Projects
Exploring, Experimenting, Evolving
— Supported by RIOS Institute
Community Organizing for STEM Professionals
Project Overview
Science and members of the scientific community are currently facing an unprecedented situation due to recent executive orders and policy changes. These measures have left many STEM professionals questioning what they can do to address and mitigate actions that are directly impacting them. This working group will facilitate a series of four book clubs, running from May – July 2025. Each club will examine application of community organizing literature to STEM professions. As the book clubs progress, blog posts will share significant insights from the discussions and link out to relevant resources. Ultimately, this content will be used to inform the development of a Community Organizing Handbook for STEM Professionals, offering concrete, scalable actions that individuals can take to work collectively to address these ongoing threats to science.
Table of Contents
The Books
Building Powerful Community Organizations: A Personal Guide to Creating Groups that Can Solve Problems and Change the World
Intended for individuals who want to start, strengthen, or revitalize a group to address a community issue, this indispensable guide includes a series of practical steps that help build a successful community organization and offers sample cases that more clearly illustrate each step. In addition to addressing common problems that are often encountered, the book also discusses how to run engaging meetings, recruit and motivate community members, raise necessary funds, and turn a passion into a powerful tool for social change.
Author: Michael Jacoby Brown
Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas
In Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising share insights from interviews with experienced change agents to identify 48 proven strategies for effectively introducing and sustaining change within organizations of all sizes. These patterns offer practical guidance for overcoming resistance, building alliances, and gaining momentum for new ideas. The book emphasizes the importance of appealing to people’s logic (head), emotions (heart), and sense of purpose (hands) to inspire lasting transformation.
Authors: Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising
Collective Action for Social Change: An Introduction to Community Organizing
Community organizers build solidarity and collective power in fractured communities. They help ordinary people turn their private pain into public action, releasing hidden capacities for leadership and strategy. In Collective Action for Social Change, Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy draw on their extensive experience participating in community organizing activities and teaching courses on the subject to empower novices to think like an organizer.
Authors: Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy
Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
First published in 1971, Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky’s impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.
Author: Saul D. Alinsky
Join Us
The book clubs will run from May-July 2025. Anyone currently living in the United States who is interested in participating should complete the application form. Everyone selected will receive their club’s book and a small stipend. Additional stipends will be available for participants interested in contributing a blog post relevant to the topic. If not selected, we will also communicate other ways that you can engage with the project alongside the book clubs. If you have any questions, please send an email to [email protected]. Applicants will be notified by April 21 of the status of their application.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this project is provided by the RIOS Institute. We would also like to thank Dr. Greg Wilson for sparking the idea that resulted in this project.