Glenn's little ugly blog

I just took a 3-day course with Charles Dobson, who wrote a fantastic book called The Troublemaker's Teaparty. The book is a distillation of his years of experience doing activism and public interest organizing.

There are chapters on choosing and running campaigns, running a group, media advocacy, and pretty much any area of grassroots work that you can think of. If you are doing any work in this area, this book needs to be on your bookshelf. It's almost impossible to underline the important parts, because almost every sentence is important!

If you'd like to check out what he has to say before buying the book, have a look at The Citizen's Handbook. The Troublemaker's Teaparty is essentially the revised and updated edition of the older Citizen's Handbook.

Either book will likely be of value to Americans, but it is focused on grassroots activism in Canada, so there are some significant cultural differences. Any US organizations that are trying to work across the border in Canada should probably pick up a copy if only to be aware of the different tactics that are effective in Canada.