I found the readings interesting to reflect upon, especially the piece about leadership among organizers and volunteer leaders. Based on my experiences, this division between organizer and leader was present, but not necessarily unwanted. Organizers work for an organization and they have a responsibility to the people they are working with in the field, as well as the administrative tasks in the office. Since my experience is with small organizations, I saw how organizers were expected to contribute to the grant-writing process (not usually writing them, but helping craft the narratives that commonly get put in the proposals), as well as obligations with other organizations (coalition-building) and many meetings. The leaders also have a very important piece in the organizing work, but most have their job and other responsibilities, making this leadership role an on-the-side unpaid job. Many of the people (and in my experience almost all women) who are leaders, have been in these leadership positions for many years. When I went back to Los Angeles this January, I saw that the leaders are the same women from 2008! While I see that these leaders enjoy the work they are doing, I also wonder what it would look like to bring these women into the organization to work part or full-time? Of course there are the financial issues of hiring more organizers, but I also think that many times leaders don’t want to take on this role full-time.
Leadership development is important for both organizers and leaders, and in Sen’s conclusion she talked about making the line between organizers and volunteer leaders less distinct, which I understand as developing leadership in both organizers and leaders. I am a little confused as to whether Sen thinks that just barriers to leadership positions should be blurred, or whether the roles themselves should blend into one. While I agree that leadership should be spread out, I still think there is a need for two roles, and I’m not quite sure that organizers or volunteer leaders would want their role to be merged into the other.
On Wednesday, I have a couple topics that I would like to bring into the discussion: the role of capacity building in organizing, the sustainability of the role of the organizer (it seems like there are few long-term career organizers), and organizing among different generations.