Organize the South

Over the next few months, Communities United will be shutting our doors. This will be a total shutdown and will include the termination of all program work. This decision wasn’t made lightly. We’ve built an organization that has done and is doing good work. However, doing good work isn’t enough to justify the existence of an organization.

In June 2005 the Communities United Steering Committee held a strategic planning retreat and planned the development of a volunteer Organizing Collective comprised of people most affected by the Prison Industrial Complex and agreed to be an interim Steering Committee until we could hold a Strategy Session in November.

In November 2005, we held a strategy session with organizations from around the State of Georgia working on different aspect of the Prison Industrial Complex. Our goal was that a critical number would join a permanent Steering Committee and others would become actively involved in Communities United. PIC related organizations in Georgia, particularly outside of Atlanta, did not join the steering committee.

After a deep program evaluation period we’ve come to the conclusion that Communities United has not built a representative constituency and has not launched a campaign in accordance to its strategic plan. We believe that a critical lack of capacity among organizations in the state is preventing participation in a coalition structure. While building capacity is a goal, the primary reason Communities United was formed was to wage state campaigns. Rather than change the reason for being, we will be exploring other ways to structure campaigns so that low-capacity organizations can be involved.

Throughout the history of Communities United many people have contributed to the its process. Staff (paid & volunteer), steering committee members, volunteers and friends have worked hard to think, act and evaluate how to address the unjust Georgia Criminal Justice system. We are committed to continuing that work after Communities United is fully closed.

In the shutting down of this organization, we will be documenting all the factors that led us to this decision. Georgia is a state where economic exploitation reigns supreme and no one know the effects of this exploitation more then those affected by the PIC. We hope these lessons learned will aid and advance the work currently being done in this State and will guide any future coalition work.