The Direct Action & Research Training (DART) Center
The Direct Action and Research Training (DART) Center is committed to building powerful, diverse, congregation-based and democratically-run organizations capable of winning justice on issues facing the community. Since 1982, DART has built and strengthened over twenty locally affiliated organizations in six states and trained over 10,000 community leaders and 150 professional Community Organizers.
Using DART's approach of congregation-based community organizing, local DART affiliates have won victories on a broad set of issues including:
* Reading instruction and fair suspension policies in public schools
* New pre-school programming for children from at-risk families
* Multi-million dollar investments in affordable housing
* Reinvestment by banks in previously red-lined communities
* Expansion of effective community-oriented policing
* Massive multi-million dollar expansions of public transportation
* Accessible health care reform in several major metropolitan cities
* Investment in job training for those coming off public assistance
* Clean-up of drugs and crime
* fair immigration policies and dozens of other issues important to low-income communities.
Whether you are a recent college graduate exploring a career in organizing or a clergy person considering your congregation's call to do justice, we invite you to learn more about DART and congregation-based community organizing through the resources provided below. We also invite you to contact us directly at any time to discuss how we may work together in our shared pursuit of justice.
What is Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO)?
Congregation-based community organizing is a deliberate process of bringing religious congregations together around shared values and concerns to challenge the economic, political and social systems to act justly.
The organizing process includes:
1. Establishing relationships between organizers and clergy/leaders
2. Training community leaders to conduct a series of one-on-one and small group meetings to surface problems and build internal networks of relationships
3. Voting to select 1-3 community problems on which the organization will focus its attention
4. Researching problems and determining long-term solutions
5. Mobilizing networks for large public meetings to challenge appropriate officials around common issue(s)
6. Winning victories on these issue(s) and repeating the process with even greater power and skill
Scripture describes the vision of society where justice prevails and where God’s bounty is fairly shared by all. Yet poverty, violence and despair plague our cities. As people of faith, God requires us to “do justice”, but our congregations lack the power to challenge and redeem the economic, political and social systems that create and perpetuate injustice. DART’s mission is to engage congregations in a process of building congregation-based community organizations that have the power to pursue and win justice.
