UFE’s Grassroots Organizing School of Alabama (GOSA) is meeting the need in Alabama for a pipeline of skilled organizers – and so much more. Three years in, GOSA has spawned a constellation of contributions that bolster the infrastructure for making change.

The vision: Partner orgs send their member leaders and staff organizers to participate in a year of GOSA training. Participants bring their skills back into the ecosystem for community mobilization, while UFE provides ongoing mentoring.

Partner Groups Connect Us to Community

We began the GOSA project four years ago with five planning partners. All were experiencing disruptions and blocks in their base-building work because skilled community organizers were hard to find. UFE’s goal was to meet this urgent need.

Today, we have 12 formal project partners, including all 5 of the original planning groups. Three-quarters have sent staff or leaders to receive training, as have 3 additional collaborating orgs. These relationships are foundational to our work, and we are intentional and deliberate about moving “at the speed of trust.” 

GOSA partners are crucial parts of the infrastructure for community mobilization in immigrant, Black, and low-wage worker communities.

When partners send organizers to GOSA, they return with a critical analysis of the structures that create economic inequality in Alabama, and the skills to engage community members in collective action to change conditions. Collectively, participants ground themselves in in learning the histories of enslaved and migrant labor in Alabama, its gendered characteristics, how these legacies persist into the present, and the ways people have come together over time to resist exploitation and build vibrant communities. They use tools for collective healing, and practice facilitation and organizing skills.  

With GOSA, we are cultivating leaders from the communities most impacted by marginalization and exploitation. Close to half (44%) of GOSA participants are immigrants, 75% identify as Latinx, and almost one-fifth (18%) identify as Black. Over half (56%) are low-wage workers. In total so far, we have welcomed 55 GOSA participants, 42% of whom completed the program. Of completers, almost all (95%) are working with community organizations as staff or member leaders.

A Constellation of Companion Contributions

When we began to cultivate a pipeline of skilled organizers, very quickly we began to be aware of additional needs in the ecosystem. Those include: on-demand workshops to support community safety, support and resources for nonprofit leaders who carry disproportionate burdens, ongoing mentorship for groups and leaders beyond GOSA alums, and a pipeline of social justice interpreters. We also identified additional opportunities, like plugging GOSA alums into an existing network of groups that advocate for immigrant rights.

Three years in, GOSA has spawned a constellation of companion efforts to meet needs of the ecosystem for community action.

We are recruiting now for the GOSA 2026, the fourth cohort. Send your leaders our way!