About Us  |  Contact Us  |  Events  |  Members and Advisors   Funding Priorities   |   Applying for a Grant   |   Initiatives   |   Public Policy   |   Grant Recipients   |   News   |   Resources Return to Home                   Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO) Members of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kansas, gather in the church’s community room on a Monday night to talk about how to be effective advocates for affordable health services for the people who live in their high-poverty community. Daniel Schwartz, a community organizer with Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO), is facilitating the conversation tonight with church Deacon Bernard Batie and a small group of active church members who’ve agreed to be trained in congregation-based community organizing. CCO’s organizing training and approach follows a model developed by PICO, a national organization that teaches faith groups how to identify and solve local issues that affect their members and broader community. Schwartz is leading members of this church and 14 other faith organizations in Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas through the PICO model of leadership development and community organizing, which focuses on building relationships; having conversations that help surface issues and concerns; analyzing problems and developing action plans; and building relationships with political leaders and carrying out activities that get attention and response from public officials. The REACH Foundation in 2008 awarded CCO a $30,000 Capacity Grant to expand its congregation-based community organization work in Kansas City, Missouri, to the two neighboring counties in Kansas. To launch the project, CCO staff met with 100 individuals from 45 faith institutions and held six large-group gatherings to walk through the components of community organizing. Out of that process, 15 faith groups indicated a readiness to move forward with planning and training. Members of Olivet were invited to participate in community action events in Missouri and relationship-building activities in Washington, D.C. Olivet’s leaders also agreed to look within their organization to identify 20 people to participate in advocacy training. Jamiela Turner, who lives in Missouri but is a member of the Kansas City, Kansas, church, said her trip to Missouri’s capitol inspired her to help Olivet launch its own congregation-based organizing effort. Turner said CCO gives people the tools to learn how to speak clearly and intelligently for what they need. “I told them (Missouri state elected leaders) we’re not asking for handouts,” she said. “But we need health care for our families and our kids.” Copyright © 2010 REACH Healthcare Foundation. All Rights Reserved   Acceptable Use Site by Digital Evolution Group, LLC