Audience for this Book

This open-source textbook has been intentionally created and compiled for an interdisciplinary course at a small Midwest university on community and organizational change. The course is cross-listed with the social work program and a new major at the university called, Public Leadership and Changemaking. The course has historically been the foundational macro skills course for undergraduate social work students and then recently modified to be inclusive of other community change professionals. So, when you review the content, you will see less of an emphasis on references specific to social work students and professionals as the primary audience of the text and an intentional expansion of references. Therefore, a broad range of disciplines who have a responsibility to be aware of community change strategies to fulfill their professional mission are encouraged to consider this material for their curriculum (nursing, public health, environmental studies, etc.).

Grant Writing as Framework

The steps and skills of grant writing are used as the framework for the entire course. I started to teach grant writing to our BSW students when I began teaching the community and organizational change course a few years ago. As a longtime grant writer myself, I am convinced that the skills can be economically and professionally empowering for students, whether they pursue an MSW or other graduate degree or not. (reference article background info).

Each semester, the students learn grant writing by working on a grant for a local organization. One completed grant is submitted to the organization on behalf of the class. Most of the grants were submitted to a philanthropic organization, resulting in the acquisition of over $200,000 for local organizations.

Foundations for My Knowledge

When this project began, I based the content on about 20 years of experience working in the field of macro community and organizational change work, partly as a human services planner for a development organization but mostly as a human services consultant. After I graduated with my Master of Social Work (MSW) in 1997, I started down the path of macro social work and never looked back. This project is also built from about 10 years of teaching coursework on community and organizational change, where every year I would try a few new things while keeping and tweaking the strategies and assignments that seemed to be leading to meaningful learning and skill development.

Thankfully, I am still very much a work in progress and have even more knowledge than when I began this project because I continued to read, attend workshops, and try out some community change strategies that expanded what I know and see as meaningful and useful. That is one of the many reasons why I have chosen the open-source textbook route; because this work is intended to evolve by myself but more importantly—YOU.