Community organizing is at the heart of Millennium Tools.  The organizing process locates the means to address poverty in the hands of those currently struggling under its heavy burden.

Indigenous leaders representing a range of local networks and interests make a commitment to form a local organizing team.   

Hundreds of face-to-face conversations are held with local residents to share personal experiences and identify community concerns that are widely and deeply felt.  Through these conversations more local talent is recognized and recruited to analyze the root causes of these concerns and propose constructive solutions.  

An expanded community-wide delegation of local leaders agrees to enter into action to negotiate the proposed solutions with specific parties responsible for improving the terrible conditions under which these people live.  The goal of these actions is to win recognition, respect and measurable results that improve the lives of local residents.

Throughout this process, local organizers and leaders meet together to sustain one another and to reflect on lessons from shared experience.

Within the United States, community organizing has its origins in the work of Saul Alinsky who, in 1942, formed the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) to provide training, methodology and technical support for local community organizing. The IAF was the first of the seven national and international organizing efforts that all trace their origins to Alinsky’s work and teaching.

Highly successful organizing of the poor has occurred throughout the Global South using basic principles of participatory democracy. For example, beginning in 1987, significant organizing was done through the World Vision International Urban Advance in: Bangladesh: Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna; Brazil: Belo Horizonte, Natal; Colombia: Bogota; Ethiopia: Addis Ababa; India: Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Chennai (Madras), Pune; Indonesia: Bandung, Biak, Denpasar, Jakarta, Jayapura, Semarang, Subabaya, Unjung Pandang; Kenya: Mombassa, Nairobi; Lesotho: Maseru; Malawi: Blantyre, Lilongwe; Mauritania: Nouakchott; Mexico: Mexico City, Tijuana; Philippines: Cebu City, Davao, Quezon City-Manila; Taiwan: Kaohsiung, Taipei; Uganda: Kampala; Zambia: Lesotho; Zimbabwe: Bulaway, Harare.