Community Organizing
Are you ready to take action and get others involved? Then community organizing might be
the right approach for you. To help decide, you'll need to understand what's involved in
community organizing and how it differs from other problem solving approaches. You will
also need to decide if you have the necessary resources and commitment on hand. Take a selfevaluation test to see if you are ready to be a community organizer.
What is community organizing?
Community organizing is a long-term approach where the people affected by an issue are
supported in identifying problems and taking action to achieve solutions. The organizer
challenges those he or she works with to change the way things are—it is a means of
achieving social change through collective action by changing the balance of power. The
tactics and strategies employed by the organizer are similar to the processes of leadership
including timing the issue, deliberate planning, getting the attention of the populace, framing
the issue in terms of the desired solution, and shaping the terms of the decision-making
process.
Why use community organizing?
"A single bracelet does not jingle"
- African proverb
Community organizing helps to bring out many voices to add collective power and strength to
an issue. Community organizing is a key part of an overall strategy to make changes in a
community that are widely felt, and that reflect the wishes of the people who are directly
affected by alcohol-related community problems. This requires the organizer to not only listen
and be responsive to the community, but also to help community residents develop the skills
necessary to address their own issues in an ongoing way.
At the heart of community organizing are inclusion, ownership, relationship building and
leadership development.
Individual vs. Collective Action
Community organizing looks at collective solutions — large numbers of people who engage
in solutions that impact even more people. These people usually live in the same
neighborhood, town or block.
Many traditional agency responses look at individual solutions. Agencies tend to focus on the
individual as a means to solve public health problems.
Changing the balance of power
Community organizing changes the balance of power and creates new power bases. Groups
that organize do not have to be statewide or national in scope, nor do the decision-makers
have to be elected officials. Here are some examples from history:
• Civil rights: The boycotts of businesses and busses in the South brought about
desegregation and the Voting Rights Act.
• Labor unions: Strikes against conditions in factories throughout the early part of this
century led to the 40-hour work week and better working conditions for all workers.
• The anti-war movement: Protests against the war pressured the government to end U.S.
involvement in Viet Nam .
Are you ready?
"The community organizer...must constantly examine life, including his own, to get some idea
of what it is all about, and he must challenge and test his own findings. Irreverence, essential
to questioning, is a requisite. Curiosity becomes compulsive. His most frequent word
is 'why'?"
- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 1971
Do you have what it takes to be a community organizer?
Every successful business or organization has a great leader — or several leaders for that
matter. The skills of the community organizer are crucial to the organizing process. Take our
self-evaluation test to see if you are ready to be a community organizer.
Qualities of a good organizer
Community organizers think strategically about their work while always keeping the final
goal in mind and continually making contributions to the goal. This is especially important in
community organizing campaigns to enact or change policies. Qualities include:
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Imagination
Sense of Humor
Blurred vision of a better world
An organized personality
Strong ego/sense of oneself
• A free, open mind, and political relativity
• Ability to create the new out of the old ( Saul Alinsky, 1971 )
Principles of Organizing
Experienced organizers know that the process of organizing is seldom "tidy" — it doesn't
always happen in neat, predictable steps. It can be thought of as a process guided by
principles that repeat in a cyclic, rather than linear, way:
Understanding this helps in planning effective organizing for community action.
Six stages of effective community organizing:
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Assess the community
Create an action team
Develop an action plan
Mobilize to action
Implement
Evaluate
Assess the community
It's extremely important that you get to know the community you will be working in and the
history of the issue you will address. Allow two to three months to become familiar with the
community, its history, make-up, demographics, geography and political leadership. Continue
to learn about the community by going " doorknocking " and conducting " one-on-ones ".
This will help you learn about the concerns of the community and develop personal
relationships.
One-on-ones are an important part of community organizing, as they lay the foundation for all
the work that comes afterwards. The main goal of the one-on-one is to listen and gather
information. The organizer must learn what community members concerns are, and find out
what they identify as problems, not tell the community what the problem is. That is why an
organizer meets first with people individually, rather than try to meet everyone in a group.
Create an Action Team
Review your one-on-ones and invite people to join your community action team (or
committee, task force, group). Ideally, teams should have up to 10 to 20 active members so
they are big enough to have representation from the community, but not so unwieldy that the
team can't make decisions/progress. Try to build an action team of core leaders who have
time, energy, passion for the issue, possess a "can-do" attitude and represent a diverse crosssection from many sectors of the community.
Develop an action plan
Work with your team to develop an Action Plan. What problems has your group identified?
What policies would address that problem? What is the decision-making body you need to
impact? What other steps will your team need to take to change policy? Break your work
down into manageable steps and tasks. Hold a meeting to discuss your plan of action and
include a timeline for when things will happen and identify who is responsible. It should be
realistic, feasible, and flexible.
Issues for an action team might include:
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Alcohol billboards near school
Easy for youth to get alcohol at a community festival
Local store sells to youth
Youth-targeted alcohol displays at local market
Abandoned building in area is a hangout where youth drink
Mobilize to action
Building your base of support is a necessary part of your Action Plan . While your leadership
group will guide your work, more people are needed to enact or change policy. Tasks you will
need to consider:
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Identify potential supporters by going door-to-door
Build a base of support in the community
Determine constituents and likely allies
Contact constituents and meet with key members
Make presentations
Identify elected officials who you think will be supportive
Solicit advice of supportive politicians for more political contacts
Ask people to get involved — give them specific tasks
Once your group has identified its policy goals (Link to public policy) your responsibility as
the organizer is to keep the momentum of the group moving forward. To do this you should:
• Break large jobs into small tasks
• Get and keep your team members engaged, informed,
involved, and in the spotlight
• Be responsive and reliable — get people what they need to complete their tasks
• Keep group focused and on track
• Don't let opponents get your group off message or task
Implement
Once you pass a policy (link to public policy) or achieve your goal, your group will need to
decide how it maintains the change and ensures that the desired results are achieved. For
example, policy changes cannot be successful at reducing youth access to alcohol if those
policies don't include enforcement provisions. After a policy is passed, your group will want
to be sure that it is enforced and accomplishes what you intended.
Likewise, your group will have to decide what its future will be once you attain your goal. Do
you want to work on other policies? Has the group served its purpose? Your group will need
to decide on its future, and begin the planning and base building phases all over again.
Evaluate
As you implement your plan of action, it's important to carefully review your progress during
the campaign (Make this a link to info below "During the campaign") to ensure you stay on
track, as well as to evaluate the campaign after (Make this a link to info below "After the
action plan") it has ended to see what went right or wrong and learn lessons for the future.
[Make this part a link] During the campaign , make sure you are continuing to make
progress toward your goals. Check up on the process, to make sure your group is
effectively working together. Examples of evaluation questions to ask leaders and other
stakeholders in your campaign might include:
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Is the campaign making a difference? How?
Are we making progress toward our goal?
What factors are most important in achieving the goals of the campaign?
What are the biggest challenges or obstacles for the campaign?
After the action plan has been implemented and the campaign is "over," evaluate:
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What has been accomplished?
What still needs to be done?
What was done well?
What could have been done better?