You and Your Neighbors Can Help Change the World
April 8, 2025
Source: Convergence Magazine
United Neighbors of the 35th Ward didn’t wait for Inauguration Day to start working to keep our people safe from wrongful detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. As a hyperlocal organization on Chicago’s northwest side, we’ve been busy informing our neighbors—many of whom are immigrants from across Latin America—of their constitutional rights should they be approached by ICE at their door or in our community. We organized in the weeks leading up to Inauguration Day, and on the morning of Trump’s second inauguration, we mobilized dozens of volunteers to distribute Know Your Rights information at popular train and bus stations across our district. U.N.35 is part of what the far-right New York Post recently called a “left-wing ecosystem,” a first line of defense for our communities against the attacks by the new administration and the forces that back it.
Ten years ago, we founded United Neighbors of the 35th Ward (U.N.35) as an “independent political organization,” which is a membership-based hybrid organization. It’s hybrid in the sense that its members engage in both electoral and non-electoral organizing, and independent because it’s beholden solely to its members and the community, not to the old-school Chicago Democratic Party machine or powerful moneyed interests.
Since its founding in May 2015, U.N.35 and its members have been a lively part of the labor-community coalition that has reshaped the politics of the city and delivered significant progressive policy wins. Together we have elected Squad member Delia Ramirez to Congress and helped pass one of the nation’s most democratic and progressive systems of civilian oversight of police, the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance. We’ve helped bring new affordable housing developments to our ward’s gentrifying neighborhoods, and ensure Chicago is a true immigrant sanctuary where local police cannot work with ICE in any case—no exceptions.
United Neighbors’ roots and purpose
The 35th Ward is a working and middle-class community, home to 57,000 people living in four of Chicago’s northwest side neighborhoods–Avondale, Hermosa, Irving Park, and Logan Square. As of the last census, the ward is majority Latino. However, like many communities in Chicago, its predominantly Latino working-class families have faced displacement due to rising rents and property taxes. Rising housing costs not only impact the ward’s Latino residents but everyone in the ward, so gentrification and the displacement it causes is one of the top issues for our communities.
When we worked to found U.N.35 in the winter and spring of 2015, we weren’t seasoned political operatives. In Fall 2014 Carlos had decided to run for the position of 35th Ward Alderperson, representing our community on the Chicago City Council. He did so because our communities were tired of the broken status quo and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s neoliberal policies that put powerful special interests over the needs of our neighborhoods. Mayor Emanuel, with the support of the incumbent alderperson, had shuttered half of the city’s public mental health clinics, including one in our ward, and 50 public schools—all while doling out tens of millions in corporate welfare. During the campaign, we committed to our neighbors that, win or lose, we would not stop knocking on doors: we would continue to engage in grassroots organizing and work to form a new organization that would represent our collective concerns. As young and idealistic organizers, we set out to meet that commitment not long after Carlos won the race for alderman in February 2015.
We believe our experience founding U.N.35 shows that anyone—regardless of their age, profession, or organizing background—can form a hyper-local grassroots community organization that advances their community’s interests in both the electoral and community organizing arenas.
Chicago has a long history of Alinksy-style organizing in our communities. While a neighborhood-based non-profit organization engaged in policy and organizing campaigns in the ward existed, our contribution in 2015 was forming a hybrid electoral and grassroots organizing political group, helping to revive Chicago’s movement of independent political organizations (IPOs). Chicago’s IPO movement first caught fire during the grassroots progressive push to elect Harold Washington as Chicago’s first Black mayor in 1983.
As membership-based and hybrid organizations, IPOs like U.N. 35 can endorse and run candidates for office while at the same time working to keep those candidates accountable to the community’s needs and vision once elected. Registered with the State Board of Elections and funded primarily by our members, U.N.35 does not face the constraints faced by 501c3 non-profit organizations.
Lightning rods, power mapping and political education
Here are some of the strategies and approaches we used to establish U.N.35 successfully 10 years ago. We hope you can apply these lessons to your own hyper-local community organizing effort.
We invited people to co-create the organization
When we first proposed U.N.35 to our neighbors, the idea wasn’t fully formed. We didn’t know what we’d call the organization or the exact form it would take. However, we shared with prospective founding members our desire to form a grassroots community organization that would build people-power in our neighborhoods and work to keep our local elected officials accountable. We asked them what they thought of this vision and if this was something they wanted to build alongside us. People loved the ability to co-create and develop something new that was in their self-interest and the collective interest of our neighborhoods.
Build relationships and give people something to do
You can’t build a hyper-local grassroots community organization—an IPO—if you’re not out in the community building relationships and then providing something for people to do. This includes power mapping, identifying lighting rods to bring community members together, regular engagement, and popular education.Power mapping: It’s imperative to develop knowledge of your turf, including the neighborhood institutions—such as schools, congregations, and organizations—and the established community leaders who have an existing base. Early on, our organization worked to make a comprehensive list of all the institutions in our community and reach out to them to introduce ourselves and ask how, as a local grassroots community organization, we could assist them with any issues they faced. We worked to build genuine relationships throughout the neighborhood with established organizations and institutions. U.N.35 didn’t just focus on our electoral and policy campaigns: we got involved with parents working to win a new playground for their underfunded school and neighbors organizing clean-ups to pick up litter in our neighborhoods.
Lightning rods: We used electoral and policy campaigns to build the organization and energize and motivate people. We identified U.N.35’s initial members from the volunteer base for Carlos’ campaign for 35th Ward Alderperson. After that race, we campaigned for a new affordable housing development for our ward on publicly owned land adjacent to a train stop. Whether it was campaigning to elect a progressive alderman or organizing for affordable housing, we used “lighting rods” to build our organization by identifying campaigns and causes that excited our neighbors.
Regular engagement: As we worked to build United Neighbors of the 35th Ward, we held at least one canvass and one member meeting every month. If you stay static, your organization’s base and leaders will not grow. Our monthly canvasses helped us gauge the community, define our hyper-local issue campaigns, and develop leadership prospects as we met new neighbors in the street and at the doors. Ten years later, U.N.35 continues to hold regular canvasses and at least one member meeting each month to keep our community involved and committed.
Popular education: U.N.35 grew exponentially during our first summer of hyper-local organizing through popular education workshops, where we invited neighborhood residents to co-create a community policy platform. Our monthly canvasses invited neighbors to attend town hall-style workshops near their homes, where we discussed important issues impacting the community and offered information to help understand those issues through a social justice lens. We discussed education, public safety, economic development, housing, and city finances.
We considered these town halls popular education because they involved community conversations where we heard from experts and then unpacked what we had just learned. We took what we learned and heard from residents at these town halls to create our ward’s first-ever community policy platform. U.N.35 continues to host popular education events and community gatherings, including a recent screening of a documentary on the Young Lords of Lincoln Park. These popular education events not only help inform and educate our community but they also create space for members to be together.
Base building and coalitions
Build your base, then enter coalitions, and don’t neglect to build relationships throughout the neighborhood. It’s critically important to focus on building your own base as you develop your organization. Don’t chase after another group’s base or try to poach its leaders. This is particularly important in Chicago, which has many other active, member-based Alinsky-style organizations. The vast majority of people in our communities are not politically active, but many would enter a new political home if invited to do so. Your task is to find these people and activate them in your organization.
A nascent organization without a growing base will not remain an organization for very long. A small and young organization that too quickly pivots to focusing on coalition work risks collapsing or being swallowed up by the more established formations. Build your base using the tactics and strategies outlined above, and then enter into coalition with like-minded individuals and organizations.
After our first summer and fall of neighborhood canvassing and hosting popular education town halls to form our community’s policy platform, we got to work making our first-ever political endorsements in the March 2016 Illinois Democratic Primary election. We backed Carlos to serve as our ward’s Democratic Party Committeeperson, progressives Kim Foxx and Omar Aquino for State’s Attorney and State Senator, and Bernie Sanders for US President. After we delivered our ward to all four of our endorsed candidates, we fought for an all-affordable housing development in our community and organized alongside the Chicago Alliance for Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) for community control of the police—work which eventually led to the passage of Chicago’s Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance. We also gathered signatures to put a non-binding referendum in support of rent control on the 2018 ballot, a measure overwhelmingly backed by the ward’s voters.
We could write many more words on how you can build a powerful grassroots organization in your neighborhood, but you will learn your most important lessons in the field as you do the work. If you are successful in building your grassroots organization, you will face a new set of challenges—but your hyperlocal work is crucial. Whether you elect the next member of the Squad, pass legislation to increase tenant protections, or take any other measure that you and your neighbors deem essential to the well-being of your neighborhood, you will be defending our communities and advancing our collective interests. With Trump and the authoritarian Right stepping up the attacks on our communities, particularly our most vulnerable neighbors, there couldn’t be a better time for you and neighbors to start organizing to change the world.
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa is Chicago’s 35th Ward Democratic Committeeperson and was elected three times to the Chicago City Council, serving as 35th Ward Alderperson from 2015 to 2025.
United Neighbors of the 35th Ward didn’t wait for Inauguration Day to start working to keep our people safe from wrongful detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. As a hyperlocal organization on Chicago’s northwest side, we’ve been busy informing our neighbors—many of whom are immigrants from across Latin America—of their constitutional rights should they be approached by ICE at their door or in our community. We organized in the weeks leading up to Inauguration Day, and on the morning of Trump’s second inauguration, we mobilized dozens of volunteers to distribute Know Your Rights information at popular train and bus stations across our district. U.N.35 is part of what the far-right New York Post recently called a “left-wing ecosystem,” a first line of defense for our communities against the attacks by the new administration and the forces that back it.
Ten years ago, we founded United Neighbors of the 35th Ward (U.N.35) as an “independent political organization,” which is a membership-based hybrid organization. It’s hybrid in the sense that its members engage in both electoral and non-electoral organizing, and independent because it’s beholden solely to its members and the community, not to the old-school Chicago Democratic Party machine or powerful moneyed interests.
Since its founding in May 2015, U.N.35 and its members have been a lively part of the labor-community coalition that has reshaped the politics of the city and delivered significant progressive policy wins. Together we have elected Squad member Delia Ramirez to Congress and helped pass one of the nation’s most democratic and progressive systems of civilian oversight of police, the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance. We’ve helped bring new affordable housing developments to our ward’s gentrifying neighborhoods, and ensure Chicago is a true immigrant sanctuary where local police cannot work with ICE in any case—no exceptions.
United Neighbors’ roots and purpose
The 35th Ward is a working and middle-class community, home to 57,000 people living in four of Chicago’s northwest side neighborhoods–Avondale, Hermosa, Irving Park, and Logan Square. As of the last census, the ward is majority Latino. However, like many communities in Chicago, its predominantly Latino working-class families have faced displacement due to rising rents and property taxes. Rising housing costs not only impact the ward’s Latino residents but everyone in the ward, so gentrification and the displacement it causes is one of the top issues for our communities.
When we worked to found U.N.35 in the winter and spring of 2015, we weren’t seasoned political operatives. In Fall 2014 Carlos had decided to run for the position of 35th Ward Alderperson, representing our community on the Chicago City Council. He did so because our communities were tired of the broken status quo and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s neoliberal policies that put powerful special interests over the needs of our neighborhoods. Mayor Emanuel, with the support of the incumbent alderperson, had shuttered half of the city’s public mental health clinics, including one in our ward, and 50 public schools—all while doling out tens of millions in corporate welfare. During the campaign, we committed to our neighbors that, win or lose, we would not stop knocking on doors: we would continue to engage in grassroots organizing and work to form a new organization that would represent our collective concerns. As young and idealistic organizers, we set out to meet that commitment not long after Carlos won the race for alderman in February 2015.
We believe our experience founding U.N.35 shows that anyone—regardless of their age, profession, or organizing background—can form a hyper-local grassroots community organization that advances their community’s interests in both the electoral and community organizing arenas.
Chicago has a long history of Alinksy-style organizing in our communities. While a neighborhood-based non-profit organization engaged in policy and organizing campaigns in the ward existed, our contribution in 2015 was forming a hybrid electoral and grassroots organizing political group, helping to revive Chicago’s movement of independent political organizations (IPOs). Chicago’s IPO movement first caught fire during the grassroots progressive push to elect Harold Washington as Chicago’s first Black mayor in 1983.
As membership-based and hybrid organizations, IPOs like U.N. 35 can endorse and run candidates for office while at the same time working to keep those candidates accountable to the community’s needs and vision once elected. Registered with the State Board of Elections and funded primarily by our members, U.N.35 does not face the constraints faced by 501c3 non-profit organizations.
Lightning rods, power mapping and political education
Here are some of the strategies and approaches we used to establish U.N.35 successfully 10 years ago. We hope you can apply these lessons to your own hyper-local community organizing effort.
We invited people to co-create the organization
When we first proposed U.N.35 to our neighbors, the idea wasn’t fully formed. We didn’t know what we’d call the organization or the exact form it would take. However, we shared with prospective founding members our desire to form a grassroots community organization that would build people-power in our neighborhoods and work to keep our local elected officials accountable. We asked them what they thought of this vision and if this was something they wanted to build alongside us. People loved the ability to co-create and develop something new that was in their self-interest and the collective interest of our neighborhoods.
Build relationships and give people something to do
You can’t build a hyper-local grassroots community organization—an IPO—if you’re not out in the community building relationships and then providing something for people to do. This includes power mapping, identifying lighting rods to bring community members together, regular engagement, and popular education.Power mapping: It’s imperative to develop knowledge of your turf, including the neighborhood institutions—such as schools, congregations, and organizations—and the established community leaders who have an existing base. Early on, our organization worked to make a comprehensive list of all the institutions in our community and reach out to them to introduce ourselves and ask how, as a local grassroots community organization, we could assist them with any issues they faced. We worked to build genuine relationships throughout the neighborhood with established organizations and institutions. U.N.35 didn’t just focus on our electoral and policy campaigns: we got involved with parents working to win a new playground for their underfunded school and neighbors organizing clean-ups to pick up litter in our neighborhoods.
Lightning rods: We used electoral and policy campaigns to build the organization and energize and motivate people. We identified U.N.35’s initial members from the volunteer base for Carlos’ campaign for 35th Ward Alderperson. After that race, we campaigned for a new affordable housing development for our ward on publicly owned land adjacent to a train stop. Whether it was campaigning to elect a progressive alderman or organizing for affordable housing, we used “lighting rods” to build our organization by identifying campaigns and causes that excited our neighbors.
Regular engagement: As we worked to build United Neighbors of the 35th Ward, we held at least one canvass and one member meeting every month. If you stay static, your organization’s base and leaders will not grow. Our monthly canvasses helped us gauge the community, define our hyper-local issue campaigns, and develop leadership prospects as we met new neighbors in the street and at the doors. Ten years later, U.N.35 continues to hold regular canvasses and at least one member meeting each month to keep our community involved and committed.
Popular education: U.N.35 grew exponentially during our first summer of hyper-local organizing through popular education workshops, where we invited neighborhood residents to co-create a community policy platform. Our monthly canvasses invited neighbors to attend town hall-style workshops near their homes, where we discussed important issues impacting the community and offered information to help understand those issues through a social justice lens. We discussed education, public safety, economic development, housing, and city finances.
We considered these town halls popular education because they involved community conversations where we heard from experts and then unpacked what we had just learned. We took what we learned and heard from residents at these town halls to create our ward’s first-ever community policy platform. U.N.35 continues to host popular education events and community gatherings, including a recent screening of a documentary on the Young Lords of Lincoln Park. These popular education events not only help inform and educate our community but they also create space for members to be together.
Base building and coalitions
Build your base, then enter coalitions, and don’t neglect to build relationships throughout the neighborhood. It’s critically important to focus on building your own base as you develop your organization. Don’t chase after another group’s base or try to poach its leaders. This is particularly important in Chicago, which has many other active, member-based Alinsky-style organizations. The vast majority of people in our communities are not politically active, but many would enter a new political home if invited to do so. Your task is to find these people and activate them in your organization.
A nascent organization without a growing base will not remain an organization for very long. A small and young organization that too quickly pivots to focusing on coalition work risks collapsing or being swallowed up by the more established formations. Build your base using the tactics and strategies outlined above, and then enter into coalition with like-minded individuals and organizations.
After our first summer and fall of neighborhood canvassing and hosting popular education town halls to form our community’s policy platform, we got to work making our first-ever political endorsements in the March 2016 Illinois Democratic Primary election. We backed Carlos to serve as our ward’s Democratic Party Committeeperson, progressives Kim Foxx and Omar Aquino for State’s Attorney and State Senator, and Bernie Sanders for US President. After we delivered our ward to all four of our endorsed candidates, we fought for an all-affordable housing development in our community and organized alongside the Chicago Alliance for Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) for community control of the police—work which eventually led to the passage of Chicago’s Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance. We also gathered signatures to put a non-binding referendum in support of rent control on the 2018 ballot, a measure overwhelmingly backed by the ward’s voters.
We could write many more words on how you can build a powerful grassroots organization in your neighborhood, but you will learn your most important lessons in the field as you do the work. If you are successful in building your grassroots organization, you will face a new set of challenges—but your hyperlocal work is crucial. Whether you elect the next member of the Squad, pass legislation to increase tenant protections, or take any other measure that you and your neighbors deem essential to the well-being of your neighborhood, you will be defending our communities and advancing our collective interests. With Trump and the authoritarian Right stepping up the attacks on our communities, particularly our most vulnerable neighbors, there couldn’t be a better time for you and neighbors to start organizing to change the world.
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa is Chicago’s 35th Ward Democratic Committeeperson and was elected three times to the Chicago City Council, serving as 35th Ward Alderperson from 2015 to 2025.
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