C o m m u n i t y   S e r v i c e

A well-known wilderness activist once said Jim was the best grassroots organizer he had ever met. Jim Olsen has succeeded in advocacy campaigns that have changed his community and state for the better, working on the leading edge of movements that often do not have majority support and bringing them to a point where the community accepts them and sometimes embraces them. 

• I was asked to be Vice Chair of Supporters for an Abuse Free Environment (S.A.F.E.) just as it was about to transition from an all-volunteer, women-helping-women group. The organization grew to become the leading domestic abuse organization in the state, providing both crisis intervention and long-term transition services and housing. The mission is embraced by elected officials of all political parties and the local justice system. 

• Went on to provide the infrastructure for a home-like setting for forensic interviews of child victims of crime — the best in the state — Emma’s House.

• Working with a clinical social worker, developed a business plan and advocated a community-based mental health crisis center for the county, interacting with people with mental illness, their providers, and the justice system to create a humane, effective process for dealing with crisis events. Went on to provide an Internet Café that was a place for high-functioning people with mental illness to interact with members of the general community, staffed with high-functioning people with mental illness in a safe, HIPAA-compliant environment.

• When the Hamilton School District announced they were losing money on the Hamilton Performing Arts Series, the teacher who had led the effort asked for help. There was no board ready to step in as a non-profit. My company did a business plan, presented it to the school board, who transferred the program to my company. We underwrote it and produced it for a season and then turned over to a non-profit board. 

• A prime mover and spokesperson for promoting improved bio-safety and Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a BSL-4 lab of NIAID. Organized litigation and reached a settlement for enhanced safety, community engagement, and transparency.

• Forest and Wildlands. Succeeded in bringing marginalized groups into controversial subjects for wildlands and endangered species protection to be seen as a necessary part of the dialogue. These campaigns reached to Congress and national campaigns. These involved grassroots organizing, comments to environmental impact statements that provided the technical and legal framework for possible litigation, press work, organizing town meetings, demonstrations, and coalition building.. 

• Subdivisions and planning. Participated in, and sometimes organized, local campaigns to question subdivisions, water, and septic permits. Serve with a state-level coalition to help craft and influence state legislation. When neighbors asked for my help to counter an effort to annex farmland into Hamilton as a subdivision, I helped with public outreach and comments for the record to the City of Hamilton. They asked me to give a presentation to the City Council on their behalf to make their case, which I did. It was denied.

• Pesticides. A principal in a campaign to get the county to provide notice of roadside pesticide spraying and allow local landowners to opt-out if they do their own weed control.

• Highway expansion. A principle in a campaign that led to improvements in safety for the expansion of Highway 93 from two lanes to four lanes, improved public participation, and a valley-wide bike path. This led to a request for assistance by a group in Ketchum, Idaho, and an invitation to a regional tribal highway conference in Rapid City, South Dakota. 

• Housing Insecurity and Homelessness. Participated in the local housing insecurity coalition on occasion. 

• Air and water-polluting industry. Worked with Missoula groups working to bring a cardboard factory to account.

 

The important thing in these campaigns is that Jim was never alone — he is a coalition builder, bringing in multiple organizations to work on a common interest. He works across political and ideological divides using non-violent activism practices inspired by and informed by Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi and Reverend Marin Luther King, Jr., and their writings. 

 

Though sometimes labeled a liberal, Jim is an independent centrist. When he taught a course on grassroots activism at the Bitterroot College, the local Republican Central Committee paid the tuition for two of their members to attend.

 

Jim Olsen has always been a volunteer activist and has never been paid.
 

E d u c a t i o n                                                                                         

Other Education: Conservation Activist Training (Sponsored by Patagonia)