WHAT WE DO
BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) is a non-profit organization that facilitates social transformation and improves the living conditions of Black people by (re)building the social justice infrastructure required to organize Black communities.
BOLD fulfills its purpose by equipping Black organizers and Black leaders of social justice organizations with the personal and organizational tools they need to build and sustain allied social movements. BOLD carries out its mission through a series of training and mentorship programs detailed below. Apply by clicking on the link to each program.
BOLD Trainings
“…what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership among other people.” Ella Baker, “Developing Community Leadership”
BOLD’s work aims to help build a powerful community of Black organizers who courageously and consistently take responsibility for achieving a collective vision of liberation, even in the face of uncertain and changing conditions.
Based on our assessment that anti-leadership dynamics and ambivalence about leadership and power often get in the way of our success, we aim to help weave and sustain a community of Black organizers who offer a powerful alternative to these patterns.
Grounded in Black love, and a commitment to Black mastery and wholeness, these organizers will themselves exemplify compelling transformative leadership and most of all, develop other leaders and the broad mass base with the power needed to win.
Our Programs
DIRECTORs AND LEADs TRAINING:
Builds the leadership skills, base-building capacity, political clarity, and organizing effectiveness of 40 directors/lead organizers (per year) and their organizations (as a contribution towards building Black organizing infrastructure in the areas of education, employment rights, ending mass incarceration, housing/land rights).
Activities include:
• 4-Training Retreats (featuring individual and collective transformative practice; political education; shared agenda-setting and development of shared narratives on core issues)
• Mentoring/coaching and technical assistance
• Monthly readings, case studies and conference calls
• Webinars supporting course content
• Bodywork and somatic coaching
• Evaluation and documentation
AMANDLA ORGANIZER TRAINING:
Increases the effectiveness of frontline organizers and deepen their skills in movement building, campaign management, organizational development, strategic communications, fundraising, political education, and transformative leadership. The overall approach for the program will be guided by Transformative Organizing (TO) principles which integrate personal transformation and transformation of our relationships into the process of fighting for social change. To be eligible, an organizer must be working at one of the organizations whose Director is a BOLD alum.
The program is organized into two phases:
• 4-day intensive training: New organizers learn foundational organizing skills; learn and develop practices for self-awareness and transformative leadership; and political education. Organizers will leave each retreat with assignments and clear benchmarks for on- the ground practice.
• 1 week organizing campaign: Organizers, recruited from the training above, will each work together in their assigned city, at a BOLD alumni organization, on a specific issue-based campaign to implement their new skills and receive continued embodied leadership and political education training.
ANNUAL NATIONAL GATHERING:
Every year, BOLD alumni, staff, board members and allies gather in fellowship annually at the National Gathering to fulfill our mission and continue unleashing the collective power of Black organizers, trainers, mentors, mentees.
- This four-day event convenes 100+ BOLD alumni from across the country for strategic planning sessions, emergent dialogues, celebration, evaluation, talks with guest, elders, and workshops on organizing, transformative practice and personal ecology in order to increase the possibilities of strategic coordination for social and political change.
- Together, National Gathering attendees strengthen national & regional level coordination, relationships, political analysis and organizing amongst BOLD alumni and the organizations they represent.