas of interest to particular funders.

The Interfaith Funders/SIRCS research team welcomes your input,
involvement, and inquiries about the project. Please contact Kathy
Partridge at interfaithfunders (at) mail (dot) com
Interfaith Funders
State of the Field 2010/11