The AFL–CIO Organizing Institute (best known as "the Organizing Institute," and often as simply "the OI") is a unit within the Organizing and Field Services Department of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Founded in 1989, the OI serves as the primary training body for most organizers in the AFL–CIO and its member unions.
Despite its small budget, size and organizational status, the OI has played a major role in the history of the AFL–CIO. The OI has been described as the "AFL–CIO's most innovative initiative on the external organizing front".[1]
Since its inception, the OI has trained more than 7,000 union members as "member-organizers" and another 3,000 staff organizers (1,000 of whom were new to the labor movement). Nearly a third of its new staff organizers are college-age or college graduates.[2][3]