Just what do “community organizers” do anyway?

President Obama started his career in public service as a community organizer in Chicago. Many people hadn’t a clue what the work entailed and some, rather dismissively, questioned whether the community organizers held any “real responsibilities."

Introducing people to community organizing was just what the New York Foundation had in mind when it created the summer internship program.

In 1988, a recurring theme emerged at a retreat of the foundation’s trustees and grantees: the need for a new generation of trained community organizers.  Veteran organizers recognized that by stimulating activism among young people, new organizers would emerge who would help develop a vision for a better city.

Since then, more than 300 young people throughout the five boroughs have been summer interns engaged in community organizing. Chosen directly by grantees and supported with a small grant from the foundation for salary, the youth are between the ages of 16 to 21 and reflect the communities and constituencies where grantees do their work.

Interns work along experienced staff on campaigns, develop new projects, and run youth programs. They learn about child welfare advocacy, public education reform, workers’ rights, economic development, affordable housing, and immigrants’ rights.

In 2004, the foundation partnered with the North Star Fund, which had its own grants program to support summer jobs for youth in organizing. By collaborating, resources are conserved through joint events, networking opportunities for interns, and a combined application and reporting process.

Is the program a pipeline to careers in organizing? Interviews in 2007 with former interns and their supervisors revealed that 75 percent of the young people are still involved in community organizing, either as paid staff or as volunteers.

Even those who did not stay in the field felt that what they had learned--about leadership, about negotiating, about communities--served them well in their chosen profession. Certainly that is true of Barrack Obama who has put his community organizing skills to work in the White House.