Council District Thirteen
Neighborhood Leadership Institute

The Leadership Institute has graduated more than one hundred neighborhood activists. Classes take place either at night over several weeks, or in one all-day session. Groups learn the basics of community organizing and outreach.

The periodic trainings include topics such as:

• How to organize and lead a community meeting
• How to organize a campaign
• How to build power in order to bring about positive community change
• How to involve & develop new leadership in community organizing efforts

The Leadership Institute proceeds from one of the bedrock understandings of community organizing: that we must cultivate power in order to improve the quality of our lives and our neighborhoods. If we don’t build power, either because we don’t understand it or because we are uncomfortable with it, we only leave a vacuum that those who are willing to build power can take advantage of.

Philosopher David Nyberg done extensive thinking and writing about power, and proposes that power is unavoidable in any social situation involving at least two people and a plan of action. In order to maintain power, an individual or group must have “consent”. Consent can be obtained by force, by fiction, by habit or apathy, by money, or by fealty. Consent based on fealty is grounded in trust and reciprocity; it is also known as informed consent.

Community organizers want to build informed consent, or relational power. Relational power is different from dominant or unilateral power as follows:

Building relational power is the goal of community organizing. We build this kind of power by developing collective leadership, constantly involving new people in leadership roles, and by conducting small group meetings and community meeting that involve as many people as possible in decision-making and creating a collective vision.

Sign up for the next Neighborhood Leadership Institute