Dear John,

After each training that Gamaliel hosts, participants are asked to evaluate their experience. Here are just a few of the “additional comments” received following a recent training:

- You all built a community in one week. I didn’t think that was possible.

- I don’t leave this training as a different person, but I am fired up and ready to go.

- I wish this were two weeks long; I need more of this.

Of course, we receive negative comments—which we take just as seriously as the positive comments—but overall trainee evaluations reflect a deep gratitude for our investment in them.

Gamaliel National Leadership Training—our 7-day, residential course—is widely acknowledged to be among the best in the field of community organizing. That designation is a result of:

1. a relevant and rigorous training curriculum that presents a real, individualized challenge to participants to live into the greatness for which they were created, as well as

2. our focus on developing trainers who are, first and foremost, practitioners with clarity about the world as it is and as it should be and their own path to power.

We are clear that training is an absolutely critical piece of developing effective leaders and building power organizations.

Each year we train approximately 1000 folks through national and local trainings. Multiply that by the more than 35 years we have been successfully and consistently training leaders, and you begin to get a sense of the impact of Gamaliel training.

As with everything else in this economy, training costs have risen significantly. Leaders attending National Leadership Training pay, on average, $850 for the week, which covers their room and board, but it does not begin to cover the cost of transporting, housing, and most importantly, developing quality trainers.

Perhaps you remember your own experience with the myriad of trainings Gamaliel provides—National Leadership Training, Ntosake Women’s Leadership Training, Advanced Leader Training, Race and Power Summit, specialized trainings for Spanish speakers, formerly incarcerated folks, and more. Perhaps, more importantly, you continue to practice the arts, attitudes, disciplines, and spirituality of organizing that you learned from Gamaliel training . . . and your community is better off for it.

On this Giving Tuesday, we encourage you to pay it forward! What will you invest to continue to develop leaders in the coming generations who will continue to fight for racial and economic equity for all? Give generously!

In solidarity,

Gamaliel Training Department