Call for IDEA Organizers - July 15th Application Deadline

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Being an IDEA organizer can bring extra money, support, strategies, and tools to you and/or your organization.

Application deadline is July 15th
The fun begins September 1st
More info here: http://democraticeducation.org/index.php/organize/


IDEA is actively requesting proposals from individuals who are currently organizing or can effectively organize educators, youth, youth workers, parents, school administrators, and other policy makers on a local, regional, or national basis.

We recognize a significant gap in communication between youth, parents, educators, activists, and policy makers. With poor communication also comes little coherent action. Community organizing is a time tested model that we think can be well utilized, along with digital organizing, to generate a powerful catalytic effect in the lives of folks most directly experiencing challenges and wanting change.

IDEA's mission is to ensure that all young people can engage meaningfully in their education and gain the tools to build a just, democratic, and sustainable world.

We are focused on building the critical connections needed to spur transformative change in the U.S. educational system. And we know this big task won't be done by any one organization, one march, or one policy change.

Rather than having 1 or 2 full-time organizers, we want to build the capacity for organizations and key people who share common values to connect and support each other across organizations, geography, and issue areas.

Here is how it works:
• Starting September 1, 2011, you make a 5-7 hour per week commitment to focus on organizing and/or cross-connecting with IDEA and working towards the shared goals we've set together. Your commitment ends May 28, 2012.
• In the fall, you attend IDEA Camp in Portland, OR (or Puerto Rico). This is where we build the relationships, do the learning, and lay out the plans and strategies for the coming nine months. We will pay attention to learning about transformative organizing, mapping and
making meaning of the larger educational landscape, sharing stories and learning with each other and building relationships.
• You make time for one-on-one mentoring calls for 30 minutes every week.
• Once a month, you make time to participate in a one-hour call to cross connect with the other organizers and IDEA staff.
• You receive two $1000 stipends, one at the beginning of the year and one at the end upon completion of your stint as an IDEA Organizer.
• We cover travel, food, housing and registration costs for you to participate in one IDEA Innovation Tour throughout the year. We anticipate tours happening in NYC, OR, Puerto Rico, Vermont, and Jackson, Mississippi in 2011-2012.
• You will be provided with a portable video camera to support digital storytelling and documentation. A Flip Cam (or something like it) will be provided to support your digital story-telling and documentation of key organization efforts and events.
• You will be asked to develop and execute a clear plan with goals, deadlines, and expectations that connect local and regional needs to IDEA’s overall mission, values, and strategies.
• You will be asked to share stories and what you are learning with other organizers, staff, and on IDEA’s website and Facebook page.
• You will be asked to make critical connections and share contacts with other organizers and IDEA to maximize our collaborative capacity.

Note: This commitment is not for everyone. If it were, it wouldn't be worth much.

Here's what we're looking for:
• People who are brilliant, charismatic, on a mission, moving fast, filled with passion and empathy, share our values, and want to do something worth doing. It's fine with us if you don't know how to do something, but you must have a strong desire to learn what you don't know.
• You have to be both nice and smart.
• Great references will make a difference.
• We don't care a bit about how old you are or particularly what your background is. We care a lot about what you've done, and even better, how you've done it.
• We want organizers of all ages, but we get really excited about supporting emerging youth leaders.
• IDEA uses 2.0 technology to work across the U.S. Organizers must be comfortable with technology and be able to learn and contribute from any location.

We imagine that this opportunity would be very valuable to:
• community organizers
• parents
• student council leaders
• youth leaders who would never go near student councils
• change agents within state, regional, or national education organizations
• foundations that employ organizers and want to help connect the dots
• community-based organizations and/or school districts that want to build capacity
• national, regional, and local networks that want to connect and collaborate more strategically

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If you're interested in this opportunity, but unsure of what 'actions' you would or could develop or manage as an IDEA organizer, then take a look. Here are a few quick snapshots:

-Christy identified the 25 most helpful people she knew and then held 1:1 meetings with them. She sought their take on education, key interests, and what they wanted to see happening. She asked them for leads and contacts and kept meeting folks. She interviewed over 40 folks and then held a convening on school transformation in the Denver/Boulder area. This led to several new networks and an informal tour of schools. She has continue to network folks and has built a neat platform for future action, has mapped the education universe in Colorado, and has a group that wants to keep talking about how to take more effective action within districts and at the policy level.

-Jen is a principal who approached her role as an organizer in rural North Carolina. She created a parent group to focus on equity issues, she created a student group to engage with staff hiring, and she listened to parents, students, and teachers about the kinds of changes they really wanted to see in their school. The time weekly and monthly helped her connect her larger values with real people working in other arenas with IDEA and gave her the courage to take her ideas seriously and get real buy-in from her staff and district leadership.

-Joel is helping organize the National Student Bill of Rights. Support from IDEA helped him travel to the International Youth Congress on Human Rights. He also has made stronger connections with the QECR, AEJ, and National Community Learning exchange efforts. He was able to listen to lots of groups and build a much better map and understanding of the groups working with youth nationally. He also made key connections that have assisted IDEA in understanding this field of work. This summer his work will culminate with a gathering of several of these groups at the Free Minds, Free People conference in Providence, RI.

-Bryant is an organizer with the Baltimore Algebra Project focused on ending the school-to-prison pipeline. He was able to teach and share his work with other IDEA organizers and take back ideas from others to incorporate into his efforts. He has rarely had a regular opportunity to pull back and reflect on the larger educational landscape. And, as an African American organizer this was his first time working across race lines with others and was a really positive experience.

-David is a college student at Goddard who lives in Oregon. He helped organize a movie screening, attended and build a network out of the NW Teachers for Social Justice conference, and then helped organize IDEA's Innovation Tour in Portland this spring.