Justice

• Broad-based organizing builds relational power to address social problems at their root instead of just treating symptoms. Through face-to-face, one-on-one meetings, we build relationships of trust across the lines of race, socioeconomics, and faith that so often divide us. Individuals and institutions working together give marginalized groups a voice in the decisions that affect their lives.

• Broad-based organizing develops leaders in congregations, nonprofits, civic organizations, and neighborhood associations and forges connections within and across these groups. It strengthens institutions and develops citizens in the fullest sense: as participants in our democracy and agents in the creation of a more just society.

•  Organizing offers a concrete way to respond to systemic racial injustice. The relationships forged through organizing counteract the forces in our culture that keep us isolated and separated from one another, and leadership development builds the capacity to act against the root causes of injustice and inequality.

For a number of years, Westminster supported the Micah Center, an organization of congregations in Grand Rapids focused on doing justice in the community through education and action. In 2018, the Micah Center contracted with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), the nation’s largest and longest-standing network of local faith and community-based organizations, for training and guidance in building a broader and more diverse coalition of institutions.

Since 2018, Westminster members have participated with several congregations and community groups associated with the Micah Center in local trainings, one-on-one meetings, and Sponsoring Team meetings to build a broad-based organization in West Michigan. Invitations to these trainings and events have been announced in the church bulletin and Westminster Weekly.

In 2020, Session approved approximately 1% of Westminster’s operating budget to be paid annually as dues to the broad-based organization. The financial commitment of Westminster and other institutions made it possible to launch an IAF affiliate in West Michigan in October of 2021.

The annual dues from participating institutions allow the organization to be member-led and independently run without obligation to outside funders. The IAF recommends 1% of each participating institution’s operating budget as the annual amount. 

 A percentage of the dues helps the organization contract with the Industrial Areas Foundation for consultation and leadership training from experienced professional organizers. Another percentage pays the salary of a professional organizer who will work full time for our local organization, and the rest goes toward rent for office space and expenses such as large public events.

 In the initial stages of an institution’s involvement in broad-based organizing, it might pledge less than 1% to indicate a commitment until further funds are approved by that institution’s leadership

We have a choice in which missions, projects, and activities we prioritize in our budget. Ideally, our budget should reflect our identity as a congregation. If active and direct engagement in matters of social justice is important to our congregation, broad-based organizing is one of the most effective means of action with the potential to make lasting change.

In 2020 Westminster qualified and approved to receive funds under the CARES Act in the form of a Payroll Protection loan two separate times. These funds were used to keep all employees paid through the pandemic lockdown, including the employees of Camp Henry, the Food Pantry, Westminster Child Development, and Westminster Presbyterian Church. Because these funds were used only for payroll expenses, we were then able to apply for forgiveness of the loan and were approved to be able to use the amount given to us as income.

Founded in 1940, the Industrial Areas Foundation is the nation’s largest and longest-standing network of local faith and community-based organizations. It has affiliates in more than sixty cities.  

 The IAF partners with religious congregations and civic organizations at the local level to build broad-based organizing projects, which create new capacity in a community for leadership development, citizen-led action, and relationships across the lines that often divide our communities. For more information, see www.industrialareasfoundation.org.

 Saul Alinsky, often called the father of community organizing, was a social activist who founded the IAF and led it from 1940 until his death in 1972. Before his work with the IAF, Alinsky co-founded the Back-of-the-Yards Neighborhood Council in Chicago, one of the oldest community organizations in the country still in operation. With the IAF he also co-founded the Woodlawn Organization, one of the first successful efforts in the country to organize black inner-city residents. Alinsky’s organizing methods set the pattern for what became known as the “Alinsky school of organizing.” He built on a neighborhood’s existing social institutions, and membership in a newly formed council was based on institutions rather than individuals.  Some enduring organizing principles instituted by Alinsky include the following: no ideology, just issues; no electoral politics; build organizations, not movements; and focus on neighborhoods and concrete, winnable goals.

Alinsky is a controversial figure because of his use of confrontational tactics and the alliances he built with the Communist Party in the 1930s. While he was never a member of the party, he worked with Communist activists in Chicago (along with Roman Catholic bishop Bernard Sheil) in organizing the unemployed and protesting evictions and cuts in relief. Alinsky’s confrontational methods involved heightening conflict between a community and an adversary (often a politician or agency) in order to unify the community and clarify its goals. Early on, Alinsky also used tactics from labor organizing such as sit-down strikes and walkouts. 

When Edward Chambers took over the IAF leadership along with Richard Harmon in 1972, he shifted the IAF’s primary organizing method to the relational meeting. As Chambers writes in Roots for Radicals, “Under Alinsky, organizing meant ‘pick a target, mobilize, and hit it.’ In the modern IAF, it’s ‘connect and relate to others.’ Issues follow relationships. . . . you connect people in and around their interests” (37). Chambers emphasized the importance of meeting with “people in the ‘moderate middle’ of the political spectrum, who must be found in large numbers to form the core of an effective broad-based organization.” In Chambers’ words, “Face-to-face meetings that lead to the development of an ongoing public relationship form the core of collective action for the common good” (Roots for Radicals 42). Chambers also professionalized the role of organizers and created a formal training program for both lead/regional organizers and key volunteer leaders. 

 The organization will pursue multiple issues that are identified through hundreds of one-on-one and small group conversations about the concerns and pressures facing individuals in our community. Representatives from each participating institution will bring a list of top issues to a delegates’ assembly for a vote. Chosen issues are explored in depth by investigative issue teams who research the facts and develop solutions to concrete problems. The organization then brings the power of organized people to decision makers to implement the proposed solutions. Through this process, hundreds of people enter public life and build the capacity to act against inequality and injustice.

• Access of West Michigan
• The Cathedral of St. Andrew
• Classis Grand Rapids East of the CRCNA
• En Vivo Church
• First Community AME
• Fountain Street Church
• Grand Rapids Food Co-op
• Grand Rapids Initiative for Leaders
• I Matter We Matter
• Momma D’s Kitchen
• New Life Church of God in Christ
• Oakdale Park Church
• Parents for Healthy Homes
• Park Church
• Plymouth United Church of Christ
• Restorative Justice Coalition of West Michigan
• St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
• Trinity Reformed Church
• United Church Outreach Ministry