essay about community organizing

The Benefits (& Risks) Of Community Organizing

The act of community organizing can come with many benefits as well as risks, which can vary greatly depending on the style of organizing and issue area. However, it can be helpful to have a general sense of what organizers have seen in the past.

Community organizing can bring about social change for disadvantaged groups, improve community decision-making, reduce crime, improve safety and public health, spur local economies, and more. Risks can range from burnout and feelings of powerlessness to harassment and legal or corporal punishment.

The concept of “community organizing” has been thoroughly examined over the last few centuries and it’s worth noting that there are several different styles of organizing. Some styles are orientated toward building community and collective problem-solving. Other styles are more orientated toward amassing power and confrontational negotiations.

Depending on the style of the organizer, the support from the community, and the current political conditions, acts of community organizing can achieve meaningful change for a community. However, it may also elicit an array of responses from those in power.

At times, organizers may be able to achieve great change at the local, national, or even international level. Conversely, some organizers can find that they are unable to effect much change for long periods. While skill plays an important role, the political environment can vary greatly on social issues and some things may only move incrementally until reaching a critical mass of public support much later.

The benefits of community organizing are often thought of in terms of making social, economic, or political change, but the act also has many secondary benefits. Bringing people together to work towards social change has powerful effects on a community’s overall health and wellbeing.

One may also be wondering about the benefits of not just the community but also the organizers and participants themselves. Organizers and participants gain a number of benefits to their individual physical and mental health. Crucially, research has shown that this type of civic engagement is something that is “passed on” from generation to generation and even low levels of activity (provided it is done consistently) can have ripple effects for generations to come.

However, community organizing also comes with some risks. Even in cases in which organizing can seem harmless, organizers and participants should always be cognizant that collective action can be perceived as a threat to those in power. Reactions can vary and, at times, policymakers may respond in confusing or disproportional ways.

Below is a closer look at the benefits and risks of community organizing for both communities as well as organizers.

Benefits For The Community

The purpose of community organizing is to advance the causes of those who are impacted by socio-economic or political circumstances. Whether that means cleaning up a local park or achieving equal rights for minorities, organizing is about harnessing collective action toward making real changes. The number one upside of community organizing, then, is achieving the sought-after social change.

As noted above, there are many different styles of community organizing and there is no shortage of good examples. While this post won’t get too into the mechanics of organizing, it’s worth looking at a quick example of a community achieving the change they sought.

One very powerful example took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia from December 1999 to April 2000. The episode is now called the “ Cochabamba Water War ” which refers to a period when the city’s water was privatized and the community organized a grassroots response.

The tipping point came when the company which had obtained the rights to the city’s water – Aguas del Tunari – hiked prices to an extreme and even attempted to charge city residents for collecting rainwater. The Coordinadora in Defense of Water and Life acted as the primary organizer to push back against the privatization; they managed to churn up tens of thousands of protestors who helped bring about a settlement that restored some access to affordable water supplies. (However, the issue carried on until about 2006.)

In many cases of organizing such a display of grassroots power as seen in Cochabamba isn’t necessary. Sometimes community organizing is really meant to foster greater social cohesion and better collective problem-solving. In these cases, organizers need to focus on creating stronger connections between individuals. A natural byproduct of this “network-building” strategy is that the community naturally becomes better at decision-making processes and inclusiveness.

Research has shown that when individuals get involved in their communities in this manner it can improve things like public health, environmental management, and safety. In one fascinating example from Nepal, community involvement led to a significant increase in local biodiversity and, as a result, increased opportunities for tourism.

Community organizing can have dramatic impacts on the lives of youth as well and, as a result, reduce crime rates. Organizing models that provide good role models to youth have been shown to correlate with better local grades and lower truancy rates. Lower truancy rates, in turn, are correlated with lower crime rates. In one telling example of these connections, the Chicago Tribune found in a 2013 survey of Illinois inmates that 74% of those surveyed had been labeled “chronic truants” at some point in their education.

The ripple effects don’t stop at crime rates either. Research has also demonstrated that when adults get involved in their communities, their children adopt these behaviors later in life – regardless of peer influence. That means that not only does participating in community organizing help change current circumstances, it also helps give critical skills to the next generation and lays the groundwork for a more cohesive future.

Risks To The Community

The Cochabamba Water War example is a favorite for organizers and professors (and, admittedly, one of my personal favorites). The arch of the issue is quite satisfying as it had a sudden conflict, a build-up of community support, and then a just (though incomplete) resolution.

Yet, while communities around the world have been able to achieve similar changes, in many cases, events turn out very differently. Sometimes events can play out over many years or decades or the issue may never truly enter the public discourse. In extreme cases, the issue may even be forcefully suppressed by state or non-state actors.

As such, collective burnout or issue fatigue can be a risk for organizers. If the issue goes nowhere, it can reduce trust between members of the community, organizers, and institutions. This decline in trust can tear at the local social fabric and can later reduce the effectiveness of communities to respond to new challenges. It can also compound existing feelings of insecurity and powerlessness.

Communities should also be on the lookout that their issue is not exploited for the benefit of those in power. At times, officials can take superficial steps or create a visible display of support while at the same time not moving policy or taking meaningful action. Officials may even coopt slogans or phrases to appear on the side of public demands all the while neglecting to put the slogans into practice.

On the other end of political responses, organizers should also be mindful that even the smallest acts of organizing can trigger insecurity on the part of community leaders. If a leader feels challenged and attempts to reassert power, the response to organizing efforts can become extraordinary or even strange. If the issue is serious and/or high-profile enough, there is always a risk of legal, political, or physical attacks on participants.

While these risks sound dramatic, they are not meant to deter anyone from organizing. Simply being aware of these risks can allow organizers to better prepare for challenges as well as inform plans and strategies.

Benefits For The Organizers And Participants

In addition to the overall community benefits, organizers and participants can improve their personal social skills and wellbeing through their involvement. Community organizing improves a sense of social contribution and, consequently, gives participants a greater feeling of purpose. Research has shown that cultivating feelings of purpose can have noticeable effects on physical health factors like sleeping patterns.

Organizing can have a positive impact on mental health as well. Studies have demonstrated , for example, that civic participation and volunteering can lower rates of depression and improve overall life satisfaction.

By engaging in constructive and intentional ways, organizers stand a lot to gain in their personal health and wellbeing. The social bonds established during these activities also provide another benefit, adding to the benefits of simply participating.

Risks To The Organizers And Participants

Of course, organizers face many of the risks outlined above for the community as a whole. Participants should not fall into the trap of believing “that won’t happen to me” simply because they are part of a crowd and the burden is distributed. Every participant can be at risk.

As organizing can require consistent action over long periods, organizers should be wary of burnout. It’s not unusual for activists to become physically, emotionally, and intellectually drained during sustained campaigns. The consequences of burnout can be serious if it’s not handled correctly. For example, heavy personal investments in organizing can damage relationships and come with a heavy psychological toll.

Political, legal, or physical harassment and attacks are other serious risks that can come with little warning. Again, it’s imperative that participants don’t assume they will not be targeted simply because they are part of a crowd.

A quick final is in order so as not to end on a glum note. The risks associated with community organizing can vary greatly and some of those outlined above are more worst-case scenarios. Nonetheless, understanding these risks is important. Every participant in community organizing activities should be keenly aware of what it is they are trying to achieve and what type of obstacles they might encounter on the way there. Coupled with the knowledge above, this type of planning greatly increases the chances of success.

For more on community organizing and activism, check out this posts:

• The Yin and Yang of Community Organizing
• Community Organizing Basics: Power, Interest, & Saul Alinsky
• Benefits (and Risks) of Community Organizing
• Seven Fundamental Strategies for Grassroots Movements
• 9 Textbook Examples of Grassroots Activism
• Grassroots Activism  and How it REALLY Works

Dan Jasper is the founder and primary author of Street Civics. He specializes in advocacy and international affairs.

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What is community organization?

Community organization is the process of people coming together to address issues that matter to them. Community members developing plans for how the city can be a place where all its children do well. Neighbors joining in protests to stop drugs and violence in their community. Members of faith communities working together to build affordable housing. These are all examples of community organization efforts.

What are the types of communities that organize?

Community organization can happen in the variety of contexts that define "community."

Shared place

People come together who share a common geographic place such as a neighborhood, city, or town. For example, local residents might come together to address neighborhood concerns such as safety, housing, or basic services. Problem solving through community-based organizations (CBOs), neighborhood associations, and tenants -- organizations are common forms of place-based practice.

Shared experience

Community organizing also occurs among people who share an experience, such as a shared workplace or shared experience with disabilities or health disparities. Those who share a common identity may organize around issues, such as discrimination, that are barriers to achieving common goals. 

Shared interest

Organizing frequently occurs among those who have concerns about the same issues such as jobs, housing, child well-being, or education.

What are some models of practice in community organization?

Should community organization be about collaboration among people sharing common interests or confrontation with those in power? This is a false dichotomy that ignores the context of the work. Several models of practice emerged in various contexts of community organization work (Rothman, 1995).

Social planning

Social planning uses information and analysis to address substantive community issues such as education, child development, or environmental health. For example, planning councils or task forces engage (usually) professionals in setting goals and objectives, coordinating efforts, and reviewing goal attainment.

Social planning might occur in a context of either consensus or conflict about goals and means. For example, information about high rates of adolescent pregnancy, and factors that contribute to it, may help communities focus on the goal of preventing teen pregnancy, and even decisions about using controversial means such as sexuality education and enhanced access to contraceptives. Use of social planning helps build agreement on common results.

Social action

Social action involves efforts to increase the power and resources of low-income or relatively powerless or marginalized people. For example, advocacy organizations, such as those for disability rights or tobacco control, often use social action approaches. They might arrange disruptive events -- including lawsuits, sit-ins, or boycotts -- to draw attention and focus to their concerns by those in power.

Organizers create events, such as a protest or strike, that those in positions of power (such as employers) can avoid or stop by coming to an agreement. For example, people with disabilities might stop picketing a business when it modifies policies that discriminate against people with disabilities. Or, a tobacco company might avoid a lawsuit by tobacco control advocates by eliminating advertising directed at minors. Social action tactics are used in lots of situations involving conflicting interests and imbalance in power; they usually take place when conventional negotiations aren't working.

Locality development

Locality development is another way to get people to work together. It is the process of reaching group consensus about common concerns and collaborating in problem solving. For example, local residents in urban neighborhoods or rural communities may cooperate in defining local issues, such as access to job opportunities or better education, and in taking action to address the concerns.

Community partnerships or coalitions

There are many hybrid models that combine elements of the three approaches. For example, community partnerships or coalitions combine elements of social planning and locality development when people who share common concerns, such as child well -being or substance use, come together to address them. The goal of many coalitions is to change community conditions -- specific programs, policies, and practices -- that protect against or reduce risk for these concerns. These models, and their variations, may be implemented at local, state, regional, and even broader levels.

What are some lessons learned about community organization and change?

The following summaries come from lessons learned from various experiences with community organization practice. The lessons are organized by broad topics related to the work of community organization and change.

The lessons come through experience within:

Understanding (and affecting) community context

Community planning, community action and mobilization, understanding (and addressing) opposition and resistance, intervention and maintenance of efforts, promoting community change, influencing systems (or broader) change, achieving community-level improvements.

High profile commissions and reports create conditions for experimentation and optimism about public problem solving.

For example, during the 1960s, the U.S. President's Commission on Juvenile Delinquency helped spawn innovative efforts such as those of Mobilization for Youth in New York City. Similarly, in the early 1990s, a national level task force on infant mortality helped launch a multi-site demonstration program known as Healthy Start. High-profile studies such as this help set the public agenda by highlighting what should be addressed and how. Prominent reports frame the dominant explanations for societal problems. For example, a report could focus attention on poverty as a "root cause" of many societal problems or infant mortality as a pressing issue. It might also feature a promising alternative solution, such as equal access to health care or legal assistance, as an innovative way to address social problems.

You might need to use more than one model of community organization practice to fit the variety of contexts in which community work is done.

For example, social planning or locality development strategies may fit a context of consensus about common purpose such as working together to reduce violence. By contrast, the strategy of social action, with its disruptive activity and related conflict, may be more appropriate in a context of conflicting interests, such as organizing for decent wages or safe conditions in the workplace.

Crosscutting issues are good contexts for community organization practice.

Some community issues, for example, neighborhood safety or substance use, affect the majority of people who share a common place. They also offer a solid basis around which a critical mass of local people can work together. When community organization efforts involve people from diverse backgrounds of income and power -- such as educational or public health improvements that affect people across social class -- substantive change is a lot more likely to happen.

Community organization can't always be separated from politics or controversy.

Consider the case of people coming together in a rural community to address issues of toxic waste and environmental pollution. Public debate may focus on both the economic interests of affected businesses, and the health concerns of local residents. It's typical that when two parties are on opposite sides of an issue, neither will get everything they want. Inevitably, a resolution is going to involve politics: the art of reconciling or balancing competing interests.

Poor people can make substantial gains (or losses) during periods of tumultuous change, and related realignment of political parties.

Would there have been a Civil Rights Act of 1964 without rioting and a realignment of the Democratic Party? Political parties want to avoid mass protest or any unorganized behavior if it's at all possible, by changing (or appearing to change) policies, programs, and practices related to voiced concerns. Since mass protest is something those in power try to avoid, it's an important means by which poor people -- with otherwise limited resources -- can achieve power and influence.

Strategies used in community organization should match the times.

In times of turmoil, organizing protests and strikes by the people affected by the issues can yield maximum gains. By contrast, in the long times between periods of disruptive actions, community organization might use less conflict-oriented approaches, such as locality development or collaborative partnerships, to define and pursue common purposes.

Mass protest and grassroots community organization can work together.

When public protests and other forms of disruption increase, so do the grassroots organizations that address prevailing issues. For example, protests regarding pro-life (anti-abortion) interests were associated with increases in local organizations supporting this and other related causes. When public concern declines, so does organizing at the grassroots. Although protest nourishes organization, the reverse does not hold. Organization doesn't produce protest -- it may even retard it (as when agencies may avoid controversy to protect their funding).

Community organizations form when people are ready to be organized.

Although organizations may exist to promote interest in an issue, such as child hunger, little will happen until a significant number of people care about the issue and feel that their actions can make a difference. A big challenge is figuring out when your issue matters to enough people who share a common place or experience, so they can be organized around the issue.

Institutions that want to avoid conflict and controversy may be a difficult base for community organization work.

Consider the case of a school-community initiative to prevent adolescent pregnancy or HIV/AIDS. Although schools are well positioned to deliver information and health services to youth, school officials often oppose providing sexuality education or enhanced access to contraceptives for those who choose to be sexually active. So, human service agencies and educational institutions that rely on public funding may be bad choices for lead agencies in community organization efforts that are likely to draw opposition.

Societal and community problems are evidence that institutions are not functioning for people .

Much of the framing of societal problems in the 1980s and 1990s focused on the personal attributes of those immediately affected. For example, stated "causes" of high rates of youth crime may highlight the values and behavior of youth and their families such as "poor anger control" or "bad parenting." Such analyses rarely emphasize the contribution of broader environmental conditions, such as availability of jobs or chronic stresses associated with low income, and the institutions responsible for them. In addition to individual responsibility, public institutions -- such as schools, business, religious organizations, and government -- should be held accountable for widespread problems in living.

It's essential to set realistic goals for community organization efforts.

Community-based initiatives often overpromise, particularly with grantmakers. Setting unrealistic objectives -- for example, to reduce academic (school) failure by 50 percent in the next two years -- sets the group up for perceived failure. Organizations should carefully assess the feasibility of their proposed aims.

If we set only modest goals, we will probably achieve less.

Although goals ought to be achievable, they should also be challenging. Objectives can be overly modest. For example, an overly modest goal might be to reduce rates of school failure (now at 80 percent) by 10 percent within three years. Insufficiently challenging objectives may not bring forth the necessary effort, resources, and degree of change needed to address the community's concern.

Social planning can engage experts (and local people) in helping address societal problems, particularly when there is consensus on the issue.

We can advance locally valued purposes by engaging technical experts and local people in defining problems and solutions. Outside experts, such as university-based researchers or public officials, can assist local people in obtaining and interpreting data, facilitating the process of setting priorities, and identifying promising alternatives. But planning can go beyond the traditional roles of facilitating coordination and communication among agencies to identifying environmental conditions to be changed.

Locality development or self-help efforts can also assist in addressing community issues.

Local people have the experiential knowledge to come together to define local issues, such as neighborhood safety or jobs, and take action in addressing them. Such self -help efforts have their roots in the settlement house movement in urban neighborhoods. They are guided by respect for the autonomy of local people to decide (and act on ) what matters to them.

Local control can hinder collaboration at broader levels of planning.

Planning at higher levels than the neighborhood, city, or town may be necessary to address the broader conditions that affect community organization efforts. For example, the growing concentration of poverty in the urban core, a result of regional planning decisions and other broader policies, is a structural issue that affects community development efforts within inner-city neighborhoods. Although it's desirable for community building, strong local control may hinder the broader planning and coordination necessary to address local issues.

Each individual has the capacity for self-determination, self-help, and improvement.

A basic assumption of community organization is that people most affected by local concerns, including those labeled as "clients" of agency services, can do something about them. This "strengths" perspective highlights people's assets and abilities, not their deficits and limitations. While it acknowledges personal and community competence, it also recognizes the importance of environmental supports and barriers that affect engagement in community life. For self-determination efforts to be successful, we must create opportunities for working together, and increase the positive consequences of community action.

You can't do it by yourself.

Addressing what matters to local people -- good health, education, and jobs, for example -- is beyond any one of us. The idea of "ecology" -- interactions among organisms and the environment -- helps us see community action as occurring within a web of relationships. Community life is enhanced when individual strengths are joined in common purpose -- an expression of the principle of interdependence. We are interconnected: each of us has a responsibility to make this a world good for all of us.

Strong leaders are present in even the most economically deprived communities.

Authentic leaders -- those who enable constituents to see higher possibilities, and pursue them together -- are among us. Yet, they may not always be acknowledged by those in authority. When doing community organizing in low-income public housing, I found that a simple question helped in "discovering" local leaders: "Who do children go to when they are hurt and an adult isn't home?" Such questions help us discover the "servant leaders" among us: those who "lead" by addressing the interests of their "followers."

Community practitioners should never get used to the terrible conditions they see in their community work.

Those doing community work, particularly in low-income communities, are exposed to horrible things: children in uncaring and unhealthy environments; adults without adequate food, clothing, and shelter; and other conditions essential for a decent life. Practitioners should avoid becoming desensitized about how they feel about what they see and hear. Disclosing experiences and feelings to colleagues is one way to help support each other. Community activists must also decide how to use those feelings -- such as anger about conditions in which some people live -- to energize and sustain their work.

People's beliefs and values enable them to stay committed.

To make a difference, those doing community work must be in it for the long haul. People's values, such as fairness or respect for the dignity of others, help sustain their efforts. For instance, a personal or family history of discrimination -- a common experience for many racial and ethnic minorities -- may incline us to embrace the value of social justice and to work for equality of opportunity.

The work of community organization is like that of a "secular church."

Faith communities and religious institutions help shape our beliefs about what is right and good, such as our responsibility to care for others. Community-based organizations, such as a homeless coalition or tenants-rights organization, call us to serve the common good -- things beyond ourselves. As such, they enable us to devote our lives to higher purposes, while working in this world.

Community practitioners have few opportunities to reflect on the work.

Those doing the work of community building are often consumed by its demands. For example, leaders and staff of community-based organizations rarely take time to consider the lessons learned about community action, barriers and resources, or other features of their work. Personal reflection journals and periodic group retreats help leaders and groups to reflect on and review the initial purposes and recent directions of their organizations. As such, they promote "praxis" -- the joining of understanding (theory) and action (practice).

Responding to events and opportunities to build community often takes us beyond what we know.

Community practice is largely an art form. Effective intervention is shaped more by trial and error than by tested general statements about the conditions under which specified interventions (the independent variable) effect desired behavior and outcome (the dependent variables). Yet, attention to the conditions that matter to local people -- crime, drug use, and poverty, for example -- cannot wait for the findings of research trials. We must be decisive in the face of uncertainty, even when the scientific evidence for a chosen course of action is inadequate.

Societal problems sometime serve the interests of those in power.

For example, a regulatory policy that permits environmental polluters to go unpunished serves the economic interests of businesses that pollute, and those elected and appointed officials who may benefit from campaign contributions or bribes. Similarly, the existence of drugs and violence may indirectly benefit elected officials since they often gain public support when they rant against perpetrators of drugs and violence. When those in authority oppose community action efforts (or ignore appeals for substantive intervention), there may be a disconnect between the public interest (common good) and the private interests of those with disproportionate influence.

Racial and ethnic tension and controversies have disrupted and destroyed many community organization efforts.

Race and ethnic differences matter in this work. For instance, most African Americans share a common history of discrimination based on race, such as being followed more closely in a store or being ignored by cabs in a city. When you are part of an ethnic minority, people may assume they can think and speak for you, even if they have given no evidence that they care about you. Accordingly, understandable distrust of the "other" (the majority culture) may breed conflict that disrupts reciprocity and collaboration among people of different races and cultures.

Social action tactics, such as disruptive protest, have many detractors .

Participating in (or supporting) protest can be dangerous, especially for those who remain in the community. For example, following a school boycott launched by residents of a low-income public housing project, it was my friend Myrtle Carter, a welfare mother and visible leader, who was subjected to police harassment. She was arrested and jailed for a minor parking violation while we outside organizers who were also part of the effort experienced only small inconveniences. Activists using protest tactics should expect those in power to retaliate, even by establishing criminal penalties for particularly effective disruptive actions such as strikes.

Less in-your-face social action approaches can produce a strong political base from which to make change.

For example, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) appeared to be relatively effective in attracting support (and avoiding opposition) for their causes. Consistent with the "I Ching" and other statements of Eastern philosophies, less direct or forceful actions may be less likely to beget opposition and adverse reaction.

Opposition and resistance may come in many forms.

An analysis of the advocacy literature suggests different ways in which change efforts might be blunted. These include deflecting attention from the issue, delaying a response, denying the problem or request, discounting the problem or the group, deceiving the public, dividing and conquering the organization, appeasing leadership with short-term gains, discrediting group members, or destroying the group with slur campaigns through the media. Skilled practitioners can help group members recognize (and avoid or counteract) sources and modes of opposition.

Community organizations may respond to opposition with appropriate counteractions .

Consider the case of local welfare officials (the opposition) who discount claims of a disability rights group that people with disabilities are being denied assistance unfairly. To counteract this opposition, disability advocates might document the number and kinds of cases denied, and use media advocacy about the consequences of denying eligibility to arouse public concern. Depending on the nature and form of opposition, appropriate counteractions may include reframing the issues, turning negatives into positives, going public with opponents' tactics, concentrating the organization's strength against the opponents' weakness, and knowing when to negotiate.

Opposition to change may be like an onion.

Advocates should expect multiple layers of opposition and resistance to community and system change. For example, community organizations working for better schools may face resistance initially from school board officials; later, from local principals; and still later, from teachers. Peel off one layer, and another form of resistance or opposition may be there to protect vested interests.

The strategy of community organization should fit the situation.

The broad and specific means of intervention should match the ends, and the context. For example, social planning -- using technical information often with the guidance of outside experts -- may assist in defining goals when people share common interests. Similarly, locality development -- featuring self-help efforts of local people -- may be appropriate for reducing a particular problem, such as substance use or neighborhood safety, around which there is widespread agreement. In contrast, social action -- with its disruptive tactics and related conflict -- may be needed in contexts of opposing interests such as in reducing discrimination or disparities in income or power.

Using multiple strategies usually has an advantage over any single strategy.

Some initiatives -- for instance, a campaign for school reform -- get stuck using one preferred means of action, such as collaborative planning or disruptive tactics, even when the goals or conditions shift. By invoking only one strategy, the organization's actions may be easier to ignore and the benefits of complementary approaches may go untapped. For example, the threat of disruptive tactics (social action) may make support for self-help efforts (locality development) more likely. Flexibility in strategy, and use of multiple means, may enhance community efforts and outcomes.

Being in two cultures promotes creativity.

Some community practitioners operate in more than one system of influence. For example, those who combine research and practice must respect the influences of both academic disciplines and members of community-based organizations. Being open to different audiences helps integrate disparate ideas, discover novel solutions, and transform practice.

The work of community organization takes time, and follow-through.

Mobilizing people for action requires substantial time and effort. Making the calls and personal contacts to bring about a change in school policy, for example, cannot be done solely by volunteers. The stimulation and coordination of community work, like any other valued work, should be paid for. Without salaries for community mobilizers or organizers, follow-through on planned actions is rare.

External support may be both a necessity and a trap for community organizations .

Community organization efforts seldom are maintained without external resources.Yet, financial support usually has strings attached. For example, accepting money from foundations or the government may restrict advocacy efforts. Although often a necessity, outside resources may come at the price of compromising the group's goals or available means of action.

Community organizations often fade away.

When the issue that a community organization was formed around begins to fade, so may the organization. For example, a taxpayer rights organization may dissolve when its goal of blocking a particular public expenditure, such as a school bond issue, is resolved. Organizations that endure after the issue subsides may lose members unless they reinvent themselves to address other emerging issues.

Organizations need small wins.

"Small wins" are shorter-term, controllable opportunities that can make a tangible difference. For example, a good neighborhood organizer might work for improved trash pickup or more streetlights to provide (literally) visible benefits of group action. Without the small victories, community organizations won't retain current members -- or attract new ones.

The central ideal of community organization practice is service.

Practitioners' interests should always be lower on the list than the interests of those of the people served. Yet, when disciplines, such as social welfare or public health, market training for "professionals" in the work of community organization, they risk creating professions in which the practitioners benefit more than the clients. Professions that certify people -- and not promising practices or demonstrably effective methods -- may emphasize the interests of professionals (or guild interests), and not those experiencing the problems.

Community organization must go beyond the process of bringing people together .

For some practitioners, dialogue among representatives of different groups is a sufficient "outcome" of community development efforts. Yet, local people who come together to address what matters to them are usually interested in going beyond talk, and on to action and achieving results. Community organization efforts should bring about tangible benefits such as community change, problem solving, and furthering social justice.

The primary need is not for individuals to adjust to their world, but for environments to change so people can attain their goals .

Much framing of societal problems focuses on the deficits of those most affected. For example, prominent labels for causes of academic failure might include "poor motivation" (of youth) or "poor monitoring" (by parents). Alternatively, analyses of academic failure might address such environmental conditions as "few opportunities to do academic work" (in schools) and "limited opportunities for employment" (following school). Community health and well being are private and public matters, calling for both individual and social responsibility.

Community-based organizations can function as catalysts for change.

Effective community organizations transform the environment: they alter programs, policies, and practices related to the group's mission. For example, a disability rights organization might modify policies regarding employment discrimination against people with disabilities or establish new job training programs that accommodate people with different impairments. In their role as catalysts for change, community organizations convene others, broker relationships, and leverage resources for shared purposes.

The level(s) of intervention should reflect the multiple levels that contribute to the problem.

Consider the typical interventions for most societal problems. For example, job training to address unemployment or drug awareness programs to counter substance use, is typical of initiatives trying to change the behavior of those with limited power who are closest to the "problem," for instance, low-income adults (unemployment) or youth (substance use).

When used alone, service programs and targeted interventions, such as for so-called "at risk" adults or youth, may deflect attention away from more root causes, such as poverty and the conditions of opportunity that affect behavior at a variety of levels. Resolution of many societal issues, such as crime or unemployment, requires changes in decisions made by corporate and political decisionmakers at levels higher than the local community.

Systems change does not occur simply by reporting felt needs to appointed or elected officials.

For those with higher economic or political status, simply expressing a concern may have influence on decisions that affect them. A variety of traditional means is available to such groups as a way of exerting influence; they include petitioning, lobbying, influencing the media, supporting political candidates, and voting in large numbers. These means are largely unavailable to those most affected by many societal problems, however, such as children and the poor. Marginalized groups lack the resources to exert influence in conventional ways.

The great power of social movements is in communicating a different vision of the world.

Marginalized groups use the drama of protest -- and the conflict it provokes -- to display realities not widely regarded as important. For example, the media may cover a strike and related protests by farm workers or coal miners, and the violence it often evokes from owners, the police, or others in power. Media coverage helps convey the story of the conditions faced by the protesters, and the unfairness of the action (or inaction) of businesses or institutions that are targeted. The dramatic nature of protest and related conflict can help politicize voters who, through enhanced public support of the positions of marginalized groups, can exert influence on those in power.

Community organizations should seek changes within their power to manage.

Since ignoring is likely and retaliation is possible, small organizations with limited power should avoid seeking fundamental changes in the system. For example, a single grassroots organization in a low-income neighborhood may not be positioned to effect systems changes such as altering the priorities of grantmakers who support work in the community. But, small and scrappy organizations may succeed in bringing about community change when their bulkier counterparts do not.

Community and broader systems change can be brought about through collaboration .

Collaboration involves alliances among groups that share risks, resources, and responsibilities to achieve their common interests. For example, local community-based organizations interested in the well being of children can link with each other to create local programs (e.g., mentoring), policies (e.g., flextime to be with children after school) and practices (e.g., adults caring for children not their own).

Additionally, broader partnerships with grantmakers, government agencies, and business councils can affect the conditions in which change occurs at the community level. An example is altering grantmaking programs to support collaborative work or promoting child-friendly business policies through industrial revenue bonds or new corporate policies. Collaborative partnerships help bring about community and system change when they link local people to resources and institutions at the multiple levels in which change should occur to address common interests.

Societal problems often reoccur .

Consider the problem of gang violence that occurred after World War II and reoccurred in the 1990s. Broad social conditions -- wide disparity of income, weak social ties, and related mistrust of others -- appear to affect the likelihood of societal problems such as increased death rates, infant mortality, and perhaps youth violence. Improvements achieved in one era may need to be reestablished by future generations that must again transform the environmental conditions that support the reoccurrence of societal problems.

Most community efforts "chip" away at the problem .

The majority of community interventions do not match the scale of the problem. For example, a community effort may prepare 10 unemployed people to compete for only one available job, or may create 100 jobs in a community with thousands of unemployed. We often make small changes in a context that remains unchanged.

Real change is rare .

Significant improvements in community-level outcomes are highly unusual -- such as cases of reducing rates of adolescent pregnancy or academic failure by 50 percent or more. Yet, in requests for grants, community-based organizations often promise (and grantmakers expect) statements of objectives that indicate significant improvements as a result of only modest investments over a short time. We should not perpetuate myths about what most interventions can actually accomplish.

Development of community leadership may be a positive byproduct of even a "failed" community effort .

Although an initiative may not produce statistically significant changes in community benchmarks or indicators, it may develop new leaders or build capacity to address new issues in the future. For instance, a public health initiative that produces only modest reductions in rates of adolescent pregnancy may develop the capacity to produce changes that matter, such as four years later when the group switches its efforts from adolescent pregnancy to child well-being.

Community documentation and evaluation must help us see what is actually achieved by community initiatives, including evidence of intermediate outcomes (e.g., community and system change) and other indicators of success or "failure" (i.e., community capacity over time and across issues).

Optimal health and development for all people may be beyond the capacity of what communities can achieve, but not beyond what they should seek.

Most community-based efforts, such as those to create healthy environments for all our children, will fall short of their objectives. Yet, justice requires that we create conditions in which all people can make the most of their inherently unequal endowments. Support for community initiatives should be guided by what we must do for current and future generations, not by what limited gains we have made in the past.

The fundamental purpose of community organization -- to help discover and enable people's shared goals -- is informed by values, knowledge, and experience. This section outlined lessons learned from the experiences of an earlier generation of community organization practitioners (each with an average of over 40 years of experience). The insights were organized under broad themes of community organization practice.

Community organization often has a bottom-up or grassroots quality: people with relatively little power coming together at the local level to address issues that matter to them. For example, grassroots efforts may involve planning by members of a neighborhood association, protests by a tenants' organization, or self-help efforts of low-income families to build local housing.

Yet, community organization may also function as a top-down strategy, such as when elected or appointed officials -- or others in power -- join allies in advancing policies or resource allocations that serve their interests. Bottom-up and top-down approaches to community organization may work in conflict, such as when appointed officials conspire to make voter registration of emerging minority groups more difficult. Top-down and bottom-up efforts may also work in concert, as when grassroots mobilization, such as letter writing or public demonstrations, help support policy changes advanced by cooperative elected or appointed officials working at broader levels.

Community organization strategies may be used to serve -- or hinder -- the values and aims of particular interest groups. Consider the issue of abortion: those organizing under the pro-choice banner may use protest tactics to advance policies and practices that further individual freedom (a woman's "right" to choose whether to have an abortion). Alternatively, those working on the pro-life side may organize to seek changes consistent with the value of security and survival (an unborn child's "right" to life). Depending on our values and interests, we may support or denounce the use of similar disruptive tactics by proponents or opponents of the issue.

What is the relationship between personal values and qualities -- and the experiences and environments that shaped them -- and the work of community organization and change? Personal background, such as a basic spirituality or a history of discrimination associated with ethnic minority status, can predispose a practitioner to support particular values, such as social justice or equality, consistent with the work of community organization.

What qualities and behaviors of community organizers, such as respect for others and willingness to listen, help bring people together? Many of these attributes and behaviors -- including clarity of vision, capacity to support and encourage, and tolerance of ambiguity -- are similar to those of other leaders.

How do we cultivate such natural leaders, and nurture and support their work in bringing people together? Further research may help clarify the relationship between personal qualities and behaviors, such as those of the "servant" or "servant leader ," the broader environment that nurtures or hinders them, and the outcomes of community organization efforts.

Finally, leadership in community work may begin with a few good questions:

• What is desired now, in this place, by these people?
• What is success?
• Under what conditions is improvement possible?
• How can we establish and sustain conditions for effective community problem solving? over time, and across concerns?
• How would we know it?

Imagine a "living democracy" -- large numbers of people, in many different communities, engaged in dialogue about shared concerns and collective action toward improvement. Perhaps these lessons -- inspired by reflections of an earlier generation of community organization practitioners -- can help us better understand and improve the essential work of democracy: people coming together to address issues that matter to them.

Online Resources

Chapter 5: Theories in the "Introduction to Community Psychology" explains the role of theory in Community Psychology, the main foundational theories in the field, and how community psychologists use theory in their work.

Chapter 15: Community Organizing, Partnerships, and Coalitions in the "Introduction to Community Psychology" describes how and why communities organize, bottom-up and top-down approaches to community organizing, and the cycle of organizing.

Theory In Community Organization: People Have the Power!   is a downloadable PowerPoint presentation that elaborates about theory in community organization.

Print Resources

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Fawcett, S., Lewis, R., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Richter, K., Williams, E., & Copple, B. Evaluating community coalitions for the prevention of substance abuse: The case of Project Freedom . Health Education and Behavior.

Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Vliet, M. (1993). Promoting health through community development. Promoting Health and Mental Health in Children, Youth, and Families (pp. 233-255). D. S. Glenwick & L. A. Jason (Eds.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Schultz, J., Richter, K., Lewis, R., Williams, E., Harris, K., Berkley, J., Fisher, J., & Lopez, C. (1995). Using empowerment theory in collaborative partnerships for community health and development . American Journal of Community Psychology, 23, 677 -697.

Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Schultz, J., Richter, K., Berkley, J., Patton, J., Fisher, J., Lewis, R., Lopez, C., Russos, S., Williams, E., Harris, K., & Evensen, P.  Evaluating community initiatives for health and development. In I. Rootman, D. McQueen, et al. (Eds.)   Evaluating health promotion approaches. Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organization - Europe .

Fawcett, S., Seekins, T., & Silber, L. (1988). Low-income voter registration: A small-scale evaluation of an agency-based registration strategy. American Journal of Community Psychology, 16, 751-758.

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Community Overview: Downey, California Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Demographic characteristics, resident characteristics, problems in the community, system and ecological perspective, intervention plan, conclusion and viewpoints about community, reference list.

Community is a group of people living in the same geographical location sharing some common beliefs or even culture. It is an important unit in the social sciences. Therefore, understanding it is crucial. The best way to describe the community is by experiencing the values first hand. This strategy involves living in that community. It is with this knowledge that I will attempt to describe the community in which I live with the purpose of understanding cultural diversity.

A brief description of the community will be done with the use of statistical and geographical characteristics followed by an evaluation of the changes through time since I joined the community. The issues that the community deals with will then be discussed with appropriate recommendations being made.

Having moved from Colombia a few years ago at the age of 18 years, I settled in the city of Downey California, which still serves as my current city of residence. Downey had a population of 111,868 people in 2011 representing a population change of 4.2% since the year 2000 (Farley, & Haaga, 2005, p. 65). The male residents in the population make up 48.5% of the population.

They are 54,220 in number with their female counterparts making up 51.5% of the population (57,648) (Farley, & Haaga, 2005, p. 65). The medium resident age stood at 33.3 years. This figure was representative of a relatively young population compared to the total population of California, which has a median age of 45.6 years ( U.S. Census Bureau citizens’ report: FY 2010 summary of performance and financial results , 2010).

According to the statistics available in the year 2009 on the income of the residents, the median household income for the residents was at $59,955, which was an improvement from that recorded in the year 2000, which was $45,667 (Kang, 2012). This figure was in the same range as the median household for the whole of California, which at 58,931 in the same year.

The estimated per capita income in 2009 was $23,023 (Kang, 2012). With a land area of 12.4 square miles, the city has a population density of 9008 people per square mile, which is higher than the average for the US (Kang, 2012). 35.3% of the residents (37,925) are foreign-born with 26.6% being born in Latin America including me while some 5.8% were born in Asia (Latimer, 2010, p. 29).

According to Kang (2012), the city is largely cosmopolitan with the population consisting of people with the following racial backgrounds: Hispanic – 78,996 (70.7%), White alone – 19,786, Asian alone -7,484 (6.7%), Black alone – 3,834 (3.4%), two or more races – 1,071 (1.0%), American Indian alone – 212 (0.2%), Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone – 170 (0.2%), and other race alone – 219 (0.2%).

The common industries include construction, accommodation, and food services, educational services, public administration, administrative, support and waste management services, professional, scientific, and technical and Health care services (Kang, 2012). However, at the time of moving into this city at the age of 18 years, the place was largely residential with a significant transformation into a commercial city taking place since then.

This transformation is still ongoing. This change has had several implications on the original inhabitants of the city with the new inhabitants bringing along with them some cultural issues of concern. The different racial, religious, and ethnic groups existing in the city have found a unique way of coexisting with interactions being marked mainly in business.

One of the factors contributing to community diversification and integration is trade relations (Latimer, 2010, p. 29). Some of the factors that have contributed to the large population diversity in the city include its proximity to the Hispanic speaking nation of Mexico, which has been a source of most of the immigrants here. This proximity has contributed to the high population of Hispanics in the city and the available cheap labor.

Due to the diversity of the population in Downey, there are several challenges related to this diversity. One of them is the high crime rates that are reported in the city (Kang, 2012). Downey has a higher than the average number of robbery cases, and theft through the cases are said to be on a decline since the year 2008 (Kang, 2012).

In the same year, however, the number of vehicles stolen within the city reached its highest number with 1,231 automobiles being stolen (Kang, 2012). Some of the other categories contributing to the high crime rate include rape, theft, burglaries, aggravated assault, and robberies (Kang, 2012).

Diversity in the population and proximity to the border with Mexico and South America has also created the problem of gang activity within the city (Kang, 2012). The southern part of the city is reported to have an above-normal level of gang activity with many of the youngsters being recruited every day.

These gangs are also involved in the illegal drug trade with many of the members being drawn into them along racial affiliations. This issue has been one of the greatest shortcomings of the diversity of the city. Gang activity has also contributed to the high crime rates that are reported in the city.

The community can be described as a system in an ecological perspective. For this community, the system in which the community is a component of is largely a product of political institutions. The existing policies have contributed to determining the system. Alterations are dependent on the policies.

In the ecological perspective, the community consists of members who have congregated because of several factors. The major reason for the congregation is the desire to fulfill daily and basic needs. The ecological interactions are also a significant factor in the observations made in this community.

As discussed above, the major problem facing the city of Downey is the high crime rate and gang activity levels. The probable etiology of this problem has also been discussed with the most probable contribution being the high population of illegal immigrants in the city and California in general. The country is also close to other nations with reported high crime rates (Crouchett, 1982, p. 21).

Unemployment is not as high as the recorded value of the state of California (9.0% against 10.4 for California in August 2012). Therefore, it may also be a significant cause of the problem (Kang, 2012). The ratio of police officers in the city is also lower than that for the state (1.01 police officers per 1000 residents against 2.40 per 1000 residents), which may also be another contributing factor (Latimer, 2010, p. 23).

The community has developed several ways to deal with the problem. The best example is GOOD (Gangs Out Of Downey) which is a community-based organization attempting to dissuade youngsters from joining the gangs (Latimer, 2010, p. 22).

The major institutions in the area are the churches and schools, which have a hand in the attempt to solve Downey’s problem. The schools form a fertile hunting ground for the gangs to recruit their members. In the past, they have polarized these institutions.

Several actions in the community could be employed in the effort to reduce the high crime rates in this community. These actions need an effective plan for them to be successful in the community. One of them is the formation of social groups that could engage the youth in creative activities to keep them occupied. The plan for achieving this goal includes the formation of groupings that the community could use to reach out to the youths.

Some of the students should get an orientation of the policy service to build their confidence in the institution to allow the build-up of confidence. Some of the other activities that would be useful in the plan include the introduction of courses in school that encourage diversity and social tolerance.

Other activities to be performed by the idlers in the society could also be introduced. Formation of community groups aimed at countering the effects of the gangs could also be a possible solution with the members providing information to aid in the prosecution of the gang members.

The personal view of a community has changed with the project. The consideration of each member of the community as a major constituent has emerged. In the above community, success against the challenge being experienced will only be possible if the community members are to unite against it irrespective of racial considerations. The course has enabled me to change my perceptions of the community. The major influence it has had is in the realization that each member of the community contributes especially.

Crouchett, J. (1982). Filipinos in California: from the days of the galleons to the present . El Cerrito, Calif.: Downey Place Pub. House.

Farley, R., & Haaga, J. (2005). The American people: Census 2000 . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Kang, C. (2012). Downey, California (CA) profile : population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, news. Stats about all US cities – real estate, relocation info, crime, house prices, cost of living, races, home value estimator, recent sales, income, photos, schools, maps, weather, neighborhoods, and more . Web.

Latimer, L. (2010). Downey . Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing.

U.S. Census Bureau citizens’ report: FY 2010 summary of performance and financial results . (2010). Suitland, Md.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau.

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Bibliography

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Community Organizing 101

Social movements build power and make change through organizing. here's how to get started as an organizer., what is community organizing.

Community organizing is a democratic strategy used by social movements, labor unions, under-represented communities, and marginalized groups to gain rights, win collective political power, and create positive change. While there are many different types of online and offline organizing, the main job of an organizer is to create unity (and solidarity), then help their community work together to solve problems and reach shared goals.

Done well, community organizing is one of the most powerful strategies in the world for social change. Throughout history there are many examples of small communities who generated major media awareness, transformed culture, and overcome major, systemic oppression through smart, effective organizing (all with limited money, resources, and social support).

That said, trust us when we say organizing is hard, often thankless work. It can be tremendously rewarding and important, but it's rarely easy. The best, most effective organizers we know are people who genuinely care about the community and mission they're serving, put others first, and are powered by the love and positivity they feel doing the work.

What do Community Organizers do?

The main job responsibilities of a community organizer typically include:

1. Identifying and understanding a vulnerable community, its root problem(s), and how the existing social system has created the problem(s)

2. developing a shared solution (and narrative) for how the solve the community's problem(s), 3. creating an action plan to achieve the desired solution by winning collective power - often through the political system, 4. building relationships, bringing people together, and educating them on how they can help carry out the plan, 5. keeping the plan moving forward toward its intended goal through trainings, actions, media relations, regenerative support, building solidarity and coalitions, and other movement strategies.

Organizers are people-driven problem-solvers - a rare profile that requires working across events, recruiting, relationship-building, marketing, and healing.

To provide a practical example, let's say we're organizing for GoodHomes , a fictional community group focused on tenants rights and affordable housing. First, we identify a community problem: there are thousands of people who are homeless or live in poverty in our city, insufficient affordable housing, and rents keep rising because of commercial real estate development that only benefits a few wealthy individuals.

By examining the system, we realize there are existing municipal (city) laws that benefit a few dozen real estate developers at the expense of thousands of working-class people. We also discover our city's budget for affordable housing is too low, because it's spending money in other places we don't want. As a smart organizer, we start to build public community support through town halls, rallies, meetups, protests, news editorials, and other actions. By making our collective voice loud enough (re: power), it becomes clear to the city's politicians if they don't change the laws in our favor, we'll vote them out in the next election cycle.

Developing and rallying people around this type of social change cycle is how community organizers operate. It's about putting together all the pieces necessary for social change: vision, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan.

Also, be mindful of privilege and power dynamics in your own approach. Are you a member of the impacted community, or an "ally" looking to help? How well do you actually know the community and its problems? Would the community agree with your diagnosis? Are you involving them in your solution and giving them a say?

As an organizer, it's very important to be truthful with yourself, and to stay on the lookout for issues with diversity, inclusivity, or elitism in your approach.

What Should My Organizing Strategy Be?

Here are few best practices and tips for getting started as an organizer, connecting with individual people, then organizing and inspiring them to action.

Think About Your Brand

The most powerful social movements work and grow because they become powerful, recognizable brands. Occupy Wall Street. Black Lives Matter. March for Our Lives. #MeToo. Sunrise Movement. If your cause or organization doesn't already have them, come up with a plan for your brand, visual identity, symbols, and key messages. Make sure they're clear, templated, available, and easily shareable.

Organizing structure

There's no "right" answer for organizing. Some movements are completely decentralized (no leadership control at the top). Other movements balance central power at the top with distributed, local responsibility and decision-making freedom.

Successful movements establish structure, limits on structure, or "semi-structure" early, and make that a part of their movement identity. Is the group a democracy? Is there a leader or board of directors? Are the leaders elected (and if so, how)? How do decisions get made? Do your best to figure out answers to these questions early.

In our experience, you're most likely to run into problems if (1) you have too much structure slowing decisions and progress, or (2) you have too little structure so no one knows what to do or who's responsible for certain work.

Feminist author and activist Jo Freeman has a famous essay about the difficulty of working in movements with no power hierarchy, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," which you can read (free) here .

Start with an event

Effective organizing always starts with meeting people in person. This can happen at a dedicated event you host, such as a house party or kickoff meeting, or a community forum, meetup, campus event, or block party. What matters most is that you've identified a problem, invited people impacted by it (or at the very least other people who also care), and clearly articulated the goal of the meeting - even if the goal itself is to have an open dialogue or conversation about the issue.

It's always easiest to start building community from your own relationships - neighbors, classmates, friends - people who trust and believe in you. Invite them first and ask them to share your event and bring friends. With the right message, meeting cadence, and recruiting strategy, you can turn inviting five friends into a 10-20 person event that can serve as your base for follow-on community-building.

Other tactics like putting up flyers, asking to speak at other, related events, and using social media can also help get the word out. Cover all your bases.

Availability will vary from person to person (and also city to city), but in most communities the best time to reach people is Tuesday or Wednesday evening. Sunday and Monday nights can also work for virtual events like a webinar or hangout.

Check your local event calendar(s) to make sure the date and time you pick doesn’t conflict with any big events that might hurt your turnout (other grassroots actions, major speakers, big sports events, etc). Reach out to local organizers you know to make sure there’s no conflicts with other groups’ schedules.

Above all, make sure you have an event signup page for your kickoff meeting to collect RSVPs and keep them informed and involved in your ongoing work. If you're organizing for a positive cause, you're welcome to create a free organizer account on Brightest to list your event(s), grow and activate your supporters, and keep track of members.

Recruitment - and keeping people engaged and coming back - is essential to organizing success.

While it is possible to get a community going online with the right message, platform, and social media skills - in our experience it's much more challenging. Start by building relationships in person, then incorporate digital and social second to spread your message.

  Need help planning your first meeting? Use our kickoff meeting agenda template

Build your event toward action (and an affinity group).

People are complex (and busy), but if you highlight an important problem, make a good impression, and present an attractive solution, you can probably get at least some of them to do something - particularly when there's a healthy sense of group affinity and loyalty toward a shared mission.

What makes a good action? Usually, a good action is either effective or attention-getting. The best actions achieve both.

For example, writing letters to politicians can be quite effective, which can make it a good tactic. But very few movements grow from postcard parties. It's not the type of excitement that gets press attention or attracts activists. By comparison, blocking a street or highway with a banner about your cause is a debatable direct social change tactic, but it's a lot more likely to bring attention to your movement [ Note: please consider the consequences and only engage in non-violent direct action at your own risk after considering the consequences. We cannot and are not offering you legal advice, or advocating for one or the other. Both types have their place in movement-building. For a good overview of your rights as an organizer or activist, we suggest reading this overview from the ACLU ].

Varshini Prakash of Sunrise Movement during a direct action in support of the Green New Deal.

Managing Movement Energy and Power

The key to organizing effective actions and sustainable movements is to be creative, empathetic, and solution-oriented - and have empathy for what your group needs next. For example, in NYRenews' push to pass the Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA), a "Green New Deal" for New York state, the campaign combined grassroots lobbying, online advocacy, and public rallies at different times to build awareness and political pressure to pass the bill [ Disclaimer: we're a coalition-member] . In advocating for the Green New Deal, Sunrise Movement has similarly tied together grassroots lobbying and non-violent civil disobedience with other support events, trainings, resources, and campaigns.

Some movements meet weekly. Almost all active movements meet monthly to sustain affinity. Many larger movements will also sub-divide into working groups. For example, DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) have several active working groups that are further segmented by city (chapter), identity, affinity, and in some cases by age or student affiliation, like YDSA.

Illustrative DSA Working Groups

• Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus
• Anti-Racism Working Group
• Democratic Socialist Labor Commission
• Disability Caucus and Working Group
• Ecosocialist Working Group
• Immigrants’ Rights Working Group
• Queer Socialists Working Group
• Religion and Socialism Working Group
• Socialist Feminist Working Group
• Solidarity Economy Working Group
• Tech Action Working Group
• Veterans Working Group

Like we've said, dismantling power structures takes time and energy. Sometimes it can be downright exhausting. As a movement leader, part of your responsibility is to keep movement energy and momentum up, while also helping your people rest, recover, and stay safe. The best organizers and affinity groups host parties, go to comedy shows and arts events, and emphasize wellness and self-care to build relationships and manage activism stress.

The Best Organizing Tactics for Creating Real Change

The single best organizing tactics are direct advocacy and direct action . It’s the job of your elected leaders to represent you. That means they want to hear from constituents like you (and your community) about what's important to them. When citizens organize effectively around a particular cause or issue, we are a powerful political force.

Grassroots activists have been at the heart of every social movement in history, from anti-war movements to LGBTQ+, gender, and civil rights. Tweet and comment (@) at your relevant politicians. Write letters. Call their office and leave a voicemail. Make an appointment to show up at their office (and if they won't give you one, show up anyway). Record and livestream as much of your work as you can. Get creative. When it's done well, direct advocacy and action are incredibly powerful tactics.

Also, be sure to understand the power structures you're working to change or reform, how they work, and how power is distributed. The more local you go, the easier it is for organizing to drive real change. Getting a federal law passed or changed is hard - but with a smart organizing strategy you can often have a major impact at the city, county, or state level with fewer people and less resources.

The more you know the laws and your rights (and teach them to others), the more successful you'll be as an organizer.

One of the most effective supporting tactics is canvassing. Canvassing - knocking doors, handing out flyers, tabling, and going out in public places to talk to community-members - is another foundational tactic of grassroots organizing. Pick a neighborhood ("turf") or public area to work like a college campus, community center, or farmer's market, prepare a very short script (example: "Hi, I'm Sasha from GoodHomes - we're fighting to make housing more affordable for working families like yours. Can we count on your support in next month's election on September 6th?" ), work in teams of two, be respectful of people's time and private property, and have a clear call to action to deliver in person or leave as a handout.

Canvassing can also be used to help register voters , another step to strengthen your political power and influence.

💡 Tip #1: Never put a canvassing flyer or handout in someone's mailbox - it's against the law in the U.S.

💡 Tip #2: It's always good to double-check but normally you don't need a permit to canvass in public in your local community. You also have the right to enter residential buildings and go door-to-door, but you may be asked to leave depending on how the building is organized. If you're tabling (setting up a table or stand), you likely do need a permit

💡 Tip #3: If you need help coordinating your work, Brightest makes it easy to coordinate canvassing shifts and volunteer signups and share assignments with your supporters

Your Next Steps as an Organizer

We hope this has been informative and helpful. If it has, we'd be grateful if you share it with your network. If you have any feedback on how we can make this guide better, please get in touch.

And remember, you don't need permission to go out and start organizing for progress, you just need a mission and the courage to get started.

Good luck and stay safe.

Start Organizing on Brightest .

We make simple, effective software to organize, gather, and mobilize people to do amazing things..

This guide was inspired by variety of different movements, experiences, and organizers - and we want to extend a sincere "thank you" to all the movement leaders who fought and sacrificed to lay the groundwork for these learnings. A version of this guide was originally presented at the 2019 Organizing 2.0 Conference at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a great community service essay.

College Admissions , Extracurriculars

Are you applying to a college or a scholarship that requires a community service essay? Do you know how to write an essay that will impress readers and clearly show the impact your work had on yourself and others?

Read on to learn step-by-step instructions for writing a great community service essay that will help you stand out and be memorable.

What Is a Community Service Essay? Why Do You Need One?

A community service essay is an essay that describes the volunteer work you did and the impact it had on you and your community. Community service essays can vary widely depending on specific requirements listed in the application, but, in general, they describe the work you did, why you found the work important, and how it benefited people around you.

Community service essays are typically needed for two reasons:

#1: To Apply to College

• Some colleges require students to write community service essays as part of their application or to be eligible for certain scholarships.
• You may also choose to highlight your community service work in your personal statement.

#2: To Apply for Scholarships

• Some scholarships are specifically awarded to students with exceptional community service experiences, and many use community service essays to help choose scholarship recipients.
• Green Mountain College offers one of the most famous of these scholarships. Their "Make a Difference Scholarship" offers full tuition, room, and board to students who have demonstrated a significant, positive impact through their community service

Getting Started With Your Essay

In the following sections, I'll go over each step of how to plan and write your essay. I'll also include sample excerpts for you to look through so you can get a better idea of what readers are looking for when they review your essay.

Step 1: Know the Essay Requirements

Before your start writing a single word, you should be familiar with the essay prompt. Each college or scholarship will have different requirements for their essay, so make sure you read these carefully and understand them.

Specific things to pay attention to include:

• Length requirement
• Application deadline
• The main purpose or focus of the essay
• If the essay should follow a specific structure

Below are three real community service essay prompts. Read through them and notice how much they vary in terms of length, detail, and what information the writer should include.

From the Equitable Excellence Scholarship:

"Describe your outstanding achievement in depth and provide the specific planning, training, goals, and steps taken to make the accomplishment successful. Include details about your role and highlight leadership you provided. Your essay must be a minimum of 350 words but not more than 600 words."

From the Laura W. Bush Traveling Scholarship:

"Essay (up to 500 words, double spaced) explaining your interest in being considered for the award and how your proposed project reflects or is related to both UNESCO's mandate and U.S. interests in promoting peace by sharing advances in education, science, culture, and communications."

From the LULAC National Scholarship Fund:

"Please type or print an essay of 300 words (maximum) on how your academic studies will contribute to your personal & professional goals. In addition, please discuss any community service or extracurricular activities you have been involved in that relate to your goals."

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas

Even after you understand what the essay should be about, it can still be difficult to begin writing. Answer the following questions to help brainstorm essay ideas. You may be able to incorporate your answers into your essay.

• What community service activity that you've participated in has meant the most to you?
• What is your favorite memory from performing community service?
• Why did you decide to begin community service?
• What made you decide to volunteer where you did?
• How has your community service changed you?
• How has your community service helped others?
• How has your community service affected your plans for the future?

You don't need to answer all the questions, but if you find you have a lot of ideas for one of two of them, those may be things you want to include in your essay.

Writing Your Essay

How you structure your essay will depend on the requirements of the scholarship or school you are applying to. You may give an overview of all the work you did as a volunteer, or highlight a particularly memorable experience. You may focus on your personal growth or how your community benefited.

Regardless of the specific structure requested, follow the guidelines below to make sure your community service essay is memorable and clearly shows the impact of your work.

Samples of mediocre and excellent essays are included below to give you a better idea of how you should draft your own essay.

Step 1: Hook Your Reader In

You want the person reading your essay to be interested, so your first sentence should hook them in and entice them to read more. A good way to do this is to start in the middle of the action. Your first sentence could describe you helping build a house, releasing a rescued animal back to the wild, watching a student you tutored read a book on their own, or something else that quickly gets the reader interested. This will help set your essay apart and make it more memorable.

Compare these two opening sentences:

"I have volunteered at the Wishbone Pet Shelter for three years."

"The moment I saw the starving, mud-splattered puppy brought into the shelter with its tail between its legs, I knew I'd do whatever I could to save it."

The first sentence is a very general, bland statement. The majority of community service essays probably begin a lot like it, but it gives the reader little information and does nothing to draw them in. On the other hand, the second sentence begins immediately with action and helps persuade the reader to keep reading so they can learn what happened to the dog.

Step 2: Discuss the Work You Did

Once you've hooked your reader in with your first sentence, tell them about your community service experiences. State where you work, when you began working, how much time you've spent there, and what your main duties include. This will help the reader quickly put the rest of the essay in context and understand the basics of your community service work.

Not including basic details about your community service could leave your reader confused.

Step 3: Include Specific Details

It's the details of your community service that make your experience unique and memorable, so go into the specifics of what you did.

For example, don't just say you volunteered at a nursing home; talk about reading Mrs. Johnson her favorite book, watching Mr. Scott win at bingo, and seeing the residents play games with their grandchildren at the family day you organized. Try to include specific activities, moments, and people in your essay. Having details like these let the readers really understand what work you did and how it differs from other volunteer experiences.

Compare these two passages:

"For my volunteer work, I tutored children at a local elementary school. I helped them improve their math skills and become more confident students."

"As a volunteer at York Elementary School, I worked one-on-one with second and third graders who struggled with their math skills, particularly addition, subtraction, and fractions. As part of my work, I would create practice problems and quizzes and try to connect math to the students' interests. One of my favorite memories was when Sara, a student I had been working with for several weeks, told me that she enjoyed the math problems I had created about a girl buying and selling horses so much that she asked to help me create math problems for other students."

The first passage only gives basic information about the work done by the volunteer; there is very little detail included, and no evidence is given to support her claims. How did she help students improve their math skills? How did she know they were becoming more confident?

The second passage is much more detailed. It recounts a specific story and explains more fully what kind of work the volunteer did, as well as a specific instance of a student becoming more confident with her math skills. Providing more detail in your essay helps support your claims as well as make your essay more memorable and unique.

Step 4: Show Your Personality

It would be very hard to get a scholarship or place at a school if none of your readers felt like they knew much about you after finishing your essay, so make sure that your essay shows your personality. The way to do this is to state your personal strengths, then provide examples to support your claims. Take some time to think about which parts of your personality you would like your essay to highlight, then write about specific examples to show this.

• If you want to show that you're a motivated leader, describe a time when you organized an event or supervised other volunteers.
• If you want to show your teamwork skills, write about a time you helped a group of people work together better.
• If you want to show that you're a compassionate animal lover, write about taking care of neglected shelter animals and helping each of them find homes.

Step 5: State What You Accomplished

After you have described your community service and given specific examples of your work, you want to begin to wrap your essay up by stating your accomplishments. What was the impact of your community service? Did you build a house for a family to move into? Help students improve their reading skills? Clean up a local park? Make sure the impact of your work is clear; don't be worried about bragging here.

If you can include specific numbers, that will also strengthen your essay. Saying "I delivered meals to 24 home-bound senior citizens" is a stronger example than just saying "I delivered meals to lots of senior citizens."

Also be sure to explain why your work matters. Why is what you did important? Did it provide more parks for kids to play in? Help students get better grades? Give people medical care who would otherwise not have gotten it? This is an important part of your essay, so make sure to go into enough detail that your readers will know exactly what you accomplished and how it helped your community.

"My biggest accomplishment during my community service was helping to organize a family event at the retirement home. The children and grandchildren of many residents attended, and they all enjoyed playing games and watching movies together."

"The community service accomplishment that I'm most proud of is the work I did to help organize the First Annual Family Fun Day at the retirement home. My job was to design and organize fun activities that senior citizens and their younger relatives could enjoy. The event lasted eight hours and included ten different games, two performances, and a movie screening with popcorn. Almost 200 residents and family members attended throughout the day. This event was important because it provided an opportunity for senior citizens to connect with their family members in a way they aren't often able to. It also made the retirement home seem more fun and enjoyable to children, and we have seen an increase in the number of kids coming to visit their grandparents since the event."

The second passage is stronger for a variety of reasons. First, it goes into much more detail about the work the volunteer did. The first passage only states that she helped "organize a family event." That really doesn't tell readers much about her work or what her responsibilities were. The second passage is much clearer; her job was to "design and organize fun activities."

The second passage also explains the event in more depth. A family day can be many things; remember that your readers are likely not familiar with what you're talking about, so details help them get a clearer picture.

Lastly, the second passage makes the importance of the event clear: it helped residents connect with younger family members, and it helped retirement homes seem less intimidating to children, so now some residents see their grand kids more often.

Step 6: Discuss What You Learned

One of the final things to include in your essay should be the impact that your community service had on you. You can discuss skills you learned, such as carpentry, public speaking, animal care, or another skill.

You can also talk about how you changed personally. Are you more patient now? More understanding of others? Do you have a better idea of the type of career you want? Go into depth about this, but be honest. Don't say your community service changed your life if it didn't because trite statements won't impress readers.

In order to support your statements, provide more examples. If you say you're more patient now, how do you know this? Do you get less frustrated while playing with your younger siblings? Are you more willing to help group partners who are struggling with their part of the work? You've probably noticed by now that including specific examples and details is one of the best ways to create a strong and believable essay .

"As a result of my community service, I learned a lot about building houses and became a more mature person."

"As a result of my community service, I gained hands-on experience in construction. I learned how to read blueprints, use a hammer and nails, and begin constructing the foundation of a two-bedroom house. Working on the house could be challenging at times, but it taught me to appreciate the value of hard work and be more willing to pitch in when I see someone needs help. My dad has just started building a shed in our backyard, and I offered to help him with it because I know from my community service how much work it is. I also appreciate my own house more, and I know how lucky I am to have a roof over my head."

The second passage is more impressive and memorable because it describes the skills the writer learned in more detail and recounts a specific story that supports her claim that her community service changed her and made her more helpful.

Step 7: Finish Strong

Just as you started your essay in a way that would grab readers' attention, you want to finish your essay on a strong note as well. A good way to end your essay is to state again the impact your work had on you, your community, or both. Reiterate how you changed as a result of your community service, why you found the work important, or how it helped others.

Compare these two concluding statements:

"In conclusion, I learned a lot from my community service at my local museum, and I hope to keep volunteering and learning more about history."

"To conclude, volunteering at my city's American History Museum has been a great experience. By leading tours and participating in special events, I became better at public speaking and am now more comfortable starting conversations with people. In return, I was able to get more community members interested in history and our local museum. My interest in history has deepened, and I look forward to studying the subject in college and hopefully continuing my volunteer work at my university's own museum."

The second passage takes each point made in the first passage and expands upon it. In a few sentences, the second passage is able to clearly convey what work the volunteer did, how she changed, and how her volunteer work benefited her community.

The author of the second passage also ends her essay discussing her future and how she'd like to continue her community service, which is a good way to wrap things up because it shows your readers that you are committed to community service for the long-term.

What's Next?

Are you applying to a community service scholarship or thinking about it? We have a complete list of all the community service scholarships available to help get your search started!

Do you need a community service letter as well? We have a step-by-step guide that will tell you how to get a great reference letter from your community service supervisor.

Thinking about doing community service abroad? Before you sign up, read our guide on some of the hazards of international volunteer trips and how to know if it's the right choice for you.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

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Community organizing.

• Geoffrey W. Wilkinson , Geoffrey W. Wilkinson Boston University
• Lee Staples , Lee Staples Boston University
• Ashley Slay Ashley Slay Boston University
•  and  Iliana Panameño Iliana Panameño 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.74
• Published online: 11 June 2013
• This version: 24 February 2022
• Previous version

Community organizing centers the leadership of community members in developing and controlling organizations created to express, sustain, and build community power through action for social justice. It is distinguished from other forms of community practice by the ethos, “nothing about us without us,” and may combine elements of community development, direct action, popular education, and community action research. Community organizing promotes individual and collective empowerment. It is practiced in communities of geography, identity, shared experience, and other arenas. In the United States, organizing takes three major approaches to building sustainable bases of community power—organizations formed through individual membership, institutional networks, and coalitions. Innovations in community organizing arising particularly from the leadership of women and people of color—known as transformational organizing—take an intersectional approach to addressing racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of systemic oppression while also addressing the personal and social needs of community members. Organizing increasingly takes advantage of internet technology and is effective for influencing legislation and electoral politics, as well as a wide range of community-based issues.

• community organizing
• community organization
• community development
• social action
• social justice
• racial justice
• social movements
• popular education
• digital organizing
• macro social work

Updated in this version

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Community Development , Neighborhood Engagement

Community Development and Community Organizing

How Community Development and Community Organizing Work Together  As a change-maker, you’ve probably run into the phrases “community development” and “community organizing” many times. But did you know that these two concepts work together for mutual benefit? Today, we want to give you an overview of the key points you should know about these two […]

How Community Development and Community Organizing Work Together 

As a change-maker, you’ve probably run into the phrases “community development” and “community organizing” many times. But did you know that these two concepts work together for mutual benefit? Today, we want to give you an overview of the key points you should know about these two ideas. We’ll go over core differences between development and organizing and show you how they interact to bolster one another. 

What is Community Development

Community Development is a place-based, solutions-oriented approach to improving quality of life in a geographically defined area. It seeks to end present inequities, not just alleviate their effects. Typically, Community Development focuses on systems and environments that create injustice and poverty.  

Community Development looks for integrated, multi-faceted interventions. Since poverty is expressed in complex and unique ways in each community, it relies heavily on partnership and local buy-in. It’s impossible to reduce poverty on the whole by focusing only on one “issue.” A comprehensive, strengths-based approach is key. Common focus areas include: housing, environmental safety, economic development, access to services, and more. 

Read more about Community Development Here.

What is Community Organizing

Community Organizing is a way of engaging and empowering people with the purpose of increasing their influence in policy-making and decisions that affect their lives. Usually, Community Organizing activates members of historically underrepresented groups and enables them to act collectively for their own shared interests.

The end goal of Community Organizing often includes redistributing decision-making power, specifically making sure that the marginalized group has a voice in policies and actions that affect them before they come into effect. To generate this collective power, Community Organizing assumes that public conflict and struggle with institutions are essential and strategic. 

Community Development vs. Community Organizing 

We’re sure you’ve already noticed some differences between Community Development and Community Organizing approaches while reading these snapshots! It’s important to note that these two approaches complement each other. When both Community Development and Community Organizing occur in the same area, the neighborhood can achieve accelerated results. 

Key Similarities

Both Community Development and Community Organizing share the same goal: rectifying systemic injustice to improve the lives of people who are often marginalized. Both approaches focus on local, geographically defined action. Within a defined space, both Community Development and Community Organizing build partnerships with neighbors and rely on their voices to guide action. Perhaps most importantly, both of these approaches look for long-term solutions to injustice by reshaping systems and structures. Each of these approaches creates more opportunities for a neighborhood to thrive!

Key Differences

Community Organizing and Community Development complement each other because they differ in a couple of ways. Most strikingly, they take near-opposite approaches to conflict. Community Organizing assumes that conflict, especially with governments and institutions, is productive and essential for making change. At times, Community Organizers will mobilize around issues or events that will generate some controversy, in part to reach more people and garner influence. Community Development, in general, will take a more collaborative approach across various sectors, building consensus whenever possible. Most Community Development approaches do not require conflict. Both of these approaches are good! Organizing can create change by applying pressure to systems; development reshapes or recreates them within a local ecosystem. 

Because of this collaborative, cross-functional approach, Community Development tends to act on many aspects of neighborhood life all at once. It’s common for a development organization to be working on housing, access to services, education, all at the same time. Community Organizing often publicly draws attention to a more specific and defined area of change. 

Lastly, Community Development models tend to be organization-driven. Most often, Community Development efforts center on a nonprofit, NGO, or institution. As such, Community Development work tends to involve many professionals across organizational levels. Community Organizing tends to focus more on grassroots initiatives, gathering individuals to act in concert together. 

These two models differ in other ways, but those are some of the most prescient ones for our work here in Historic South Atlanta! 

In short: Community Development is not possible without some level of Community Organizing. This is especially true for Holistic Neighborhood Development (HND) , which relies on strong relationships with neighbors. In fact, we recommend every Change-maker spend some time knocking on doors, pulling together focus groups of neighbors, and defining shared action goals and action plans before ever starting a Community Development program! Such activities are fundamental to Community Organizing. 

The reliance on Community Organizing continues as HND takes off. We recommend gathering neighbors regularly to evaluate how your program is going. And of course, sometimes (oftentimes) system-level change requires both philosophies around conflict: pressure and collaboration . Organized neighbors lifting their voices and advocating for structural change can pave the way for a Community Development organization to make inroads with the powers-that-be to make those changes real.

As Community Developers, we know that Community Organizers are our cousins and allies when it comes to making change. Just as we need a holistic approach in our development work, we need a holistic approach to making structural change that will eradicate injustice. Thankfully, a fundamental of Community Development is seeking partnerships! We don’t have to be experts at all things; that’s why building coalitions matters so much.

We hope this article has helped you better understand what Community Organizers in your neighborhood are up to. And we definitely hope you’re walking away with some ideas with how you could strike up a conversation about working together. 

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Community Development , Holistic Neighborhood Development , Neighborhood Engagement , Organizational Leadership , Training and Education

Valuable Ways Churches Can Engage Neighborhoods

Recently, Lupton Center trainer and consultant David Park had the privilege to interview Dr. Dave Kresta to discuss community development. Kresta holds a Ph.D. in Urban Studies and is an adjunct assistant professor at Portland State University. In this interview, they discuss Kresta’s book, Jesus on Main Street: Good News Through Community Economic Development, evaluating […]

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Strategies for Community Organizing: 4 Ways to Get Started Today

Community and camaraderie add a lot of value to everyday life; in fact, n early 60% of Americans participate in some sort of community organization . When members of a community face a common issue that affects all of them, they are primed to come together to push for a solution. This is the foundation of community organizing, and it’s a proven strategy for driving change. 

Here’s an overview of community organizing and four strategies for community organizing that leaders can put to use today: 

What is Community Organizing? 

Community organizing is the process of mobilizing members of a community to gain power and enact change that benefits everyone within that community. Unlike distributed organizing (which relies on organizing across a wide geographic span), community organizing refers to action within a local community, like within a neighborhood, city, or county. 

Community organizing emphasizes the power of everyday people to speak up and demand change. Throughout history, people have leveraged community organizing to enact change to expand city-wide policies, school district decisions, and more. 

4 Strategies for Community Organizing

1. segment your list .

No matter how big or small the community is, organizers must prioritize contact management from the start. Community organizers can segment their list to section contacts into more manageable outreach targets based on the degrees of separation:

• Personal contacts — friends and family of community organizers
• Second-degree contacts — people that may be connected to the friends and family of community organizers but do not have a direct connection to the group yet
• Affiliated community — other groups in the community that could have an interest in the cause

Segmenting the outreach list will make it easier to curate messaging that best engages the recipient. 

2. Leverage the power of relational organizing 

One of the best strategies for community organizing is relational outreach. It takes some work to convince second-degree contacts and the affiliated community to start taking action, but leveraging authentic connections can make things much easier.

Relational organizing works by community organizers reaching out to those they know and inviting them to become involved. When those friends and family become involved, they can reach out to more people they know to get involved. In this way, the movement grows through existing and genuine relationships. 

This method of outreach is much more effective than other traditional organizing methods. According to a study on relational organizing , organizers found that relational outreach made someone 6.5 times more likely to sign a petition and 8 times more likely to opt into an organizing event. Community organizers that live in close-knit communities will find that relational organizing is particularly valuable for building power! 

3. Start recruiting volunteers with small and big asks

Community organizing relies on the commitment and contribution of volunteers. Unlike some forms of organizing that rely on a top-down model, community organizing centers on the voices of local community members.

Therefore, community organizing needs a strong foundation of solidarity and volunteer power. Start recruiting volunteers with tactics like:

• Encouraging them to join community events, where they can learn more about why they should volunteer
• Asking supporters to sign up for one (or more) canvassing shifts
• Prompting supporters to talk to at least five of their friends and family about the goals of the movement

Remember: the ultimate purpose of community organizing is to create structural change, but that shouldn’t stop the community from having fun! The more enjoyable volunteer events are, the more likely volunteers are to stay committed. 

4. Make action accessible

Making action accessible and offering multiple ways for people to get involved ensures that more supporters can join the organizing effort. This is one of the most important strategies for community organizing!

Some people gain motivation and inspiration by talking to contacts face-to-face; prime opportunities for these volunteers are actions like door-to-door knocking or tabling. On the other hand, individuals who feel less comfortable with face-to-face conversations or have limited mobility can volunteer with phone banking or text banking. 

By accommodating to the volunteers' strengths, community leaders will also have the chance to recognize individuals suited for leadership responsibilities. A scalable community organizing model relies on leadership structures within the community, so identifying those leaders is particularly important. 

Ultimately, community organizing centers on authentic relationships that drive collective action. Try these four strategies for community organizing to empower and enrich your community. 

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Back to Basics: The Fundamentals of Community Organizing

I n a new pamphlet, veteran organizer George Goehl lays out the core practices organizers shouldn’t leave behind, even as we seek to evolve the craft of organizing.

In 2023, Jenn Carrillo and I began running a Working-Class Campaigns training . It grew out of conversations with new and mid-level community organizers to get their take on what they needed. We heard many things, but the headline was that they were organizing in progressively more challenging conditions, but had not been trained in the fundamentals of organizing.

Sitting in a coffee shop in Wisconsin, I asked a few organizers about their experience bringing people together who might agree with progressives on some issues, but sharply differ on others. They looked at me as if I’d asked if they’d been to the moon recently. One organizer earnestly replied, “Is that even a thing?”

When we asked organizers, even lead organizers and organizing directors, about their process for cutting issues—taking a big problem and breaking it down, finding a clear solution, making it a demand and identifying the decision makers you need to move to win—people said they’d never been taught to do this.

In our training, we described a model of organizing that started by listening for the most widely and deeply felt issues in the community and organizing around those.  Trainees asked, “How is that possible?” They shared that they had come on board to work on issues connected to specific grants with existing deliverables. There was no space to ask people what they wanted to work on. The issues and demands had already been determined. But, you could also see in their faces a sense of wonder. They knew they would be more effective and bring in more people if they could do this style of organizing.

When we showed trainees all of the leadership development opportunities available in just one community meeting, like securing the meeting space, making reminder calls, or running the evaluation, most confessed they were doing these things themselves. They did not know these were tasks they could and should ask members to do and then prepare them to do well.

While finding our craft in this condition is frustrating, it’s not shocking. These organizers came of age during an era of constant crises, one in which these fundamentals have not been standard practice. It is certainly not their fault they do not know these things.

Holding onto fundamentals as we evolve the craft

We are in a period of constant disruption. It is hard to name a single aspect of society that has not been touched in some way or another. That includes the craft of organizing. Much of that disruption was deliberate. Some, myself included, sought to evolve a craft that was often built to win the best thing possible within the existing landscape, to one that could remake that landscape altogether. We sought to win the battle of ideas, build electoral might, and rewrite the rules of power altogether.

Others sought to build power through the movements of the era, and adapted their organizing toward an absorption model, seeking to absorb people energized by the moment.

Still others saw “narrative change” as an essential precursor to electoral and policy change and placed their emphasis here, whether through organizing in the streets or popular culture.

I could name others, and each is worthy of a larger discussion. At many levels each of these interventions and adaptations made sense.

It would have been a mistake to continue to slug it out within the existing landscape. We had decades of evidence of the limits of so-called “stop sign” organizing–building campaigns around lowest-common-denominator, easily winnable demands.

On the question of absorption, it would have been an odd choice for the field of organizing to sit out some of the most significant movements in a generation.

Finally, the newly built power to advance big ideas and shape worldview through organizing and popular culture (at least within a portion of the country) would have seemed dreamy a decade ago. It is good there is more focus here.

There is much to be celebrated about the ways in which the craft of organizing has evolved. And yet, as happens in periods of great disruption, good stuff gets lost.

In the case of community organizing, many of the very elements that made our craft so powerful and life-giving in the first place have been displaced. What were once bright markers along the trail now resemble breadcrumbs scattered here and there. In the push to evolve, we became heavy on theory and light on craft. Fortunately,  there’s a budding movement to revive the craft before the breadcrumbs turn to dust.

When I was coming up in Southern Indiana, organizing pamphlets were lifelines to the craft. With that in mind, Jenn Carrillo and I created a small book that spells out three dozen fundamentals of the craft that have been essential for me, Jenn, and many others.

Below are five of the fundamentals from the book. If you are interested, visit our website to get your copy of The Fundamentals of Community Organizing today.

From The Fundamentals of Community Organizing :

Organizing is more than activism.

You have not chosen the quickest path to power. I hope you know that. You could build power for yourself more quickly if you won an elected office or became a social media star. Instead, you have decided to do something different: to build the power of many people, with many people. It is simply a different thing.

Activism is in vogue these days and we’re better for it. But let’s not mistake activism for organizing. An activist is active in the fight, maybe even leads in it. An organizer develops the power of others within that fight. Often one by one, sometimes many at a time. You do many things in this work, but if you are not developing other people, you are not organizing.

If you are developing others, when you are done, there will be victories people can point to, yes, but also souls changed in ways everlasting. That’s what most separates organizing from activism.

All Organizing Is Reorganizing

Power is organized in a specific way—whether in a neighborhood or school; a city or state; a sector of the econ­omy. The way power is currently organized is most often not good for a specific group of people. That group could be people with low incomes, people of color, women, rural people, disabled people, or working-class people who have all kinds of other identities.

Say we are preparing to build a new organization in a city. Chances are that real-estate developers run the show. They plan to divest in some areas and gentrify others and are working in tandem with elected officials to have their way. We will find that districts are drawn to protect the status quo, and working-class people have been divided along racial lines. This arrangement is not random. It has been organized for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the many.

Organizers are here to disorganize this configuration of power and reorganize it into something more just. To do this, we grow the power of people who have been on the receiving end of evil acts and reduce the power of those perpetrating them. All organizing is reorganizing.

Make the Complicated Simple

If the people we’re organizing have to Google what we’re saying, we are in deep shit.

The people who abuse power deliberately make things hard to understand as a way to remain in power. If things are too complex, we start to believe that they are the experts. The organizer’s job is to call their bluff and flip that belief on its head: To make the complicated simple and remind people that we are the experts on our realities.

There’s been a tendency lately to do the opposite—to instead make the simple, complicated. To lead with words—both technical and ideological—that leave lots of people scratching their head, wondering if they came to the right meeting.

This doesn’t mean the ideas or vision inside the big words are wrong, but how they are introduced matters. We are here to make people feel powerful, not stupid. Keep it simple, build with people, and then when the time is right, fold in the more complicated language and frameworks—and then only if it makes the work stronger.

The Organization Exists for the Members

The organization exists for the members. Assuming it has paid staff, it should treat them well, in line with the values we seek to move into the world. But the organization does not exist for the staff, even if we are of the class of people we organize.

We are here to advance the power and interests of the members. The agenda is set by the members, the governing body is elected by the members, the language of the organi­zation should resonate with the members. Our best organiz­ing happens when the members are our compass.

We are blessed to be in partnership with and in service to people who need and want to organize. People have signed up—as volunteers—to invest and risk their time, talent, and money in the organization.

If the organization begins to exist for the staff at the expense of the members, we are no longer organizing.

Agitation as an Act of Love

Don’t overthink agitation. It is simply the act of creating tension that inspires people to act and act differently.

We humans can become comfortable in our discomfort. Unable to see a path toward change, we settle and adapt, often at great cost. Organizers are here to create a new dis­comfort. We have come to call the question about the sys­tems and stories that rule our lives. This is among the most liberating acts we, as organizers, perform.

We all have limiting beliefs about ourselves. “I am not a person who rocks the boat.” “I am not a leader.” “I am not someone who speaks to crowds.”

These limiting beliefs extend to what we believe our community is capable of. For instance: “People here don’t want to come together.” “Our community will always be this way.” “We will never have power.”

That people believe these things is no accident; it’s by design. These myths maintain the status quo, serving only those who abuse power. Our job is to expose all of it—the gap between how things are and how they should be; where each of us is now and where we could be.

Done right, agitation is an act of love, in service of new possibilities. Done wrong, agitation is clumsy and aggres­sive. Be sure you know the difference.

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Transformative Community Planning: Empowerment Through Community Development

Prepared for the 1996 Planners Network Conference, “Renewing Hope, Restoring Vision: Progressive Planning in Our Communities.”

by Marie Kennedy

INTRODUCTION

What is community development?

I see real community development as combining material development with the development of people. Real development, as I understand it, necessarily involves increasing a community’s capacity for taking control of its own development–building within the community critical thinking and planning abilities, as well as concrete skills, so that development projects and planning processes can be replicated by community members in the future. A good planning project should leave a community not just with more immediate “products”–e.g., housing–but also with an increased capacity to meet future needs.

Effective community development planning takes a comprehensive approach to meeting community needs–an approach that recognizes the interrelationship of economic, physical and social development. Community development is linked to empowerment and to valuing diversity of cultures. This is true whether you are talking about planning in materially underdeveloped communities in the United States or in the so-called developing world.

Manning Marable, an African-American scholar and commentator, in his 1992 book, Crisis of Color and Democracy, offers a concise definition of empowerment, one that I think is particularly apt for planners:

Empowerment is essentially a capacity to define clearly one’s interests, and to develop a strategy to achieve those interests. It’s the ability to create a plan or program to change one’s reality in order to obtain those objectives or interests. Power is not a “thing”, it’s a process. In other words, you shouldn’t say that a group has power, but that, through its conscious activity, a group can empower itself by increasing its ability to achieve its own interests.

And, Kari Polanyi Levitt, an economist working in the Caribbean, in a lecture a couple of years ago to the Association of Caribbean Economists, took on the individualism, selfishness and greed typical of what she calls the “market magic” paradigm, arguing that:

Any meaningful notion of “sustainable development” must begin with the recognition that the diversity of cultures which nourish human creativity is as precious an inheritance as the diversity of plant and animal life.

She goes on to say:

Development cannot be imposed from without. It is a creative social process and its central nervous system, the matrix which nourishes it, is located in the cultural sphere. Development is ultimately not a matter of money or physical capital, or foreign exchange, but of the capacity of a society to tap the root of popular creativity, to free up and empower people to exercise their intelligence and collective wisdom.

Role of the planner

Most of my experience has been on the community level and it’s at this level that you will find most of the practitioners who are trying to work in a transformative way. However, what often blocks success for transformative planners at the community level are decisions taken by planners at the city, state, national or even international level. For transformative planning to work on the community level, planners at all levels, who are framing public problem definitions and policies, writing legislation, designing governmental programs, prioritizing funding targets for private foundations and governmental agencies, or preparing requests for proposals, have to share an understanding of what constitutes community development.

Measuring success

If, on the other hand, we have a different version of what constitutes success:

• a version that does include products of development, but which rests primarily on power and control being increasingly vested in community members;
• success that is measured by the number of people who have, in the planning process, moved from being an object of planning to being a subject;
• success measured in terms of increasing numbers of confident, competent, cooperative and purposeful community members;
• success measured in terms of the ability of people involved in the planning process to replicate their achievements in other situations;
• success measured in terms of movement towards realizing values of equity and inclusion;

then, we’re going to have very different sorts of policies, programs and practices. And, our roles as planners will also be very different. This latter type of practice is what I want to discuss with you today.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Advocacy planning

Advocacy planning developed within the context of the burgeoning popular movements of the ’60’s–foremost of which was the Civil Rights Movement and from which grew other movements. Of particular importance to advocacy planning were those primarily localized movements that focused on the urban crisis, and the student movement which demanded relevance in education to social issues, including those connected to the urban crisis. The ’60’s also saw the real cranking up of urban renewal which concentrated on renewing failing downtowns in order to save our cities (if not our people) and, somewhat later, developing some neighborhoods through gentrification while using other neighborhoods as the dumping grounds for the displaced.

Within this context, planners often came under attack by the community–and by students for that matter–because planners were often amongst the professionals that made the decisions that caused neighborhoods to be uprooted, that caused communities to be destroyed. Progressive planners and students began to look at which groups had access to professional assistance and which did not–it began to occur to us that in working for the interests that could afford to pay us–whether private or governmental–we were in essence advocating the interests of that group–in fact, we came to understand that all planning is advocacy for one set of interests or another. Pushed hard by students and by low-income community groups we had to recognize that even public planners didn’t operate in a neutral way, in spite of the avowed purpose of city, state and federal planning agencies to serve the supposedly neutral public interest. On the contrary, low-income communities in particular couldn’t depend on publicly-paid planners to represent their interests. Communities which were not part of the power bloc that elected and kept various politicians in office, communities which differed in terms of class, race, gender, whatever, from that power bloc, could pretty much depend on being embattled with public planning agencies.

Recognizing these contradictions, progressive planners across the country began to put their skills at the disposal of groups and interests which hadn’t previously had access to their services. Across the country advocacy planning groups sprang up like the San Francisco Design Center, the Architects’ Renewal Committee of Harlem, the Pratt Center and Boston’s Urban Planning Aid (where I worked for a time in the early ’70’s). In response to student demands for experience in grappling with real urban problems, these models were simultaneously extended into schools of planning and architecture.

The advocacy planning movement reached its peak in the late ’60’s, early ’70’s and had largely died out by the late ’70’s, at least in terms of being a movement. There are certainly aspects of the practice that have been institutionalized and people still practice as advocate planners, but without the sense of a movement.

In the movement we made some real contributions, the benefits of which are still felt. I would identify four:

• First, and most importantly, advocacy planning began to successfully challenge the notion of planning as a “neutral science,” as apolitical–removed from the political process. In my view, the break with this technocratic approach was incomplete, but this assessment doesn’t invalidate the importance of these first steps that advocacy planning took in the direction of recognizing planning as political.
• Secondly, advocacy planning made great strides in institutionalizing the notion of community participation in planning, at least planning in the public sphere. Today, nearly everyone in the US takes this for granted and in most publicly supported planning, at least lip service is paid to citizen participation in the planning process. But, this wasn’t always true, and it was something that had to be won. Although participation can be used in a negative way–as a smokescreen to obscure real power relations and agendas, the fact that we have a right to that citizen participation provides an important opening for struggle.
• Third, I would count the human legacy of advocacy planning as very important–many of us still active in community development work had our ideas and careers forged in the advocacy planning movement.
• And, fourth, the contribution to planning education. The approach to education that includes hands-on field projects with underserved groups is a direct legacy of advocacy planning. Advocacy planning is an important thread of today’s transformative community development planning–but, there were significant shortfalls in the vision offered by advocacy planning. Today’s debates on the US left about what planning practice should be are connected to these shortfalls.

Overall, we failed to effectively frame technical assistance in relationship to people’s movements in such a way as to build those movements. In my view, planning should feed organizing–it shouldn’t be planning at the expense of organizing, which was often the case in advocacy planning.

We didn’t sufficiently take into account how communities are situated in a larger societal and historic context. We didn’t often evaluate the direction of evolution of communities with which we worked, questioning, for example, whether a particular community was developing towards or away from realizing values of inclusion and liberation. Consequently, we didn’t effectively target our assistance to particular communities and issues.

We took groups too much at their own self-definition of goals; we didn’t work hard enough perhaps to expand the world view of oppressed people, to explicitly counter the ideological oppression which shapes the way in which people think. This populist/majoritarian approach caused us to choose short term victories over the slower process of building a broader vision of the good community. Particularly in working with white communities around their perceived interests, we ran the risk (and sometimes fell into the trap) of supporting essentially exclusionary and racist organizing. At best, the narrow vision of short term and expedient goals meant that groups with whom we worked frequently fell apart when limited goals were achieved.

We also failed to sufficiently expand our notion of what the field of planning includes–this meant a continuing focus on the product, often a physical product and tactics that related to that like producing alternative site plans or fixing up buildings…basically emphasizing the built product, not the movement. Often we didn’t change our planning methodologies at all from those we had been using in more traditional practice. We didn’t really retool for a new practice–we mostly just changed who got access to our services. The political act was in the choice of client, not in developing a different way of working with people–a new process of planning. This is an important area in which the break with the notion of planning as an objective, neutral science was incomplete.

This led us to have a confused notion of what participation in and control over planning decisions meant–did it mean that everybody was a planner? Or did it mean just a token participation at the fringes? We went in both directions, sometimes simultaneously. We didn’t figure out very well how to work in a way that created frameworks for meaningful decisionmaking while allowing organizers to be organizers, neighborhood residents to get on with their lives, and for us to be planners.

Our practice as advocate planners remained primarily representational, rather than participatory. Communities remained the object of planning and rarely did our practice assist their transformation into becoming simultaneously the subject and object of planning.

TRANSFORMATIVE POPULISM VS REDISTRIBUTIVE POPULISM

A comparison of two progressive approaches to planning and organizing

In important ways, the redistributive approach, as we describe it, is an unevolved advocacy planning. This contrasts to the transformative approach which, while it evolves from advocacy planning, adds many other threads from, for example, national liberation struggles and participatory action research.

Redistributive planning, although concerned with economic justice, with redistributing wealth, doesn’t seek, in the main part, to support organizing focused on the redistribution of power and it doesn’t aim to cede control over planning decisions to oppressed people. The model assumes that the repository of knowledge is in the planners. It’s “we’ll figure out what’s best to do and do it for you” not “we’ll help you do it.”

Furthermore, although redistributive planners frequently have a critical analysis of the structural nature of social and urban problems, they will support organizing that focuses on issues “where the people are at” rather than trying to take up some of the hard questions such as race. In part this is because the “where the people are at” kind of issues translate more readily into products that are recognizable as legitimate results of a planning process.

Redistributive planning rests on the assumption that community development will proceed incrementally through solving one problem after another and eventually this will mean a qualitative social change. Redistributive planners will often verbalize the same long range and overall goals as transformative or community development planners, but they concentrate on products over process and on efficiency in reaching product-oriented goals over mobilization and empowerment.

Both redistributive and transformative planners would acknowledge that there is a political nature to all we do and that all of our work has implications for the distribution of power in society and that there is no such thing as value-free social science. However, while redistributive populism reserves this awareness to the planner/organizer, transformative populism requires that the raising of political consciousness is a necessary corollary to any successful planning process.

Links to participatory action research

How knowledge is produced is a great mystery to most folks. Knowledge has become a product bought and sold. In general, ordinary people aren’t considered knowledgeable, even about their own reality. The research industry has become more and more specialized and hidden behind a technocratic veil of supposed “scientific method,” which effectively excludes laypeople. Conditioned to believe they can’t adequately understand their own lives and cut out of participation in research and analysis which might enhance their understanding, ordinary people often simply stop trying. And, in truth, people do often lack the information, skills and experience to critically understand the roots of their powerlessness. Their lack of information and their preoccupation with daily survival interferes with their understanding of how power structures work and affect their lives. Therefore, the oppressed often share the oppressors’ viewpoint, blaming themselves for their own poverty and powerlessness–essentially what we know as “internalized oppression.”

So, here’s a central dilemma for the transformative planner–finding a balance between assuming that oppressed people fully understand their own oppression and the planner does not, or conversely, that the planner fully understands the truth (or has the research and analytical tools to get at the truth) about people’s oppression and that the people do not.

The process of achieving this balance isn’t mystical, but it does require an ongoing process of evaluation of the actual circumstances in each community planning project undertaken. And, it requires a real commitment to community development as I outlined at the beginning of this paper.

Balancing the roles of the planner and the community

Correcting for biases, preconceptions and confusing preferences for correctness

Historically, planners have cloaked their preferences–typically those of white, middle-class men–in lots of big words and scientific method and called them “right.” That accounts for a lot of the most disastrous planning projects of the past and it continues today. If you’ve studied the early days of urban renewal, you’ve probably read some of the sociological, psychological and planning studies of the West End of Boston–the second massive clearance urban renewal project in Boston–generally conceded to be a disaster–an area seen as a slum by the planners, but seen as a thriving multi-ethnic community by residents. Who gets to say an area is a slum? (I should note that while the planners who did this were liberals, progressives aren’t immune to this type of narrow vision either.)

Several years ago, over a period of a year, I was in a discussion group every week or so with a group of homeless or previously homeless women. I learned a great deal that is critical of well-intentioned shelter policies. Many have a hard time understanding why, even in winter, some homeless people opt to stay on the street rather than going to a shelter. The homeless women are organizing themselves against the shelters–shelters which were developed by the most well-intentioned, even progressive, people, I’m sure. They also had critical things to say about the attitudes towards homeless that were reflected in rehousing policies–policies that implied that homeless people have no community, have no legitimate preferences in housing accommodations, that they should be grateful for whatever they can get. This comes from planners, however, progressive, focusing only on the housing unit and not on the sense of community and self-dignity of the homeless themselves. For example, a now discredited policy of the City of Cambridge was to rehouse Cambridge homeless several cities away in Lynn where there were cheaper and more units available. If a homeless person didn’t accept this relocation (and many didn’t), they were bumped to the bottom of the list–after all, they had been offered housing.

Successful transformative planning means extending our definition of the planning process to include a capacity building and education/outreach phase on the front end and an evaluation period on the back end. And, it means fighting for funding for this extended process.

In short, it means working with communities in a way that’s sensitive, supportive, inquiring and carefully analytical, challenging but not directive or patronizing. Although this may sound like “mom and apple pie,” it’s all too rare in practice.

This paper has been presented in various versions in lectures at Cornell University (September 1993), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (May 1993), and the Grupo Para el Desarollo Integral de la Capital, Havana, Cuba (July 1992). Published versions are forthcoming in  New Solutions  (summer 1996) and  Indigenous Planning Times  (fall 1996).

Marie Kennedy teaches community planning at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

Tobias Meier, Leo Penta und Andreas Richter (Hrsg.) (2022)

Community Organizing. Eine Einführung

ISBN 978-3-7799-6804-7, 310 S., 34 €

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• Published: 22 June 2023
• Volume 47 , pages 183–184, ( 2023 )

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Die Herausgeber legen eine Essaysammlung vor, die der Einführung ins Community Organizing (CO) dienen soll. Es handelt sich um eine erweiterte Neuauflage der Veröffentlichung „Community Organizing – Menschen verändern ihre Stadt“, die 2007 von Mitherausgeber Leo Penta, Kath. Hochschule für Sozialwesen Berlin (KSHB) als Band VIII der Reihe „Amerikanische Ideen in Deutschland“ bei der Körber-Stiftung in Hamburg erschienen war, „was“, so die Autoren im Vorwort des neuen Buches, „erstmalig für Deutschland eine zentrale Diskussion im Community Organizing darstellte und vor allem auch die entstehende Praxis widerspiegelte“ (S. 8). Schon hier muss richtiggestellt werden soll, dass in Deutschland schon seit den 1970er Jahren „zentrale“ Diskussionen um CO und Saul D. Alinsky geführt wurden. Der vorliegende Band und sein Vorgänger sind daher nicht der Beginn, sondern Teil einer umfassenderen Diskussion.

Das Buch enthält sechs Abschnitte mit jeweils vier bis sechs eigenständigen Essays. Der erste Abschnitt, „Anfänge in den USA“, beginnt mit Auszügen aus dem bekannten, aber bisher nicht in deutscher Sprache veröffentlichten Interview von Saul D. Alinsky (1909 bis 1972), das er kurz vor seinem Tod der Zeitschrift Playboy gegeben hatte. Alinsky blickt darin auf sein Leben und seine Arbeit in den Industriegebieten von Chicago zurück, die als Anfänge des CO gelten. Darauf folgt ein Essay von Leo Penta und Tobias Meier, „Alinskys Erbe – die Industriel Areas Foundation als weltweites Netzwerk“. Danach folgt „Der Ursprung des Community Organizing. Eine Geistesgeschichte“ von Luke Bretherton, und, wieder abgedruckt, ein Essay von Leo Penta mit dem Titel „Von Ohnmacht zur Hoffnung“. Das Kapitel endet mit „Eine Bürgerplattform gestaltet Brooklyn. Die Geschichte der Nehemia-Häuser“ von Michael Gecan.

Die Linie dieses Abschnitts ist klar: Alinsky gründete die Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) als Ausbildungsinstitut. Die IAF wurde dann von Edwards Chambers zur „New IAF“ umgestaltet. Die „intentionalen Einzelgespräche“ und die „10-Days-Trainings“ mit engagierten Bürgern wurden ihr Markenzeichen. Es muss kritisch eingewendet werden, dass die „New IAF“ nicht die Alleinerbin von Alinskys Ideen ist. CO allein mit der von Ed Chambers geprägten „New IAF“ zu identifizieren ist eine unzulässige wie unnötige Engführung. Auch hier wird ein Teil der Praxis zum Ganzen und Eigentlichen erklärt.

Wie dem auch sei, ab 1983 wurden, ausgehend von einer Initiative von 30 Kirchengemeinden in Brooklyn/New York, die Nehemia-Häuser gebaut: mehrere tausend „erschwingliche Wohnungen“ (S. 99) und es wäre völlig verfehlt, die Erfolge des Community Organizing à la IAF und des für die IAF typischen Institution-Based-Community-Organizing (ICBO) am Beispiel der Nehemia Homes in Deutschland nicht zur Kenntnis zu nehmen. Wohnungsmangel und Wohnungslosigkeit sind aktuelle Kernthemen deutscher Sozialpolitik. Man sollte fragen, was hierzulande die Kirchen und die kirchlichen Wohlfahrtsverbände in diesem Zusammenhang bisher unternehmen.

Die Beiträge des zweiten Abschnitts arbeiten heraus, wie dieser Erfolg zustande gekommen ist. Dabei geht es um die „Macht der Leute“ und den Auftrag zivilgesellschaftlicher Organisationen Heterogenität zu überwinden und für Intermediarität zu sorgen. Zunächst fragt Helmut K. Anheier (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin) „Wer organisiert die Zivilgesellschaft?“. Dann bringt Leo Penta die „Macht der Solidarität“ ins Spiel. Amanda Tattersall aus Sydney untersucht schließlich, wie die „Macht der Leute“ sich für gewöhnlich realisiert a) ergebnislos nach vorgegebenen Regeln zu spielen, b) ziellos Menschen zu mobilisieren oder c) schlimme Folgen vorherzusagen. Auch Michael Gecan schildert in seinem Beitrag, wie angesichts wichtiger Probleme bloßer Aktivismus nicht funktioniert. Beide empfehlen stattdessen die Methoden des CO.

Im dritten Abschnitt geht es dann um die für die „New IAF“ typische Frage nach der Rolle religiöser Gemeinschaften und Organisationen in der Zivilgesellschaft. Brad E. Fulton stellt die Herausforderungen religiöser Gemeinschaften aus amerikanischer Sicht dar und Christine Funk (KSHB) aus deutscher Sicht. Sie fragt, wie religiöse Gemeinden in Bürgerplattformen zur Erneuerung demokratischer Prozesse beitragen können. Es folgen „Praktisch-Theologische Anmerkungen zu CO als Perspektive diakonischer Pastoral“ von Andreas Lob-Hüdepohl (KSHB).

Beide Abschnitte stehen unter dem Eindruck einer sich entwickelnden postsäkularen Gesellschaft, in der Religion an Bedeutung zunimmt. Die Frage ist, inwieweit religiöse Gemeinschaften, die oft selbst unter Demokratiedefiziten und Austritten leiden, es schaffen können, Glaubwürdigkeit zurückzugewinnen, indem sie die säkularen Interessen ihrer Mitglieder vertreten und so gleichzeitig zur Demokratisierung der Gesellschaft beitragen. Aus Sicht einer befreiungstheologisch orientierten „Kirche von unten“ ginge es dabei notwendigerweise mehr um Gemeinsamkeiten als um Unterschiede und Alleinstellungsmerkmale, also auch und vor allem um interreligiösen Dialog.

Im vierten und fünften Abschnitt geht es dann um das Wie und Wo, also um methodische Erfahrungen und Aspekte und um konkrete Anwendungsbeispiele in Berlin, Nordrhein-Westfalen (Köln, Duisburg) und anderswo. Zum Schluss vergleicht dann Sebastian Kurtenbach treffend die diametral entgegengesetzten Steuerungslogiken von Quartiersmanagement („von oben“) und von Community Organizing („von unten“). Ein Serviceteil mit einem Verzeichnis der Autoren, aktiver Organisationen, relevanter Literatur, einem Glossar und ausgewählten Arbeitsblättern für die Praxis beschließt den Band.

Insgesamt liefert der Band „Community Organizing“ eine informative Einführung in die Aktivitäten des „weltumspannenden Netzes“ der „New IAF“ und ihrer Netzwerkarbeit in Deutschland. Wie bereits ausgeführt wird hierdurch aber nur ein Teil des CO beleuchtet und als Ganzes gesetzt. Als korrektive Lektüre wird empfohlen: Stoecker/Witkovsky: From inclusionary to exclusionary populism in the transformation of US community development (in: Kenny/Ife/Westoby Hg., Populism, Democracy and Community Development, Bristol University Press, 2021, 127–148).

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Szynka, P. Community Organizing. Eine Einführung. Sozial Extra 47 , 183–184 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12054-023-00593-5

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I feel so stupid for adopting from here. We love our dog, but he was a puppy when we adopted him and they assured us he would be no more than 20lbs fully grown. We just got the DNA test results back and he is 62% Pitbull. I am finding it hard to believe that the vet that the shelter used had no idea that he would be bigger. Our vet knew immediately. I would not recommend adopting from them, unfortunately they really ruined my experience adopting at all. We were trying to do the responsible thing, but should have gone to a breeder.

It's a real bummer that I even felt compelled to write this review but after seeing several other people feel this way my feelings were validated. Apologies for the long winded review, but READ IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING FOSTERING through Waldo's. TLDR: This organization does not care about the welfare of the animals and is only looking to make money I fostered with Waldo's this past month as a first time foster, and after my foster was adopted (yay), I was left with a bad taste in my mouth towards the organization. To start, they do virtually zero screening for fosters (no interview, no phone call, zero contact) ahead of receiving your dog. As a first time foster, I was reluctant to foster a dog straight from transport and was planning on doing a foster takeover in the new year, however after seeing the shelters plea for help I decided to help. I ended up with what they listed as an 8-10 month old (adorable) pup, who couldn't have been more than 5-6 months. Being a first time foster, the first week with a puppy (and a working breed) in a small BK apartment was extremely challenging, and Waldo's provides very little (and somewhat sketchy) support through a Slack channel. There were also reports of inevitable kennel cough from transport and we were instructed to preemptively give our pups Robitussin and Benadryl daily, and after symptoms persisted my "coordinator" sent me unlabeled medication with zero instruction (I had to ask her specifically what it was, duration, etc. she didn't label the bag) which also felt sketchy (we should be informed what medication we are administering our dogs...). My pup was truly so sweet (but of course, still very much an untrained puppy) and had Waldo's interviewed me and understood my lifestyle and preferences, they would quickly realize a puppy and working breed may not have been the best fit, but it's clear that they do not care which (like other reviews mention) leads me to believe this organization's sole purpose is to transport these pups from the south, cash out, and do it all over again. What was also unsettling was that my adopter (who I as the foster was responsible for scheduling a meet with, and (technically) by choice "interviewing" since I truly cared about my dog) also told me that she had no form of interview with the organization (which is honestly so concerning) and that her friend who previously fostered felt the same sentiment around sketchy practice (she also mentioned her friend had an adopter that was ill fitted to adopt her foster and she had to fight the organization on the fact that they were not the right fit). They also make you only communicate through group chat, which we quickly took off thread so I could candidly answer any questions from the adopter and ensure it was a good fit. As soon as she decided she wanted to adopt, it was clear that the organizations focus was the money. I kept asking for next steps etc, which they give you zero information on, and the response was always "payment this" and payment that. I'll also add that I've kept in touch with my adopter who has reported no follow up from Waldo's since adoption (vet papers, spaying info, etc). At the end of the day, I am glad I was able to save a pup and give her a good home (and luckily loved and trusted her adopter) but I cannot recommend this organization as their mission feels extremely inauthentic and their lack of screening (for both fosters and adopters) is concerning. Of course I am glad that this organization is saving dog's lives and grateful for that, but there are better organizations to support. Lastly (for context) I'll add that I also applied to foster through NYSCR, which immediately setup a phone call interview to chat through my preferences to ensure they would pair me with a pup that fits my lifestyle, and they schedule apartment/home FaceTime tours ahead of foster approval. If I foster in the future, it will definitely be through them.

What a great experience! Waldo's Rescue is helping with temporary foster who will offer to help. Thank you so much for your dedication.

They refuse to take back the dog. He's stressing my other dogs out, he hurt one of them and he's too rough. I feel awful but I tried to do it for 3 months. Since then they keep pulling me along. This is so unfair. I'm sorry to say I can not recommend this rescue.

I would give this rescue zero stars if I could. I got my sweet puppy from them and I absolutely adore her, but this rescue is horrible. FIRST OFF there is barely a screening process for fosters, As a first time foster I got an animal fresh off heart worm treatment with little educational info just to "limit exercise". I had to ask numerous times what that even means. They do absolutely no parasite testing before bringing the dogs to NYC. They de-worm them once which is not enough to get rid of the heavy parasite load that is commonly present in stray animals. Especially dogs that have a history of being homeless and never having had any kind of vet visit/treatment. My dog came with hookworms and whipworms which I didn't find out for months because of the initial deworming treatment they gave her. This means my dog was in NYC around many dogs with parasites and could have potentially spread them because Waldo's is cheap. After adopting her I have spent hundreds of dollars correcting this issue that could have been prevented for $50. Additionally when my foster dog needed her monthly dose of heartgaurd and flea and tick prevention I HAD TO REMIND THEM! They don't even keep track of these things. For the amount of money to adopt a dog from Waldos is $600-700 they don't even spay or neuter the dogs. And you would think with a large adoption fee like that they could take a fecal sample and test for parasites. Additionally, when I was fostering with Waldo's I would contact them about concerning medical problems with my dog and they would be like its ok just monitor. I once sent them a picture of my dog's eye that was very obviously swollen and one of the woman in charge of medical care for Waldo's said she "couldn't see anything wrong". Before I finally decided to adopt my dog after fostering for about a month, I even took her to a vet out of my own pocket because I didn't want someone adopting her that didn't have the means to deal with her medical bills. Besides absolutely falling in love with my dog, I adopted her to save her from the disorganization and idiocies of Waldo's Rescue. I had been seriously considering adopting my foster dog and the final straw that encouraged me to adopt her was meeting with a potential adopter. The potential adopter was blissfully unaware of the medical issues my dog had. And to MAKE THINGS WORSE they approved adopter wasn't even allowed to have pitbulls (which the dog is 70% pitbull) in her building. So obviously their screening process for potential adopters is terrible. After adopting my dog from Waldo's I decided to foster for a second time. THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE. The dog was not a good fit. Had terrible attachment issues that the previous foster never disclosed, so I got multiple noise complaints because of all the crying and barking. I couldn't even leave the dog alone for 5 minutes. The dog also was constantly humping my female dog. I explained to Waldo's that it was not a good fit and they needed to find a foster ASAP because it was not a good situation for me or my dog. They told me I had to wait 3 days before they could begin to find another foster and I ended up having the dog for an entire week. They were so unwilling to help me out of a tough situation. Lastly, and probably the most heart breaking is despite the large amount of money adopters pay in adoptions fees, my dog didn't even get the proper heartworm treatment. I recently found this out when my dog was retested to heartworms and continues to test positive. My vet explained that many shelters will do 2 shots to save money, however heartworm treatment in this case was paid by the rescue. I now will have to pay 1000s for my dog to undergo another heartworm treatment because Waldo's didn't go the extra mile for my dog. This is likely going to impact my dog's health and even possibly decrease her life span. All I can say is please do not continue to support this organization that has no business rescuing dogs.

We came close to adopting from them, but the fact that they charge the same as any other rescue, but refused to provide spay/neuter service for the dog was a red flag. Also, they are not listed as having 501c3 status with the IRS, which you can check on any organization here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ When we backed out for those reasons, the coordinator tried to shame us. There are better places out there. We had good experiences with Muddy Paws, Waggy Tail, and Animal Lighthouse Rescue. All great communication and professionally run.

I'm so sad that Summer House highlighted such a terrible rescue. I fostered with Waldo's and had terrible experience after terrible experience. All the dogs were treated horribly, adopting families were not given the fu story, Emily was terrible, etc. Please look into other rescues and DO NOT adopt from Waldo's. Also, please look at their New York Post article where Emily threw dead dogs in her building's dumpster

Do not trust Waldos! Its a scam. They seems manage to take down comments from Google but not Yelp I am writing this with a broken heart. I am currently fostering a dog from them. The dog is very cute and strong, he made it thru his own way but this rescue is giving me pain. Forstering committed to 3 weeks long. Everything seems normal at the beginning until i requested a takeover as 3 weeks coming to the end. Waldos clearly has no back up plans at all for fostering family and they would not help in finding the next foster until i keep pushing back. They will use the beautiful wordings gaslighting fostering family making you feel so bad requesting a takeover. This is horrible as I adopted my dog from the other rescue center after fostering. The experience is completely different. A legit rescue center will never force fostering to keep the dog even one hour longer. When returning day come, foster family has to return the dog. This is a mutual respect and its regulated by the fostering agreement. Secondly, they dont care about their dogs. They gave foster a bunch of medications, tick and flea, Heartworm with two bags. They rely on the foster to do the first bath and give the medication without clear instructions. When i first receive my fostering dog, he is in mud, all around his ear and his legs. He was neutured by Waldos but i wonder how come they didnt clean him before the procedure. This could only increase the risk of wound infection. Lastly the communication is shady. They use slack for communication and they kicked me out after i voiced my concerns. Listen! Please check New York Post, there are multiple allegations suspecting Waldos scammed money without providing accordingly care to their dogs. There are so many better rescue center out there. If you planning to adopt a dog, please be more than welcome to look for others but never Waldos.

Don't adopt dogs from this business. I am currently fostering for them. They do not provide any cares. I signed up to foster for three weeks but they still haven't found a new foster home for the dog I'm taken care of right now. I suspect they scam people money with adoption fees.

Do not foster from this organization!! I suspect there's a huge $$$ scheme going on. RUN! Waldo's takes in sick dogs and doesn't let you take the dogs to the vet. If they're sick they tell you to give them zarbees, robitussian DM and to up the dose if they don't get better. The people who work for this organization abuse vulnerable people who care about animals. It's a 2-3 week commitment and when someone asks for a foster takeover the people of the organization can barely find anyone (don't answer you) until you suggest taking them to a local shelter. Then they deactivate you from their slack channel and shame you on their social media pages. They claim they save the dogs from a kill shelter in Georgia, however, the kill shelter calls them a partner. Also, horrible article on this organization from the NY Post. Look up bad reviews here on yelp, google, etc - all the good ones are from people who either adopted (the non sick dogs) or work for the company!

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