What online activism can learn from community organising

Rootwork is a group (a firm?) specialised in internet technology for non-profit organisations. An April 2010 article on their web-page has been sitting on top of my bookmarks for months, waiting to be shared here. It is called What online activism can learn from community organising (click on the title to get to the full article). The author, Ivan Boothe, reminds people working on social change of five key aspects in effective community organising (and any broader form of campaigning, I believe): movement-building, strategy, community accountability, going where the people are, and cultivating leadership. Technology, he points out, is not a strategy in itself a web-site or an e-mail petition, for example, only make sense if they are part of a broader strategy, carried forward by committed people who talk and listen to the people they seek to convince.

By the way, the Tactical Technology Collective provides excellent information on how to use the internet for campaigns, in clear step-by-step guides one can download for free.