Authors

Joan Minieri
Paul Getsos

Joan Minieri

Paul Getsos

Joan Minieri is a cofounder of Community Voices Heard (CVH). She has served on the board of directors of CVH and as a project consultant.

Joan was the founding codirector of the New York City Organizing Support Center, where she trained community leaders and organizers and supported developing organizations. She was the communications director for the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an alliance of religious institutions that promotes environmental sustainability and justice. She managed the Catholic Bishops' Campaign for Human Development in the New York Archdiocese, a fund for community organizing. She has organized homeless people and conducted mass mobilizations for housing justice. She has also done congregation-based organizing and neighborhood organizing in New York City and in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, and she has participated in national movement-building. She has taught social welfare at Borough of Manhattan Community College and LaGuardia Community College.

Joan's recent publications, written with the Research Center for Leadership in Action at New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, include From Constituents to Stakeholders: Building Organizational Ownership and Providing Opportunities to Lead, and Transforming Lives, Changing Communities: How Social Change Organizations Build and Use Power. In addition to writing and developing organizing projects, she also currently trains staff and leaders who are working on a range of social justice issues.

Joan's awards include a Charles H. Revson Fellowship and a Union Square Award from the Fund for the City of New York. She is a graduate of Muhlenberg College and holds a masters degree from the Columbia University School of Social Work.

Paul Getsos worked on myriad issues during college and after, including fighting President Reagan's budget cuts, doing anti-apartheid work at Rutgers University and antinuclear work in New York City and Boston. His first paid organizing job was as a canvasser for Greenpeace. He worked on electoral campaigns in the Bay Area and in a statewide environmental organization.

Paul was downstate director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State (HANNYS) when he cofounded Community Voices Heard with Joan Minieri and Gail Aska. He served as CVH's executive director and lead organizer for ten years. Paul also volunteered with the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce's Statewide Ballot Initiative Project, training more than sixty-five people in electoral and organizing skills.

Paul has been a key strategist for national and regional coalitions, including the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support and has participated in the World Social Forum in Brazil.

Paul teaches Community Organizing at the Columbia University School of Social Work. He has taught at the City University of New York in Social Welfare Movements and Human Service Administration. He is currently working with the PUSHBACK Network - an organization of statewide alliances in six states expanding participatory democracy and increasing the participation of people of color, low-income people and youth in elections and the electoral process.

Paul is a graduate of Rutgers University.

Joan and Paul received the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World award as part of a six-member leadership team from Community Voices Heard.

To schedule speaking or training with Joan and Paul e-mail: authors@toolsforradicaldemocracy.com