220 S. 27th Street, Suite B
Billings, Montana 59101
www.worc.org
Staff size: 12
2006 Annual budget: $716,000
IRS Annual Report: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2006/450/356/2006-450356819-03210b25-9O.pdf
Maintaining the long American tradition of prairie populism, the Western
Organization of Resource Councils advances rural community interests in the
Dakotas, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. WORC is a network of
grassroots organizations from these seven states that includes 10,000
members and 45 local community groups. WORC helps its members succeed by
providing training and by coordinating multi-state issue campaigns.
WORC and its affiliated organizations envision a West where resources are
harvested sustainably, family farmers and rural communities prosper, and
regional resource wealth is shared broadly and fairly. And, they have worked
with remarkable success to make the vision come true.
Formed in the 1970s, WORC focused on coal mine reclamation and natural
resource tax policy. The organization won model reclamation and coal leasing
laws and progressive tax structures.
In the 1980s, WORC targeted on energy policy and challenged the farm lending
practices of the banks and federal government. The organization helped table
the ill-conceived Synthetic Fuels Corporation and won new credit reforms at
the state and national levels. WORC also initiated its workshop, Principles
of Community Organizing, which has trained over 1,000 community leaders and
community organizers.
In the 1990s, the organization confronted the rise of agribusiness
corporations in the meatpacking and grain industry and organized on hard
rock mining reform, electric industry deregulation, and animal factories.
In the new century, WORC launched programs to work for safe food, fair trade
policies and responsible coalbed methane development; gained
country-of-origin labeling for meat, produce and fish; forced Monsanto to
shelve the commercial release of its genetically modified wheat; and halted
planting and sales of genetically modified alfalfa through a lawsuit
challenging the federal government's approval of the crop.