Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Marshall Ganz, a former United Farm Workers lead organizer who is now a lecturer at the Hauser Center on Nonprofits at Harvard. Marshall is a passionate champion of grassroots activism.

He sees the grassroots not as cover for what the professional staff in your organization wants to do, but as the very basis of a movement’s work. We talked about the difficulties of mass social movements keeping their broad character and the relentless drive toward funding and staffing that is necessary to success, but can undermine the basis of that success.

Talking to Marshall reminded me of my days as a community organizer through VISTA. I was trained in direct action organizing using the Saul Alinsky method. One gem from those days that has always stayed with me is this: “Sometimes the worst thing that can happen to an organizing effort is for someone to give it money.”

Tags: nonprofit

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