Community organization
Community organization or community based organization refers to organization aimed at making desired improvements to a community's social health, well-being, and overall functioning. Community organization occurs in geographically, psychosocially, culturally, spiritually, and digitally bounded communities.
Community organization includes community work, community projects, community development, community empowerment, community building, and community mobilization. It is a commonly used model for organizing community within community projects, neighborhoods, organizations, voluntary associations, localities, and social networks, which may operate as ways to mobilize around geography, shared space, shared experience, interest, need, and/or concern.
Introduction[edit]
Community organization is differentiated from conflict-oriented community organizing, which focuses on short-term change through appeals to authority (i.e., pressuring established power structures for desired change), by focusing on long-term and short-term change through direct action and the organizing of community (i.e., the creation of alternative systems outside of established power structures). This often includes inclusive networking, interpersonal organizing, listening, reflexivity, non-violent communication, cooperation, mutual aid and social care, prefiguration, popular education, and direct democracy.
Within organizations, variations exist in terms of size and structure. Some are formally incorporated, with codified bylaws and Boards of Directors (also known as a committee), while others are much smaller, more informal, and grassroots. Community organization may be more effective in addressing need as well as in achieving short-term and long-term goals than larger, more bureaucratic organizations. Contemporary community organization, known as "The New Community Organizing",[1] includes glocalized perspectives and organizing methods.[2] The multiplicity of institutions, groups, and activities do not necessarily define community organization. However, factors such as the interaction, integration, and coordination of, existing groups, assets, activities, as well as the relationships, the evolution of new structures and communities, are characteristics unique to community organization.
Community organization may often lead to greater understanding of community contexts. It is characterized by community building, community planning, direct action and mobilization, the promotion of community change, and, ultimately, changes within larger social systems and power structures along with localized ones.[3]
Community organization generally functions within not-for-profit efforts, and funding often goes directly toward supporting organizing activities. Under globalization, the ubiquity of ICTs, neoliberalism, and austerity, has caused many organizations to face complex challenges such as mission drift and coercion by state and private funders.[4] These political and economic conditions have led some to seek alternative funding sources such as fee-for-service, crowd funding, and other creative avenues.
In 1970, Jack Rothman formulated three basic models of community organization.[17]
In the late 1990s, Rothman revisited the three community organization typologies of locality development, social planning, and social action, and reflected that they were too rigid as "community processes had become more complex and variegated, and problems had to be approached differently, more subtly, and with greater penetrability."[18] This led to a broadened view of the models as more expansive, nuanced, situational, and interconnected. According to Rothman, the reframing of the typologies as overlapping and integrated ensured that "practitioners of any stripe [have] a greater range in selecting, then mixing and phasing, components of intervention."[18]
Rothman's three basic models of community organization have been critiqued and expanded upon. Feminist community organization scholar, Cheryl Hyde, criticized Rothman's "mixing and phasing" as unable to transcend rigid categorical organizing typologies, as they lacked "dimensions of ideology, longitudinal development ... commitment within community intervention and incorporati[on] [of] social movement literature."[19]
Impact of globalization[edit]
Globalization is fundamentally changing the landscape of work, organizations, and community. Many of the challenges created by globalization involve divestment from local communities and neighborhoods, and a changing landscape of work. Paired with the transition to post-industrialization, both challenges and opportunities for grassroots community organizations are growing. Scholars such as Grace Lee Boggs and Gar Alperovitz are noted for their visionary understandings of community organization in this changing context. At the core of these understandings is the acknowledgement that "communities" exist in the context of local, national, and global influences. These and other scholars emphasize the need to create new social, economic, and political systems through community organization, as a way to rebuild local wealth in this changing landscape. Related concepts include visionary organizing, community wealth projects, employee-owned firms, anchor institutions, and place-based education.[20][21]
In the era of globalization smaller community organizations typically rely on donations (monetary and in-kind) from local community members and sponsorship from local government and businesses. In Canada, for example, slightly over 40% of the community organizations surveyed had revenue under C$30,000. These organizations tend to be relationship-based and people-focused. Across all sizes, Canadian community organizations rely on government funding (49%), earned income (35%), and others through gifts and donations (13%).[14]