Services for Inspired Propinquity

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: Windy Cooler-Stith <windy_coolerstith at yahoo.com>


Dear Friends and Colleagues,
 
Announcing Services for Inspired Propinquity!
 
After months and months of work, SIP is truly up and running and does 
indeed have a working website. Please visit it at 
http://inspiredpropinquity.com and join the mailing list to be a part of 
the very new on-line community we hope to grow with, currently, a 
newsletter and community calender.
 
For those of you who may not know, I began a very novel project this 
January. It is a counseling/mentorship and direct service provider 
solely for social justice organizers - that emphasises the humanity of 
the person who is the organizer. I don't know of any other organization 
offering identical services.
 
After years of organizing we all know that organizing is hard work. It 
is necessarily so. We associate intimately and empathize with people who 
have been institutionally abused as we try to make them whole, to move 
them with others, democratically, to their own vision of justice. We 
must face our own "isms" and other issues in doing so. We must work odd 
hours to fit into the chaotic lives we serve. Somehow, we must also meet 
our own needs for family, love, and a private world. The work is often 
made harder still for the most vital volunteer organizer by the myriad 
effects of poverty. For the paid organizer, who may also be living in 
some form of poverty, the role is made harder still through 
bureaucracies that sometimes don't support the real work at hand and an 
encouraged, unrealistic sense of his role as worker. Organizers are 
knocked out earlier than professional boxers as a result. Though no one 
seems to be studying us, we succumb to depression, alcoholism, and other 
health problems at alarming, visible rates. And my lord, for some 
reason, some of our brightest young organizers desire to become lawyers, 
not veteran organizers, after a couple of years grueling in the field.
 
SIP intends to reach out to this community through highly personalized, 
confidential, one-on-one listening sessions, once a week, for an entire 
year - one organizer at a time. We provide excellent clerical and 
research services for that organizer, to inform, and lighten her load. 
We also offer strategic advice, skills training, networking 
opportunities, and brainstorming sessions.  The mission of SIP, in 
short, is to build communities through healthy organizers. We will build 
whatever works for each unique organizer for a flat annual fee.
 
To avoid limitations on the types of aid we can offer - and to whom, we 
have registered as an LLC. Donations are therefore not tax deductible. I 
hope, though, you can consider including us in your giving plan this 
year as we grow a scholarship fund and put out our first few newsletters 
this summer. We will be sure to follow up with you on how your money as 
used.
 
Thanks and Best,
 
Windy Cooler-Stith


Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862):"It is not enough to tell me that you 
worked hard to get your gold. So does the devil work hard."