The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) is a national community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and businessman and founder of the Chicago Sun-Times Marshall Field III. The IAF partners with religious congregations and civic organizations at the local level to help them build organizations of organizations, referred to as broad-based organizations by the Industrial Areas Foundation, with the purpose of strengthening citizen leadership, developing trust across a community's dividing lines and taking action on issues identified by local community leaders.

The Industrial Areas Foundation consists of 65 affiliates in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, with the US projects organized into two regions, West / Southwest IAF and Metro IAF. IAF provides training, consultation and organizers for its affiliated organizations.

The Industrial Areas Foundation does not provide direct services, but through its organizing has created notable entities for workforce development (Project QUEST, Capital IDEA, Project IOWA, VIDA, ARRIBA, NOVA, Skills Quest, Capital IDEA – Houston, AZ Career Pathways and JobPath), healthcare (Common Ground Healthcare), and housing development for working- and middle-class families (Nehemiah Project in East Brooklyn and The Road Home Program in New Orleans). In 1994, the IAF organization in Baltimore designed and passed the first living wage bill in the US, and since then IAF organizations across the country have won changes including municipal living wage policies for public sector workers and living wage requirements for tax abatements or economic incentives, that have raised the wages of millions of workers.

History Under Alinsky Alinsky's first organizing project was organizing the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council, founded in 1939 as the Packinghouse Workers, the union of Chicago's meatpacking industry.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, ch. 7, pp. 67–76. Based on his work with Back of the Yards, Alinsky laid out his vision for "People's Organizations" in his book Reveille for Radicals, in 1946. After World War II, Alinsky met Fred Ross in California, and in 1949 he agreed to back his plan to organize the Community Service Organization in Mexican-American communities.

Ross introduced house meetings as an organizing technique and built a network of 30 CSOs in California with energetic young organizers Cesar Chávez and Dolores Huerta.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, pp. 222–238.

In Chicago, Alinsky developed a team of organizers including journalist Nicholas von Hoffman, ex-seminarian Edward T. Chambers, and Tom Gaudette, who developed such groups as the Organization for the Southwest Community (1959–1972), The Woodlawn Organization (1961–present), and the Northwest Community Organization (1962–present).IAF: 50 Years Organizing for Change, p. 8.

The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) received national attention through Charles Silberman's best-selling Crisis in Black and White in 1964, which traced the roots of oppression and violence in northern inner-city areas. In his concluding chapter, "The Revolt Against Welfare Colonialism," Silberman portrayed TWO as an example of poor blacks reclaiming their dignity through self-organization and creating their own jobs, instead of blaming whites for all their problems.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, ch. 24, pp. 425–449.

Alinsky's experience in Rochester, New York from 1965 to 1969 with the organization FIGHT and its battle with Eastman Kodak was more controversial and less successful.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, ch. 25, pp. 450–505.

In 1969, Alinsky was able to establish a formal IAF organizer training program, run by Chambers and Dick Harmon, with a grant from Gordon Sherman of Midas Muffler.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, pp. 516–518. Alinsky published a successful book, Rules for Radicals, in 1971, updating his earlier vision.

Alinsky died unexpectedly of a heart attack in June 1972.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, p. 539.

After Alinsky

After Alinsky's death, his long-time associate and designated successor, Ed Chambers, became executive director. Chambers began to place systematic training of organizers and local leaders at the center of IAF's work. He also began to shift the organizing model of "the modern IAF"IAF: 50 Years Organizing for Change, p. 7. toward the congregation-based community organization developed in San Antonio, Texas by Ernesto Cortes Jr., called Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS).Rogers, Cold Anger, pp. 33–78, 93–126,157–182. Cortes recruited lay leaders, including many women, from the Catholic parishes that were members of COPS. Relational meetings or "one-on-ones" became an important technique of exploring values, motivation, and self-interest of potential leaders. Chambers and Cortes emphasized a long-term relationship between IAF and such groups as COPS, in contrast to the "three years and out" that Alinsky had once imagined.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, p. 545. As IAF began to expand to other cities in Texas, it moved to develop multi-racial, broad-based organizations spanning metropolitan areas, and including African American, Latino, and Anglo churches. Eventually its network of local groups in Texas linked together as Texas Interfaith to influence state government.Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, pp. 30–71.Greider, Who Will Tell the People?, Ch. 10, "Democratic Promise," pp. 222–241. In 1979 Chambers moved the IAF headquarters to New York after the Archdiocese of Chicago cut its support for IAF.Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, p. 47. In 1996 IAF moved its national headquarters back to Chicago to develop a new affiliate in that metropolitan area and expand its work in the South, Southwest and Midwest.Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, p. 7.

IAF developed successful projects along the East Coast with East Brooklyn Congregations, which pioneered the affordable housing project called Nehemiah Homes, and BUILD in Baltimore which also developed Nehemiah housing for low-income people.IAF: 50 Years Organizing for Change, p. 12.

The "modern IAF" has been an influential model for other networks of broad-based community organizations, including PICO National Network, Gamaliel Foundation, and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART).

IAF claims responsibility for the success of the first living wage law in Baltimore in 1994, followed by New York City in 1996, Tucson in 1998, the Rio Grande Valley in the late 1990s and early 2000s"Report on the Impact of the Valley Interfaith Living Wage Campaign," MIT (2000) and, most recently, in Austin, Texas.

Governance

IAF's legal authority rests in a Board of Trustees, which functions more as an advisory body, recently including such notables as Jean Bethke Elshtain and the late Monsignor John Joseph Egan. IAF's first Board of Trustees included Catholic bishop Bernard James Sheil, Kathryn Lewis (daughter of coal miners union leader John L. Lewis), and philanthropist Marshall Field III.Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, pp. 102–103. Chambers retired as executive director in 2009, but remains on the board of directors. The senior regional organizers, including Cortes, Arnold Graf, Michael Gecan, and Sr. Christine Stephens, for a time acted as a team of co-directors.Warren, Dry Bones Rattling, p. 265, endnote 5. Recently IAF has divided itself administratively into two parts: West/Southwest IAF (Cortes and Stephens) and Metro IAF in the East and Midwest (Graf and Gecan).Walls, Community Organizing, p. 54.

Training

The national IAF conducts an intensive eight-day leadership training program annually, alternating the venue between Chicago and Los Angeles, and also has a 90-day organizer internship program. IAF's "iron rule of organizing" ("Never do for others what they can do for themselves")IAF: 50 Years Organizing for Change, p. 17. emphasizes developing new leaders from within local organizations.

Affiliates

IAF affiliates with web pages are listed below.

East Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) – Boston, Massachusetts Interfaith Community Organization (ICO) – Hoboken, New Jersey – Washington, DC Action in Montgomery (AIM) – Silver Spring, Maryland Baltimoreans United for Leadership Development (BUILD) – Baltimore, Maryland People Acting Together in Howard (PATH) – Columbia, Maryland Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (VOICE) – Northern Virginia Metro IAF NY – New York East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC) Manhattan Together EQUAL – Empowered Queens United in Action and Leadership (EQUAL) South Bronx Churches LI-CAN – Long Island Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods Westchester United

South Durham Congregations, Associations, and Neighborhoods (Durham CAN) – Durham, North Carolina Communities Helping All Neighbors Gain Empowerment (CHANGE) – Winston-Salem, North Carolina Orange County Justice United in Community Effort (Orange JUICE or JUSTICE UNITED) – Chapel Hill, North Carolina Working Together Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi Working Together Mississippi in Mississippi

Midwest Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC) – Cleveland, OH DuPage United – Glen Ellyn, Illinois Lake County United – Libertyville, Illinois United Power for Action and Justice – Chicago, Illinois Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) – Omaha, Nebraska Dane County United – Madison, Wisconsin Southeastern Wisconsin Common Ground – Milwaukee, Wisconsin A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy (AMOS) – Des Moines, Iowa Voices Organized In Civic Engagement (VOICE-OKC) in Oklahoma City, OK

Southwest The Jeremiah Group – New Orleans, Louisiana Together Baton Rouge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – Albuquerque, New Mexico Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI) – Dallas, Texas Allied Communities of Tarrant (ACT) – Fort Worth, Texas The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) – Houston, Texas Arizona Interfaith Organization – Phoenix, Arizona Central Texas Interfaith – Austin, Texas EPISO/Border Interfaith – El Paso, Texas COPS/Metro Alliance in San Antonio, Texas Nevadans for the Common Good in Las Vegas Valley, Nevada Northern Arizona Interfaith Council in Flagstaff, Arizona Pima County Interfaith Council in Pima County, Arizona Valley Interfaith Project in Phoenix, Arizona

West One LA – IAF – Los Angeles, California Silicon Valley Allied for the Common Good – San Jose, California Marin Organizing Committee (MOC) – Marin, California Common Ground IAF – Solano and Napa Counties, California Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action – Central California Inland Empire Sponsoring Committee Pomona, CA & Inland Empire

Northwest Metropolitan Alliance for the Common Good (MACG) – Portland, Oregon Sound Alliance – Tukwila, Washington Spokane Alliance – Spokane, Washington

International Greater Edmonton Alliance – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Calgary Alliance for the Common Good – Calgary, Alberta, Canada Metro Vancouver Alliance – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Greater Victoria Acting Together – Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Citizen Organizing Foundation (COF) – London, England, United Kingdom Sydney Alliance – Sydney, Australia Queensland Community Alliance – South East Queensland, Australia Deutsches Institut für Community Organizing Germany

Notes

References Alinsky, Saul, Reveille for Radicals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946). Alinsky, Saul, Rules for Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1971). Chambers, Edward T. and Michael A. Cowan, Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action, and Justice (New York: Continuum, 2003). Gecan, Michael, Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action (New York: Anchor Books, 2002). Greider, William, Who Will Tell the People? (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1992). Horwitt, Sanford D., Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky- His Life and Legacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).