Ehrung für Community Organizer
Honoree Jim Capraro was profiled for an article on “Community Spirit” in Credo, a Swiss international publication on philanthropy in 2014. (via Issuu)
Dear Wolfgang,
We’re excited for our upcoming 50th anniversary gala at the Fairlie. Here are the details:
The celebration will take place Thursday October 24, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Fairlie, 339 N. Bell Ave. Chicago, IL 60612.
Get your ticket or sponsorship at greatersouthwest50.
We also wanted to share a story about our work from an angle that most people don’t know about. While most of us know Greater Southwest Development Corporation for its work here in Chicago, Wolfgang Goede brings a global perspective.
Goede, who lived at 67th and Damen when he visited Chicago in the early 1970s to learn about community organizing, met our inaugural Visionary Award honoree Jim Capraro then and went on to collaborate with him in multiple ways over the years. Here he shares a story about Jim and how our work has influenced thinkers in Germany, Latin America, and beyond.
A conference on comprehensive community development sponsored by Local Initiatives Support Corp. in Chicago in 2012 featured among others (left to right): Maren Schüpphaus from Munich, Francesca Santaniello from Milan and Bergamo, Jim Capraro, and Wolfgang Goede from Munich & Medellin.
“Mister International, James Capraro—Opportunities come from relationships”
I first met “Cappy,” as we called him back then, in 1972. I had come to Chicago as a German volunteer to learn community organizing. West Englewood, Little Lithuania, Greater Lawn: I got to know the Southwest Side like the back of my hand at door knocking and block club meetings. Jim, a resourceful teacher of organizing skills and a great door opener, also with his buddies. (Meanwhile, the ‘Germans’ House’ where I and other volunteers lived on 67th Place and Damen became the most visited party location in the area).
“Opportunities come from relationships” is Jim’s mantra [Note: in German in the original, you can use your browser to translate to English]. The closer, the happier—and the more these relationships can generate civic power.
Jim is a broker for relational power. I have seen his work influence policy in his hometown of Chicago but also in 30 other U.S. cities and beyond, in the transatlantic triangle between the U.S., Europe, and South America. We worked together on some of these including on a series of trainings in Munich, Milan and Medellín in the 2010 years.
The focus of much of this work is the Comprehensive Community Development method (CCD) that Jim developed from community organizing. It’s a fusion of citizen empowerment and entrepreneurship, underpinned by best practices developed while at Greater Southwest Development Corporation. Southwest Chicago was a microcosm of the current global challenges around integration, housing, education, jobs. Jim used his experience and insights to teach international folks how to tackle these issues.
Jim brought the Greater Southwest model to a community development conference in Medellín, Colombia in 2015. ( Photo by Wolfgang Goede)
Community Spirit
“Community spirit” is the heart of the method. As conference curator and community participation expert Maren Schüpphaus, put it in an essay, Comprehensive Community Development is the synergy of one’s own concerns and civic spirit within the political context, but apart from the electoral process.
This became a key message for activists and Germany’s quite top-down democracy. Outside Germany, Jim’s impact has been felt in Colombia, as well, where Anneli Seifert featured him and his work at a training at Medellín’s Antioquia University in 2015. Jim’s training refreshed this spirit in a country divided by decades of guerrilla warfare and entering the post conflict.
Seifert saw Jim as following in the footsteps of a great humanist, Alexander von Humboldt. Von Humboldt, whose journey of discovery took him through Colombia in 1801, was also inspired by community. Von Humboldt wanted people to share empathy, responsibility and a sense of interconnectedness within local communities throughout the world based on an eternal bond between nature and humanity.
This trail leads to another famous scholar: the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, whose book Democracy in America praised the public spirit of voluntary associations—of which, 200 years later, Greater Southwest is a shining beacon.
Congratulations board, members and staff, volunteers, donors and supporters, last but not least Jim!
Wolfgang Chr. Goede. Munich and Medellín
Political Scientist, Journalist, Facilitator
Community Organizer 1972-1976 Chicago | San Francisco
Thank you for reading! We hope you can join us on October 24. Get tickets and info at GreaterSouthwest50.eventbrite.
– All of us at Greater Southwest Development Corp.
| Get tickets and sponsorship information | Our mission is to be a catalyst for creating and maintaining a vital Southwest Chicago community by empowering, building and sustaining development that raises the quality of life for our neighborhood residents, businesses and industries. Learn more: greatersouthwest.org |
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