By Melissa Conrad

Georgia Stand-Up

“Georgia Stand-Up is one of the best empowerment initiatives to come around in a long time.  It not only helps citizens and community leaders understand the issues, but it motivates them to act upon the issues.” — Representative “Able” Mable Thomas, a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and a graduate of the Georgia Stand-Up Policy Institute for Civic Leadership. 

Since its inception, Georgia Stand-Up has been organizing communities for change around the Atlanta metropolitan region, and over the last year a key focus has been expanding opportunities for neighborhood, community, faith, and labor leaders to become empowered through skills, knowledge, and a shared vision.   Stand-Up has four key programs that seek to empower leaders, including community organizing, grassroots leadership education, community participatory research, and campaigns for community benefits. 

Community Organizing

Over one hundred organizations and individuals have joined the Georgia Stand-Up Alliance since October of 2005, and every month Georgia Stand-Up brings together these individuals to share information, develop a shared list of community benefits principles and to strategize around opportunities for change around Atlanta and the metropolitan region.  In the summer of 2007, Stand-Up will launch its Community Organizing 101 workshop, which will translate traditional labor organizing skills into a community framework that leaders can utilize in their own neighborhoods and communities.  Stand-Up plans to work with these leaders to design door-to-door canvasses and voter registration drives in several targeted neighborhoods for launch in the summer and early fall.

Grassroots Leadership Education

In May of this year, Stand-Up brought to a close the third session of the Policy Institute for Civic Leadership now building its number of graduates to 75 key leaders in the metropolitan area.  These leaders represent key community, labor and faith leaders along with supportive elected officials.  Many of these graduates have become the strongest members of the Alliance, taking on leadership roles in Stand-Up campaigns through utilization of the knowledge gained and relationships built during their participation in the Institute.  During 2007, Stand-Up plans to hold three sessions of the Institute, including one session held on Saturdays to specifically target those leaders who cannot come to a class held during the week due to work.  In addition, the organization will sponsor a workshop for the US Social Forum being held in Atlanta this June on the topic of “Community Benefits Agreements: Accessing Community Power to Impact Development.”  GSU will be launch another round of Community Enrichment Workshops during the summer and fall.

Community Participatory Research

During the recent office expansion, Stand-Up opened a community research room.  This resource is available to GSU allies to use computers, conduct shared research about their neighborhoods, gain advice on development issues in their communities, and hold meetings with other members of the Stand-Up Alliance.  There is also a community research library available in the office containing information on all of the targeted neighborhoods in the city, including redevelopment and land use plans for an area, demographic information, and other important sources of information. 

Campaigns for Community Benefits

Since introduction of the community benefits concept in Atlanta, beginning with Stand-Up’s historic win in November 2005 requiring that all projects associated with the $1.67 billion BeltLine development contain community benefits principles, community benefits has become the watchword for the leaders involved in the Stand-Up Alliance and many others in the city.  In March of 2007, Atlanta BeltLine, Inc, the organization controlling the development of the BeltLine project, launched a community engagement framework, which divided the city into five BeltLine Study Groups meant to develop a shared vision for the BeltLine in their communities as well as a list of community benefits principles for development in their area.  After seeing the lack of concerted outreach into neighborhoods to gain attendance for the meetings, Stand-Up developed its own outreach efforts along Atlanta’s Southside to inform residents about the study group meetings, as well as offering a list of community benefits principles that  the Alliance had worked on for over a year to residents as a guide.  At the policy level, Deborah Scott, Stand-Up Executive Director serves on the BeltLine Tax Allocation District Advisory Committee, and in that role serves as chair of the Community Benefits Subcommittee and is a member of the Executive Committee, the Economic Development Subcommittee, and the Decision Making Support Tool Subcommittee. 

The Alliance has also driven the work of Georgia Stand-Up to expand beyond the focus of BeltLine development to examining the inclusion of community benefits in  other economic development projects of major importance for the low to moderate income communities of Atlanta, including the closing of Fort McPherson, an army base located in the midst of several low income communities of color on the Southside of Atlanta, four proposed Southside Tax Allocation Districts, and several smaller developments in specific neighborhoods. 

Building Organization Capacity

In order to achieve these and the other goals of the organization, Stand-Up has been working to expand the capacity of the organization by hiring on new staff, utilizing student interns, and forging new partnerships with prominent academic institutions and community organizations around the city.  In March of this year, Stand-Up welcomed its newest staff person, John Dallas, who will be serving as a full time researcher for the organization.  Melissa Conrad will be continuing to coordinate the policy work and other programs for Stand-Up.  Stand-Up has taken on three summer organizing staff, and continues to utilize a number interns from all over the city.  Finally, Stand-Up has recently forged partnerships with two prominent research institutions Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as several local community based organizations, such as Atlanta Legal Aid, The Center for Working Families, Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Atlanta Housing Association of Neighborhood-based Developers, Georgia Conservancy, and many others.

The empowerment of leaders to take an active role in the shaping of their communities has been the driving force behind the work of Georgia Stand-Up since its inception, and continues to drive the work as Stand-Up grows and expands its work in shaping a new framework for development in Atlanta and the metropolitan region.  “We continue to see the growing impact of our work on communities around Atlanta as our ‘Think and Act Tank’ becomes a force for sustainable change in the region,” says Deborah Scott.