Havurah Shalom is a MACG (Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good) member organization. MACG leads broad-based community organizing for issues that impact the larger community. To create effective community organizers, MACG offers leadership and organizer training to its member organizations.

Havurah’s MACG Core Team is the primary interface between Havurah and the other 25 MACG member organizations. Current MACG action teams include Housing, Immigration, and Climate Change/Environmental Justice.

If you are interested in joining the team or knowing more, please contact a member of Havurah's MACG Core Team: Adele Thompson, R.E. Szego, Bob Brown, Becky Chiao, or Michael Heumann.

MACG is an alliance of faith, labor, health education, and community organizations dedicated to building a base of everyday civic leaders to effectively stand for change they want to see in their communities.

• MACG organizes people power to create a better Tri-County region for all.
• It works for change from the bottom up: door-to-door and in living rooms, in congregations, union halls, classrooms and community centers, in front of city councils, and at the state capitol.
• It works to hold both public and private power holders accountable for their public responsibilities.
• It is a multi-issue organization.

The issues MACG works on change from year to year, arising directly from the concerns of the people in the member organizations, lifted up through shared stories.  MACG crosses economic, faith and neighborhood lines to find common ground and to act on MACG values.

For over fifteen years, MACG's civic leaders have worked to make neighborhoods safer, to promote accessible and affordable health care and housing, and to increase job opportunities and family wages, among other issues. While collective action is a critical part of what MACG does, its primary work is leadership development to equip members to be effective and active civic leaders. MACG has trained over 2000 people since its founding in 2002.

MACG is non-partisan and non-profit, supported by the dues of our member organizations, individual donors, and foundation grants.

MACG's three primary goals are to create:

• Effective everyday civic leaders with the skills and confidence to advocate on their own behalf on issues of their choosing
• Strong member organizations that apply the tools and practices of relational community organizing internally
• Thriving communities working for the common good through collective action

MACG’s members gain access to an organizing philosophy and practices developed and tested over the last 75 years. They have the opportunity to further their community leadership skills and mix with other civic leaders from around the region and country by participating in regional and national intensive trainings.

What Makes MACG Different from Other Advocacy Organizations?

• Its methods of community broad-based organizing are all about developing and building relationships among diverse everyday leaders across our member organizations, and uniting them to act powerfully together for the change we want.
• It emphasizes in-person face-to-face meetings, in order to build relationships that create the capacity in a community for leadership development, citizen-led action and strong relationships across the lines that often divide our communities.
• It acts on big problems by breaking them down into issues that are concrete and winnable by listening to the personal stories of members, and identifying common issues to act on. MACG finds leaders with the appetite and energy to lead effective campaigns for change.