Thank you for writing to us at the Community Tool Box about your ideas. We applaud you for your concern about children’s education.
Your question about starting an organization is a big one. But we think the best place to start is to clarify just what it is you would like your organization to do? (For example, what do you mean by “the process of children in school”? And just what is meant by “preventing their growth”?)
Specifically, what would be your organization’s goals? What would be its particular objectives? We would recommend that you take a little time to write these down, and possibly revise them, so that they are clear to you. When they are clear to you, then it will also be easier for you to make them clear to someone else.
Once your goals and objectives are clear, a good next step is to find some other people who have the same feelings about the problem, and who have the same general goals as you do. This is because starting a new organization usually takes time and energy, and things are likely to go better if the work can be shared with others. A group also has other advantages: You can provide emotional support to each other, and the whole organization is likely to benefit from a variety of different ideas and perspectives. Your starting group can be quite small, though, perhaps just a few people at the beginning. You can grow over time.
Once you have clarified your goals and formed a core group, then it’s good to get together and plan – what actions do you want take to reach your goals, who will take them, and when will they be taken? Some questions that may come up in your discussion may include what about members? What about leadership? What about publicity? What about financing? These are very natural questions for most any new project of this kind; but if you think them through, you can come up with good answers that work for you.
All this again will take some time to work out, but we believe the time spent will definitely be worth it and pay off for you in the longer run. We could speak at more length about these topics, but we hope this short answer will get you started. And you should be able to gain much knowledge from parts of the Community Tool Box that deal specifically with these topics. One good place to begin is Chapter 18, on Deciding Where to Start. Take a look at the Table of Contents for other examples.
We hope these thoughts will be useful to you. Thanks again for being in touch, and all best wishes for much success in your work.
