Posts by Alexandra Greenwald
Paths to Power: Rev. De Neice Welch
Rev. De Neice Welch wears a lot of hats: She’s the Senior Pastor of Bidwell Presbyterian Church; a bioethicist; a community organizer; a former candidate for the Pittsburgh City Council; and a former president of Gamaliel affiliate Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN). But she insists that she would not have set her sights on most…
Read MoreGamaliel staff, alumni join effort to support Georgia voters in January runoff
Although Gamaliel doesn’t have an active affiliate in Georgia, several Gamaliel alumni and staff are working to support voters in the state’s Senate runoff election on January 5, 2020. Gamaliel Network Executive Director Ana Garcia-Ashley said that many key leaders from the inactive Gamaliel affiliate in Atlanta, Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE), are…
Read MorePaths to Power: Victoria Jimenez-Morales
Gamaliel Board of Directors member and President of Gamaliel of California Victoria Jimenez-Morales doesn’t consider herself to be a community organizer, but she has been acutely aware of power since her childhood in California’s rural Central Valley. Jimenez-Morales’ first job was working in the fields alongside her parents in a town with several active…
Read MoreMORE² seeks to ‘blaze a new trail’ for IVE in Kansas City, KS
If the leaders Gamaliel affiliate Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE²) have their way, Kansas City, Kansas, will become a model for voter engagement all over the country. Demographically, it’s a unique place. Kansas City is situated in Wyandotte County, which has no racial or ethnic majority. Although its population is approximately…
Read MorePaths to Power: Rev. Marlon Tilghman of BRIDGE Maryland
Rev. Marlon Tilghman had already cut his teeth as an organizer before he received any formal training. In 2009, Tilghman organized several community groups from the area around the congregation he pastored in the Baltimore area. His efforts caught the attention of BRIDGE (now Gamaliel statewide affiliate BRIDGE Maryland, Inc.) founder Rev. David Casey,…
Read MorePaths to Power: Sara Meyer of Quad Cities Interfaith
Although Sara Meyer was an active member of Gamaliel affiliate Quad Cities Interfaith (QCI), until recently, she was adamant that she did not want to attend Gamaliel’s National Leadership Training. Meyer, a member-at-large of the QCI Board of Directors, attended an Ntosake training and a handful of shorter trainings, but struggled with Gamaliel’s agitational…
Read MoreGamaliel training adapts to pandemic, prepares leaders to build power in any circumstances
From Sr. Cheryl Liske, National Training Director and Senior Trainer: On March 12th, when the World Health Organization declared a pandemic and our lives changed overnight, Gamaliel was threedays away from our week-long National Leadership Training in Nashville. The training obviously wasn’t going to happen, but waiting for the pandemic to end wasn’t going to work…
Read MoreWisconisn IVE work changes the narrative around voting, incarcerated people’s role in democracy
Integrated Voter Engagement is designed to change narratives. In the leadup to the 2020 election, Gamaliel affiliates nationwide used IVE to do just that by growing their bases, moving issue campaigns, and connecting the democratic process to local issues. But in Wisconsin, Gamaliel statewide affiliate WISDOM worked with first-time voters and incarcerated people to make…
Read MoreIVE efforts breathe new life into PIIN, raise organization’s profile among congregations
Integrated Voter Engagement (IVE) is a strategy to connect organizers to the communities in which they work; it serves to build a relationship with the community and catalyze future organizing efforts. For Gamaliel affiliate Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN), IVE in the 2020 election season was not just a strategy for building power in the…
Read More40 Days of Prayer and Reflection Ends with Time of Post-Election Prayer, Processing – and Planning
With election results still undecided, nearly 100 members of the Gamaliel community gathered on November 4 to close out 40 Days of Reflection on Our Journey to the Polls – and to look toward the future. The event was more than 40 days in the making. On April 15, the Gamaliel National Religious Leaders Caucus(GNRLC) …
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