WHAT IS VISIONARY ORGANIZING & HOW DO I BECOME A VISIONARY ORGANIZER?

Visionary Organizing is an approach to social change that supports people, communities, and organizations to EXIST DIFFERENTLY. It assumes that injustice, oppression, and climate crises are logical outcomes of modernity and a way of BEing that is destructive. The term was first used by Grace Lee Boggs to describe the kinds of transformational projects people in Detroit were creating to exist differently, things like feeding themselves and resolving conflicts without police intervention.

 

Visionary Organizing Lab emerged from asking what those kinds of projects might look like outside of Detroit. We create spaces where students, individuals, and organizations learn Visionary Organizing so that they might figure out what they might do locally to Exist Differently.

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Our workshops, trainings, and classes teach people systems thinking, emergence thinking, transformative thinking, growth skills, and familiarize people with the components of Visionary Organizing. With these skills people can practice the components of Visionary Organizing in transformative ways, allowing us to create communities and organizations capable of EXISTING differently.  Our understanding of Visionary Organizing emphasizes six components:

• ​Recognizing and Nurturing Interdependence

• Locating ourselves and communities within history and systems

• Connecting to and Trusting Our Collective Inner Wisdom

• Affirming Dignity

• Imagining New Possibilities  

• Experimenting with Transformation

 

To prepare people from all backgrounds to become Visionary Organizers, Visionary Organizing Lab’s programming has a very low bar to entry. All of our facilitators and teachers are trained to meet individuals, groups, organizations, and students where they are so that they can develop the systems thinking, emergence thinking, transformative thinking, growth skills, and facilitation skills needed for Visionary Organizing.