ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gordon Whitman has worked as a community organizer and social change strategist and coach for the past twenty-five years. He first learned organizing in Santiago, Chile, and helped found successful grassroots organizing groups in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Flint, Michigan. As the deputy director of Faith in Action (formerly PICO National Network), the county’s largest faith-based community organizing network, he has coached hundreds of organizers, clergy, and grassroots leaders. He’s been responsible for Faith in Action’s expansion program, helping people of faith and clergy build some of the most effective new multiracial community organizing groups in the United States over the past decade. In 2008, Gordon opened a national policy office for Faith in Action in Washington, DC, and has led national organizing campaigns on children’s health coverage, national health reform, and stopping of foreclosures. Before becoming an organizer, he worked as a legal services and civil rights lawyer in Philadelphia. Gordon has also been the associate director of the Temple University Center for Public Policy. He’s written dozens of policy reports and articles on social change and regularly blogs on HuffPost. He has a law degree from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in history and urban studies. When Gordon’s not organizing, you can find him in the wilderness.