Community Organizing Residency

When people of different faiths and backgrounds share a common cause, that cause is strengthened. The Community Organizing Residency (COR) is creating a nationwide network of religiously diverse community organizers who share common bonds, skills and language, and who will continue to support each other in their work beyond the residency for many years to come.

Jewish, Muslim and Christian residents of different denominations are placed with congregations, unions, or community groups in New York, LA, the Bay Area, Chicago and the Twin Cities. Each one is paired with a professional organizer who trains and mentors them. They attend intensive retreats together for interfaith study and reflection about the role of faith in organizing.

COR is the only program of its kind in the country. Now in its second year, it has been shown to be highly successful, with almost every resident who went through the program employed as an organizer. Just as important is the qualitative feedback from COR residents, who use works like “transformative” to describe the program. COR residents uniformly speak highly of the training, and tell us that both the professionalism and the interfaith aspects of the program set it apart in its power to support them and impart strong organizing skills. You can read about the COR experience in the residents’ own words.

In addition to supporting each other in their work, we believe that collectively the women and men who go through our training will be an important resource in the organizing community for dispelling all kinds of bias — and especially faith-based bias — over the coming decades.

Apply to Join COR

We are no longer accepting applications for the 2013 interfaith Community Organizing Residency. New information about how to apply for the 2014 cohort will be added to this page as soon as it is available.