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The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page. |
Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. While organizing describes any activity involving people interacting with one another in a formal manner, much community organizing is in the pursuit of a common agenda. Many groups seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create social movements by building a base of concerned people, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved.
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Organized community groups seek accountability from elected officials, corporations and institutions as well as increased direct representation within decision-making bodies and social reform. Where negotiations fail, these organizations seek to inform others outside of the organization of the issues being addressed and expose or pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting, sit-ins, petitioning, and electoral politics.
Community organizing is usually focused on more than just resolving specific issues. Organizing is empowering all community members, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community.
Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are democratic in governance, open and accessible to community members, and concerned with the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group.
There are three basic types of community organizing, grassroots organizing, faith-based and community organizing, and coalition building. Additionally, political campaigns often claim that their door-to-door operations are in fact an effort to organize the community, often these operations are focused exclusively on voter identification and turn out.
The ideal of grassroots organizing is to build community groups from scratch, develop new leadership where none existed, and otherwise organize the unorganized. It is a values based process where people are brought together to act in the interest of their communities and the common good. It is a strategy that revitalizes communities and allows the individuals to participate and incite social change. It empowers the people directly involved and impacted by the issues being addressed. A network of community organizations that employ this method is National Peoples Action.
Faith-based community organizing, FBCO, is a deliberate methodology of developing the power and relationships throughout a community of institutions such as congregations, unions, and associations. Built on the work of Saul Alinsky in the mid-1900s, there are now 180 FBCOs in the US as well as in South Africa, England, Germany, and other nations (according to Interfaith Funders\' 2001 study Faith Based Community Organizing: State of the Field, by Mark Warren and Richard Wood). Local organizations are often linked through organizing networks such as the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), Direct Action and Research Training (DART) Center, and People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO). For more information view two videos The Power of New Voices and Faith in Action - The PICO Organizing Model.
Coalition building efforts seek instead to unite existing groups, such as churches, civic associations, and social clubs, to more effectively pursue a common agenda.
Community organizing is not solely the domain of progressive politics, as dozens of fundamentalist organizations have sprung up, such as the Christian Coalition.
Robert Fisher and Peter Romanofsky have grouped the history of community organizing in the United States into four rough periods:
People sought to meet the pressures of rapid immigration and industrialization by organizing immigrant neighborhoods in urban centers. Since the emphasis of the reformers was mostly on building community through settlement houses and other service mechanisms, the dominant approach was what Fisher calls social work. During this period The Newsboys Strike provided an early model of youth-led organizing.
Community organization was established distinct from social work, with much energy coming from those critical of capitalist doctrines. Studs Terkel documented community organizing in the depression era, perhaps most notably that of Dorothy Day. Most organizations had a national orientation because the economic problems the nation faced did not seem possible to change at the neighborhood levels.
The emergence of the distinctive approach of Saul Alinsky spurred new thought and new blood into community movements. Those influenced by Alinsky were (and still are) concerned with social justice without having socialist thought as their primary framework. Alinsky promoted greater awareness of community organizing in academic circles, and those affiliated with Alinsky trained a generation of organizers, including César Chávez.
The American Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movements, the Chicano movement, the feminist movement, and the gay rights movement all influenced and were influenced by ideas of neighborhood organizing. Experience with federal anti-poverty programs and the upheavals in the cities produced a thoughtful response among activists and theorists in the early 1970s that has informed activities, organizations, strategies and movements through the end of the century. Less dramatically, civic associations and neighborhood block clubs were formed all across the country to foster community spirit and civic duty, as well as provide a social outlet.
Many of the most notable leaders in community organizing today emerged from the National Welfare Rights Organization. John Calkins of DART, Ernesto Cortes of the Industrial Areas Foundation, Wade Rathke of ACORN, John Dodds of Philadelphia Unemployment Project and Mark Splain of the AFL-CIO, among others.
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A career as a community organizer can be a great option for people who want to make a difference, are concerned about social inequities, and are interested in community solutions and empowering people. People come to careers in community organizing from diverse professions and backgrounds. Many people discover community organizing through participation in some sort of organizing or activist effort in their own communities, and only afterward discover that there are actually jobs and a profession in community organizing.[1] There are graduate and undergraduate programs which focus on community organizing at several colleges and universities in the U.S., such as the University of Maryland--see[2]and[3],and the University of Vermont.[4]
Some feel that the community organizing field currently is in need of more effective recruitment and training of potential community organizers. They argue that the current situation, which relies primarily on word-of-mouth and some academic programs, is not adequate to meet the need for community organizers. For example, Joe Szakos, in his paper published on the COMM-ORG website, argues that a collective recruitment plan for community organizers is needed.
Several good community organizing training programs exist for people new to the field. These include the DART Organizers Institute, and the Midwest Academy\'s Internship program. However many of these programs accept only a small number of applicants. For example, the Midwest Academy states that it hires "10 or more community organizing interns." [5] DART says on its website that in 2006 it received "over 1,100 resumes and interviewed over 500 candidates, and finally selected 20 Organizer Trainees."[6] The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) also offers summer internships for college students and paid "90-Day Try Outs" at their affiliate organizations.[7] This page on the Center for Community Change websitehas a good list of community organizer training and internship opportunities, with descriptions of each opportunity.
The three training programs mentioned above are paid internship programs. There are also training programs that require participants to pay for the cost of the training, which usually lasts for several days. The Midwest Academy offers such a program. These trainings tend to be geared toward people already involved in community organizing in one way or another, including community leaders (the local people who are constituents of a community organization and lead the efforts).
There are several good resources online with advice and information for people exploring a career in community organizing. These include an info-packed Organizing Guide in the Career Center at idealist.org. Additionally, the COMM-ORG website has a "...How to get Started in Community Organizing" page with info provided by people on their list-serv.
The following groups are examples of community organizing in the United States and Canada:
See also List of organizers Category:Community organizers
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