Community organizing

Community organizing is a process by which disempowered people - most often low- and moderate-income people - are brought together to act in their common self-interest. Most often these organizations seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create popular movements by building a large base of concerned folks, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved.

Common Aspects of Organized Communities

Organized community groups seek accountability from elected officials and increased direct representation within decision-making bodies. Where good-faith negotiations fail, these constituency-led organizations seek to pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting, sit-ins, petitioning, and electoral politics.

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Community organizing is usually focused on more than just resolving specific issues. Organizing is the business of building a power structure that involves all community members, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community.

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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.

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There are two basic types of community organizing, grassroots organizing and coalition building. Additionally, political campaigns often claim that their door-to-door operations are in fact an effort to organize the community, but most often these operations are focused exclusively on voter identification and turn out.

Related Topics:
Grassroots - Coalition - Political campaign

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The ideal of grassroots organizing is to build community groups from scratch, develop new leadership where none existed, and otherwise organize the unorganized. Coalition building efforts seek instead to unite existing groups, such as churches, civic associations, and social clubs, to more effectively pursue a common agenda.

Related Topics:
Grassroots - Coalition

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Community organizing is not solely the domain of progressive politics, as dozens of fundamentalist organizations have sprung up. The Christian Coalition is an example of conservative faith-based community organizing.

Related Topics:
Fundamentalist - Christian Coalition - Conservative

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