Grimsby Town
Organising is at the heart of our approach to the common good, and so the Common Good Foundation is proud to announce a new project pioneering small-town, working-class organising in Grimsby.
We have been in the town since September 2021, holding hundreds of conversations with local people, identifying and building leaders, and generating support for a campaign in the mutual interests of all. This is not an external imposition on the town - not just another ill-fated ‘project’ - but rather the town acting together in its own collective interest.
The CGF aims to work in and for those places in Britain which have lost out from globalisation and which remain ignored and obscured in our politics and in our economy. And that means getting out of big cities and into the post-industrial towns. But wherever it takes place, the fundamental principles of organising remain the same. Organising is about reconciling estranged interests - in Grimsby this means veterans associations and youth groups, churches and the football club - into a collective force with the power and will to act in the mutual interest of all.
The CGF is the UK pioneer for a radical style of community organising first developed in the United States by Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Over the last two years, the CGF has worked with veteran IAF organisers to develop and renew a curriculum for organising in a post-industrial age where social trust is fraying and established community institutions withering.
Today, leading community organisers such as Fred Ross Jr. and Mike Gecan are advising our work in Grimsby, and Jonathan Lange, veteran organiser of over 40 years with the IAF and founder of the Living Wage campaign, attended a leadership training session at Grimsby Town Football Club in November 2021. He had the following to say afterwards:
I have been fortunate to be at the start of many broad-based alliances in my 41 years of professional organizing. Each one was different. Some were more successful than others. But I have never seen a better early organizing meeting than the one this week in Grimsby.
The evening was a mix of training and revival. The unanimous vote to continue the effort that concluded the meeting felt informed while still emotional.
One great meeting does not make an organization. But you couldn't leave the football stadium last Tuesday without feeling genuinely hopeful and grateful to be in attendance when something really new and potentially wonderful was being birthed.
As Jonathan discovered, the feeling in the town is extremely positive. Over the next few years, we will be establishing a self-sustaining community organisation that exists for the betterment of the town and its people.
