13-week book club · Free & open to all
Going Public
in Jersey City
Read Mike Gecan's guide to civic organizing — and learn how to build power on the issues that matter most in your community. We'll use Jersey City as our case study but the lessons apply everywhere.
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Mike Gecan · IAF
“If you want to know how ordinary Americans accomplish extraordinary things — build affordable homes, create effective schools, win living wages — then the story and the strategy reside in this remarkable book. Going Public is at once pragmatic and profound.”
— Samuel G. Freedman
About the book
Click to view
official book page
official book page
Going Public
An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action
Michael Gecan has worked for the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) for more than thirty-five years. He learned that strong relationships and sustained organizing can spark the change necessary to achieve schools, housing, parks, and collective renewal.
Author
Michael Gecan
Publisher
Anchor / Knopf Doubleday
Published
2004 · 224 pages
ISBN-13
978-1400076499
What We'll Explore Together
By reading together, reflecting, and showing up, in person and online, you will:
- 1Understand the fundamental principles of community organizing and the role of institutions in public life.
- 2Examine how power, relationships, and self-interest shape civic decision-making and community change.
- 3Distinguish between charity, advocacy, and organizing as different approaches to addressing community issues.
- 4Develop an appreciation for one-to-one relational meetings as a core tool for identifying and developing leaders.
- 5Recognize how effective organizations build accountability, discipline, and leadership capacity over time.
Show all 10 learning objectives ↓
What You Will Gain
Build real power
Understand how organized people - not money, not connections - create durable change on the issues that matter to you.
See your city differently
Learn to analyze local issues - property taxes, school funding, budgets, and more - through a power and institutional lens.
Develop as a leader
Gecan shows that leaders are grown, not born. This series gives you the tools to grow - through reading, reflection, and one-to-one relationships.
Take one concrete action
Every week ends with one specific, local, doable action. By Week 13 you will have identified your next move in public life.
No prior experience needed. Whether you've never been to a city council meeting or you've been organizing for years, this series meets you where you are.
Week by week
Show all 13 weeks ↓
Events
Jun
27
Jul
23
Zoom
Book Club Teaching Session
Jul
30
Zoom
Book Club Teaching Session
Get the weekly email
One email per week — chapter summary, civic connection, reflection prompt, and one concrete action. Sent via MailPoet. Unsubscribe any time.
Collaborating Leaders
Brigid D’Souza
Brigid is a licensed CPA and adjunct professor in accounting at Saint Peter's University. She is the Founder of CivicParent.org, a 10+ year public fiscal literacy initiative focused on NJ property taxes, school funding, local budgets, and tax abatements. She is a founding member of the Jersey City Together Education team.
About Brigid →
Dr. Jyl Josephson
Jyl is Professor of Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. She teaches undergraduate courses in political theory including a course on community organizing, "Democracy and Citizenship." She is a founding member of the Jersey City Together Education team.
About Jyl →
Guest Collaborator
Coming soon
This space is open. Each collaborator brings their own community, their own knowledge, their own stake in the work.
Guest Collaborator
Coming soon
This space is open. Each collaborator brings their own community, their own knowledge, their own stake in the work.
In their own words
Brigid and Jyl on why this series, why this book, and what they hope it produces.
Why this book club?
Brigid
I recall a few years ago, looking down at my iPhone, realizing that I could not make my way through a lengthy news article; my brain was tapped out from being pulled into a million different directions, from Twitter to Facebook, Civic Parent to my job, my family and, at the time, community organizing. I realized I needed a change so I made a conscious choice to make time to start waking up early and just start reading. I gravitated towards nonfiction focused on how to teach better, philosophy, and religion because those were my interests. But the point was reading was really helpful and life-giving. It's changed my life for the better and helped me be more intentional about how I think and act on things. So, just reading with intentionality and focus is one thing that draws me to this project.
Jyl
I had a similar experience with how the combination of social media and the pandemic affected my attention span. Turning back to books is really rewarding. Reading and discussing in community is the best way to learn.
Why this book?
Brigid
I get asked a lot: "how can I engage?" It's such an important question and it merits a worthwhile response. I went searching for a book that could help frame it and Going Public seemed to do it really well.
Jyl
I have been teaching a community organizing class at Rutgers for ten years and have always used excerpts from this book. It does a great job of explaining what organizing is and how it differs from other kinds of political engagement. Plus it has one of my favorite chapter titles: "All real living is meeting."
What do you hope to accomplish?
Brigid
My hope is that we can help others learn how to engage using a disciplined, time-tested approach to growing power in the community — for ordinary people who want to have a say in how their local communities function.
Jyl
The basic question of political life is: what shall we do? Even when things are not going well in public life, there are always things that you can do. I am hoping that we can have a good conversation that will help inspire us to act — and find concrete answers to that question, together.