Cultivating and Training Grassroots Leaders
 or policymakers and the public, the efforts of grassroots organizations put a face on issues ranging from the prevention of violence against youth to ensuring access to basic health care.
Often, the grassroots leaders who emerge from these organizations are not experts in the traditional sense, but individuals personally affected by an issue who begin or join campaigns to help amplify the voices of those who otherwise might lack the resources and training to advocate for their communities.
To maximize their impact, organizations recruit leaders and cultivate their skills to effectively communicate, gather and analyze research, organize and empower themselves and others to launch and sustain their campaign efforts.
 “Since its founding in 1992, The California Wellness Foundation has believed in developing and sustaining the capacity of grassroots organizations to engage in the policy process with the goal of improving the health and wellness of their own communities,” said Gary L. Yates, president and CEO of The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF). “We recognize that the ones most affected by a problem often have the strongest voice in developing a solution.”
TCWF has provided grants to help a number of organizations build the leadership skills and health policy knowledge of community leaders. The following are three examples of organizations that work to develop the capacity of grassroots leaders to increase health and wellness within communities across California.
Coalition Trains Leaders in Community Organizing
According to the Council of Community Clinics, San Diego County has one of the highest uninsured rates in the state, with an estimated 430,000 residents having no health insurance.
Health care access is among the key priorities for the San Diego Organizing Project (SDOP), an interfaith, multicultural organization representing 27 congregations and more than 41,000 families in San Diego County. At the heart of its mission is the concept of helping people help themselves by giving them the tools to tackle issues that affect their lives and those of their community.
The grassroots leaders who emerge from its member congregations have been instrumental in spearheading SDOP’s community organizing since its founding in 1978.
“We continually identify and develop new leaders, teach them the model of community organizing developed by the PICO National Network, and train them to think critically about the problems in their community,” said Kevin Malone, SDOP’s executive director.
SDOP, a member of the PICO National Network of faith-based community organizations, received a three-year grant of $150,000 from TCWF in September 2007 to inform policymakers and the media about health and wellness issues affecting underserved families in San Diego.
“We believe that those most affected by a community issue should be involved in their resolution,” Malone said. “So we teach leaders to conduct research, analyze complex issues, run effective meetings and develop creative solutions.”
At the center of SDOP’s community organizing theory is the development and empowerment of leaders, who are constantly learning and growing. Two of PICO’s guiding principles are: never do for others what they can do for themselves, and never expect people to do what they don’t know how to do.
Most of the training and development of individual leaders happens during one-to-one meetings with SDOP’s staff of community organizers. The grassroots leaders learn to conduct in-depth interviews with neighborhood residents and congregation members to identify common neighborhood concerns. Once a pressing issue is determined, the team of leaders meets monthly for group trainings and to discuss strategy. The leaders conduct extensive research, analyze how current laws and policies may be contributing to the problem, and explore solutions. This information is then used by SDOP to inform policymakers and opinion leaders about health issues affecting the community.
“SDOP articulates and explains the problems and solutions in a compelling way and because they come from the community, they cannot be easily ignored,” said Sandra J. Martínez, TCWF program director.
Youth Take the Lead in Violence Prevention
For youth living in the Boyle Heights neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles—an area home to 17 gangs and affected by poverty, low-performing schools and limited access to health care resources—changing the condition of their community may seem out of reach and even impossible.
 Proyecto Pastoral (Proyecto), an organization founded in 1986 by Father Greg Boyle that provides training, education and social services, has set out to change that dynamic for the youth it serves in Boyle Heights and Pico-Aliso.
In 2006, Proyecto began to lay the groundwork for a youth leadership program that joined two of its established projects: Communidad en Movimiento (CEM), a grassroots organizing effort that promotes safety, health and leadership within the community; and Imaginando Mañana Pico-Aliso Community Team Outreach (IMPACTO), which provides academic assistance and a safe haven for second-to-12th-grade youth during after school hours.
“The youth participants are the same ones who already were in our after-school program, attending enrichment, tutoring and college preparatory support,” said Cynthia Sanchez, Proyecto’s executive director. “They were really involved and showed an interest in violence prevention, learning about the community and giving back.”
To help launch the program, TCWF made a three-year, $225,000 grant to Proyecto Pastoral in September 2006 to develop the youth violence prevention and leadership training curriculum that addresses personal development, community organizing and advocacy.
“Proyecto recruits and trains youth to educate their peers in violence prevention, with the overarching goal of cultivating youth leaders who can serve as credible information brokers,” said Julio Marcial, TCWF program director. “Peer educators will enable the organization to more effectively reach high-risk youth to teach them how to resist gangs and keep the peace.”
The focus now is on learning. About twice a week, College Prep Coordinator Patricia Kitaoka and team leaders from CEM get together to train and mentor the 15 youth leader recruits. To increase their understanding of civic engagement and the democratic process, Proyecto has adopted lessons from Project Citizen, an issue-based curriculum developed by the Center for Civic Education.
Through lectures, role-playing and group activities, youth learn skills in public speaking, meeting facilitation and conflict resolution. Youth also learn to conduct peer surveys and one-on-one interviews, and are asked to think critically about preventing violence in their community.
“Youth don’t just identify the problems, they investigate them and propose solutions,” Sanchez said.
Institute Fills a Niche in Training Experienced Organizers
As one of the only programs of its kind in the state, the California Lead Organizers Institute (CLOI) fills a void in the education and training of experienced organizers from community-based organizations and labor unions.
 A joint effort of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education (Labor Center) and the Center for Third World Organizing, CLOI was launched in 2005 to help sharpen the skills and effectiveness of grassroots leaders working on issues such as health care access and occupational and environmental health issues.
In September 2007, the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley, received a three-year, $180,000 grant from TCWF to fund CLOI’s leadership development training to individuals organizing around issues related to health care.
“For many organizations, there are few resources to do in-house trainings that help frontline organizers become effective managers,” said Earl Lui, TCWF program director. “In addition to honing their skills as organizers, CLOI helps develop a new generation of leaders with the management skills to plan, budget and mentor personnel.”
The program targets new lead organizers who have recently been elevated to a level of supervisory leadership within their respective organizations. While they may be experienced organizers, these leaders may not have had the opportunity to manage people or run strategic campaigns.
The comprehensive, year-long program commences in March with a cohort of 20 organizers from around the state. It begins with an intensive, five-day training that develops their skills in leadership, campaign planning, staff management, and key health policy issues. Students are encouraged to bring projects relevant to their own organizations’ campaigns in order to create staff development plans that later can be put into practice.
After the initial training, CLOI reinforces lessons learned and fosters networking by holding two regional meetings, conference calls, and extensive follow-up and technical assistance by CLOI leadership.
Veronica Carrizales, a Labor Center policy specialist who coordinates CLOI, explains that key to a lead organizer’s work is mentoring and developing new leaders. She shares the example of Sonya Mehta of Young Workers United (YWU), which organizes young and immigrant workers in restaurant, retail, janitorial and other low-wage service jobs.
“Sonya came to the CLOI program because she wanted to improve her skills to develop emerging leaders who take many personal risks to demand health care at their jobs,” Carrizales said. “She expressed to me that our program gave her the tools she needed to create a leadership development plan to expand their skills.”
“This is what CLOI is about: we assist with the personal transformation of emerging leaders and give them the skills they need to succeed,” Carrizales added.
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