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Chapter 9

What Was Learned

The resources available to the ESF for grant-making purposes were relatively modest, being in this respect similar to many other foundations. At the same time, the ESF's concern with citizenship was and is shared by other donors although not necessarily in a community context. This report was written, therefore, in the hope that the experience of the ESF might benefit foundations as well as other organizations, scholars and practitioners concerned with improving citizenship through education and action. This final chapter is intended to summarize what was learned from our experience and is divided into two major parts. The first deals with what the Foundation learned about making grants. The second summarizes what was learned about the development of civic competence. More specifically, the second part will be concerned with such questions as the following: In organizing the citizens of a community, to what does one appeal? To self-interest? Should all elements in a community be encouraged to join? Is staff help necessary? Is confrontation or conciliation the more appropriate tactic? What principles are useful in helping young people prepare for adult citizenship? How can leaders be trained? How can groups facilitate citizenship education? These are only some of many relevant questions. We begin, then, with what the Foundation learned about making grants. As a basis for this, some descriptive material on its mode of operation will be useful.

What Was Learned About Effective Functioning of a Foundation

After stating in his will the general purposes for which the Foundation was to allocate its funds, Mr. Schwarzhaupt stipulated that its grant activity be terminated within twenty-five years of his death.

My reason for imposing the restrictions and conditions in connection with the period of disbursement ... is because of my conviction that in the long run society is benefited by having each generation solve its own problems and provide the necessary funds for so doing, and that endowments, in order to be responsive to the ideals, wishes and needs of each respective generation, should be created by such generation.

In fact, almost all of the current assets were disbursed by 1965. Subsequently, some relatively nominal grants were made following the rather protracted liquidation of some parcels of real property.

Foundation Organization

The initial group of trustees consisted of two close business associates of the founder and two attorneys who had also been associated with him. Later, three additional trustees were added in accordance with provisions of Mr. Schwarzhaupt's will, "one to be selected by the then presiding head of the Catholic archdiocese of the city of New York, one by the then acting president of the Federal Council of the Churches of New York and one by the then acting Rabbi of Temple Emanuel of New York City."¹

During the Foundation's active grant-making period, the trustees met semiannually and annually thereafter. Their remuneration was limited to travel expenses. All of the officers were also trustees except for Leonard Rieser, who served as vice-president before becoming a trustee, and except for the assistant secretary and assistant treasurers, this latter post being filled during the Foundation's active period by Marie Ganley (who had been personal secretary to Mr. Schwarzhaupt and later to his partner Leo Gerngross, who was one of the original trustees) and by Ruth McCullum. Following Miss McCullum's death, Therese Powell became assistant secretary and assistant treasurer. Except for this staff support, the only staff employed by the Foundation was the executive secretary, who served on a part-time basis. This function was performed by me, beginning shortly after the meeting of trustees in April 1953, at which time the report of the University of Chicago Committee was presented and discussed.

The Applicants

Before discussing how a pool of applicants came about, it should be understood that at no time had Mr. Schwarzhaupt, or the initial group of trustees, seriously considered the possibility that the Foundation would either undertake educational activities on its own or commission others to implement a program. In fact, in a document entitled "Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation, Inc., Tentative Plans for Factual Survey," reference was made to a consensus reached at a meeting on November 17, 1950, that it would be unwise to attempt direct activities. Instead, it was assumed that a sufficient number and variety of applicants would come forward so that the Foundation could invest its funds in a manner appropriate to the established criteria.

Although there had been no invitation from the Foundation to submit applications, there was a reference to Mr. Schwarzhaupt's interest in better citizenship when his obituary appeared in the newspapers. Later, the University of Chicago issued a news release concerning the grant to establish the Committee on Education for American Citizenship. In addition, certain applicants to the Foundation had received gifts from Mr. Schwarzhaupt during his lifetime. Some applications may have come about through word of mouth once the faculty of the university became aware of the grant's existence. No doubt, another source was the questionnaires mailed to various organizations and agencies, when the material for the directory of civic organizations was assembled. Acquaintances of acquaintances of trustees may also have learned of it, Of course, once grants were made, agencies and organizations at least tangentially involved with grantees, or alerted by grantee news releases, were moved to apply for assistance. Eventually, hundreds of applications were received. In any case, whatever the sources, by the end of 1952 the Foundation had received thirty-five applications which the committee was asked to review.

Discussion with the trustees at their meeting in November 1952 covered proposed areas for Foundation activity and suggested criteria for judging applications. Appraisals of the applications received up to that time were then prepared.

Criteria for Judging Applications

The reports of the Chicago Committee having been reviewed and discussed, the trustees decided to accept their general tenor but to de-emphasize support of research programs as a major objective. Attention then turned to the decisions which would have to be made on specific applications. At this point, certain criteria had been formulated which were to guide the executive secretary in the review of applications.

1. Did the application fall within the established guidelines concerning Foundation purposes? Was it intended to change behavior appropriate to an individual's role as a citizen? Would it help a group learn how to function more effectively in the pursuit of some public purpose? Excluded by such questions would be assistance to help a group get a traffic light or build a school-unless the project would also involve helping people to learn how to accomplish such goals.

2. Were the proposed activities consistent with the stated aims of the proposal? In some proposals, the activities themselves seemed to be their own end, unconnected with the ostensible purposes. Or the applicants failed to show how the activities might be expected to change citizen behavior.

3. Could we conclude that the applicants were competent? Did the proposal exhibit sufficient clarity of thought to indicate that they knew what they were talking about? Did the applicants appear to have the understanding, interest and skills to complete the project in a competent manner?

One difficulty with such questions, of course, was that the persons with whom one discussed the proposal were not necessarily those who would carry out the work. And in some cases there was a great discrepancy between the former and the latter in outlook and/or ability. Furthermore, we expected the applicant to have had a history of experience which could be judged and a conclusion reached as to the likelihood of the objectives being pursued effectively. We tried to find informants familiar with the applicant's record who could assist us to make such judgments. It was our expectation that the persons involved should be known to someone who could speak to their competence, integrity and judgment. Beyond this, we expected that our grantees would be honest in their handling of funds. In retrospect, it appears that our grantees were basically middle class. Almost without exception we have some confidence that funds were handled by grantees in an aboveboard manner.

We are not saying here that we expected grantees to exhibit a conventional cluster of middle-class values, such as one might find in the membership of a small town service club. Rather, we hoped that the values would, where appropriate, include a concern about justice, for example, and a willingness to try to achieve it in spite of the possible unpopularity of such efforts. That is to say, some of our grantees were controversial. The trustees recognized that the IAF and Highlander programs were controversial, and in spite of the possibility of criticism they continued to provide support.

4. Was the proposed program practicable? Would the resources available be adequate to deal with the particular situation? In several cases, inadequate attention was given to this criterion. The objective circumstances proved to be so negative, that the proposed program was in fact hopeless. (A neighborhood house in an urban redevelopment area would be a case in point. The existing circumstances would not be sufficiently amenable to change.)

5. Was the probable cost sufficiently small in relation to expected benefits to warrant support from the Foundation's modest resources?

These were the principal criteria invoked. However, in some cases they were not probed far enough, or the answers elicited from informants were wrong, or at least lacking in candor. Because at the beginning we knew less about the general field than we did later, the criteria did not prevent some diffuseness in the range of projects funded. In more cases than I like to recall, my conclusions (hence, recommendations to the trustees) were faulty. In other cases, we had doubts about the outcome but felt that it was important to take a chance-in which case we might limit the term of the grant to permit a review of progress, to determine whether further support should be given.

In addition to the above criteria, there were exclusionary rules. On September 7, 1938, the board of trustees had adopted a resolution that no grant would be made unless the application qualified for exemption under the internal revenue laws. This action was taken to protect the tax-exempt status of the Foundation and the deductibility of gifts made to it. As a further matter of policy, it was understood that no grant would be made to any organization appearing on the attorney general's list of subversive organizations.²

The process of reviewing applications varied according to the relevance and complexity of the project for which funding was requested. In some cases, a quick reading of the first paragraph resulted in a recommendation to reject the application; a contribution toward a building did not fall within the Foundation's allocation guidelines. In other cases, the complexity of the proposal might require much more study. The various possible steps in this review process are described below.

1. The application would be analyzed as noted above. Sometimes, additional written information would be requested from the applicant. Most applications, however, could be rejected without much ado because they clearly did not fall within the foundation's purposes.

2. If the project seemed promising, a visit would generally be made to talk with the applicant. A key area for exploration had to do with two questions. First, how clearly could the applicant describe the purposes of the project and justify their relevance to the development of civic competence? Second, could the applicant demonstrate that the purposes and the means to achieve them were mutually consistent?

It was of critical importance to determine whether the applicant understood his own project. Some applicants sought grants avidly as a way of keeping their organizations going. Others merely had a wish to do good, and the wish was taken as the equivalent of thought. The result was that the application would consist of vague generalities. These generalities might embody some worthy intention, but efforts to elicit specific statements concerning ends and means expressed in concrete terms would prove unavailing. In such cases, of course, there could be no basis for approving a grant. In one instance, the applicant was unable to discuss the important elements of the request other than in the same words and statements contained in the application. This led to a concern on my part that the applicant was not really aware of the nature nor the implications of the commitment involved.

One of the most important lessons learned by the Foundation was that we could not take for granted that the applicant understood the proposal. Sometimes the purposes as stated, even though understood, were so general in scope that they could not serve as guides for action. Furthermore, many applicants were unable to justify the proposed activities in ways which were clearly connected with the original purposes. Their grasp of their project was inadequate. Information would also be elicited from other sources in the community concerning the reputation of the applicant, the effectiveness of its program, and the relevance and importance of the work proposed.

3. In some cases, the advice of experts was sought. For example, in one instance involving work with Indians, anthropologists were asked about the reputation of the applicant's work in this field.

4. Following the visit to the applicant, an appraisal would be written for distribution to the trustees in advance of each meeting. Each appraisal would include a précis of data on the applicant, a description of the proposal, comments as to its validity, its relevance to Foundation purposes and the executive secretary's opinion as to the competence of the applicant to carry out the stated intention. The report would conclude with a recommendation as to what disposition should be made of the application.

The comments concerning the validity of the application might range over a number of points. One application (in several variants) was rejected four times, The principal thrust of the initial application involved distributing pictures of great men in order to promote patriotism. The appraisal noted the weakness of a great man theory of history; the inadequacy of including only generals and explorers in a list of great men; serious factual errors had been made, for example, stating that the amendments to the Constitution did not have the same status as the original document; American history could not adequately be treated without reference to social institutions (other than slavery), processes, issues or problems; the proposed educational methodology was utterly naive; the grantee was interested in gaining acceptance of a preferred set of conclusions, without recognizing the role of a spirit of inquiry; and the absence of any treatment of the logistics which the project would require. But as I have said, some applicants were difficult to discourage.³

In sum, the appraisal questioned the validity of the specifics of the proposal, pointed out that it did not fall into either of the specified areas for Foundation support nor did it qualify as a project in the residual area which would promise significant contributions to citizenship education at minimum cost. Appraisals ranging over such a variety of issues sometimes became lengthy, but even when there were several projects to be considered, the trustees had never failed to review the documents in order to contribute to the discussion which followed. They were prepared to discuss them in the light of their own reading, education and years of experience as persons of affairs-experience grounded in a commitment to democratic values, and a belief that every individual should have the opportunity to develop his abilities as a citizen.

In addition to the appraisals, the trustees were provided with monthly reports prepared by the executive secretary. These reports indicated what applications had been received; results of meetings held with grantees or would-be applicants, with comments on anything of likely interest to the trustees; and summaries of reports received whenever appropriate. Special attention was given to information on grantee successes and failures and their possible implications. The result was that the trustees had available to them a significant amount of information on each application as a basis for their decision. As each application was brought up, I would summarize the appraisal and any other material which had come to my attention in the interim. I was expected to contribute to the discussion which followed. It should be noted that, normally, applicants did not appear at board meetings. (I can recall only one exception.) The discussions demonstrated the trustees to be keen thinkers, persons whose experience of life had provided them with a sense of the wide range of possibilities inherent in human interaction. A favorable decision on an application was not made unless it reflected a consensus. If any trustee expressed a significant reservation concerning an application, it was rejected.

Grant Term

One of the critical questions to be resolved in connection with a grant application was the length of time for which the project should be supported. In each project there had to be a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes the Foundation supported a project for too long a time, as, for example, the Kenwood-Ellis Community Center. At other times, it should have provided support for a longer time. A review of the Foundation's grant history shows that three years was the most common commitment for initial grants although there were several variations. A three-year term had a certain plausibility about it. It seemed to make sense to think of the first year as a time to get started-employing staff where needed and getting the work well underway; the second year as a period in which the project would be moving steadily toward its goal through the full range of its planned activities; and the third year as the time in which the various elements of the project could be brought together and consolidated, that is, either completed or brought to a stage in which the grantee would be able to carry on without further support.

In any case, some twenty-four initial grants were made for three years, sixteen for one year, thirteen for two years and one for four years. Others, not accounted for in this list, received grants for a specific purpose not involving a definite time period. Of the twenty-four grants made for a three-year period, fifteen involved attempts to organize a community. As the reader will recall, in very few of these cases was either program or financial viability achieved. In the case of some of these failures, there may have been several reasons. In the case of Hull House, there were at least three reasons: the untimely death of the central staff figure, the overpowering political force controlled by the West Side bloc and the power of the bulldozer which eventually wiped out most of the community served by the grantee. In other cases, the grantee was simply not competent to achieve viability, regardless of the time frame which might have been agreed to.

Among the three-year projects, there were, however, some of the largest and most significant including Highlander Folk School, the IAF grants for the CSO and TWO programs, Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, South Chicago Community Center, Benton House and the National 4H Club Foundation. Others included the Migrant Ministry (MCEP), NCCC in Lackawanna and the American Indian Center. In some cases, of course, three-year grants were followed by renewal grants of up to three years (for example, IAF and Highlander).

As to those projects in which a different time frame was stipulated, in practically every case where a one-year grant was made, the applicant had requested it. In such cases, the Foundation did not urge a longer period, preferring to have the option of not refunding a program if it did not seem to warrant further support. All of the AFSC grants in support of the Interns-in-Community Service projects in Chicago and Oakland, and the community project on the Oglala reservation at Pine Ridge were made on this basis. It may be that the AFSC preferred a one year commitment because of its reliance, in many projects, on volunteer leaders who could not be counted on to be available on a multiyear basis.

The reasons for two-year grants varied. In the case of the initial AID grant for Crownpoint, the Field Foundation, which matched our grant, was unwilling to provide more than two year's support. Kenwood-Ellis Community Center requested support for two years because it wanted to start with a land use study and report as a prelude to an organizing effort, The grant to Hudson Guild was made for three years, but with a proviso that the third-year grant would depend on whether progress during the first two years was considered satisfactory. In this case, the grant was renewed for the third year on the basis of data indicating substantial organizational development. A good deal of local leadership had been identified that had learned to function more effectively than previously. It was in the third year, unfortunately, that the project collapsed over the issue of Penn Station South. This eventuality might have been foreseen but could not have been predicted with certainty unless the intentions of all the parties involved had been known. In the case of several projects (Better Housing League, the United Community Fund, Roosevelt University, Goddard College, Civic Education Center, Girl Scouts, and Encampment for Citizenship), only a two-year grant was requested. Subsequently, several of these groups were refunded for periods of up to three years.

The projects involving work with American Indians clearly should have been considered in a class by themselves. The closer the participants were to reservation life, the longer the period of time, it appeared, they would require to learn how to cope with the pressures of white society. We cannot say that we learned how long such a project should continue; our experience was too meager. The project at Crownpoint was funded for approximately seven years, and this amount of time was too short. Whether additional funding would have enabled the chapter leaders at Crownpoint to provide the kind of effective leadership their constituents needed is difficult to say. For one thing, we are not sure that the project staff would have been in a position to remain much longer. But equally important was the change in tribal politics resulting from the large inflow of funds from oil and other mineral leases. With progressives taking over control of tribal affairs from traditionalists, additional time might very well have made no difference in the outcome. Speaking to this question several years later, however, the AID director thought that an additional five years would have enabled the Crownpoint leaders to deal with their world more effectively and not be pawns in a game almost wholly controlled by others.

Termination of Support

We have discussed how projects were started. It is reasonable to ask how projects were terminated. Unfortunately, the termination of grants was not given nearly as much attention as was the giving of a grant. Nevertheless, a few points can be made. The Foundation had expressed its intention to maximize the results of its grant program by trying to arrange for reporting of results. What was done about this and what the outcomes were will be discussed below under the heading of evaluation and reporting. Nevertheless, it is relevant to mention here that the preparation of a final report does or should help to clarify what has been done and with what results in an orderly fashion. So, in a sense, the requirement that the grantee produce a report "suitable for publication" helped to "shape the termination."

One problem which must be of concern to any foundation is the difficulty experienced by grantees when the grant runs out. In a number of cases, therefore, the grant provided for funding on a decreasing scale, with the grantee having to raise the difference between the grant and the total budget from other sources-presumably sources which would provide for more continuity than is typically the case with foundation funding. The second three-year grant to the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference is an example of such a terminal grant. (Subsequently, a two-year grant was made for a special project.) In this case, we cannot say that the arrangement was successful even though the conference continued to flourish. We cannot claim it because the existence of the grantee or its program did not depend upon the ESF grant.

In a few cases, grantees were asked to secure matching funds from other sources. This requirement did not work very well, For example, one organization, which functioned on a nationwide, even international, scale simply allocated sums from its general funds to the specific ESF-funded project. The letter of the grant requirement was met, but it was not precisely what the Foundation had in mind. It was our expectation that the local program unit would raise money in its own community to support the activity and that if successful in raising such matching money, the prospects for continuity would be enhanced. In this case, efforts to locate responsibility in the local community were only meagerly successful.

One other response on our part should be mentioned as having helped to shape the ending of a project. In several cases, we extended the period within which grant funds were to be spent and a report completed. This enabled the grantee to spend the funds in a way more consistent with the local time frame, as happened in the case of the YWCA/Mississippi District. In another instance, a small supplemental grant was made to allow certain activities to be completed over a six-month span. In three other cases, unexpended funds were returned to the Foundation. When the Chelsea Community Council was dissolved, a small balance was turned over to the ESF, as was the remainder of the $14,800 granted to the IAF for organizing work among Puerto Ricans in Chelsea. In the third circumstance, the Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago proposed to end the organizing efforts pursuant to its project and asked for permission to turn over $32,875 to the Association of Community Councils. It was our feeling that to do so would, in effect, establish a new project even though there had been a close relationship between the ACC and the WCMC. A decision to support the ACC should, we felt, be based on a separate evaluation of a proposal by the ACC. The funds were, therefore, returned to the ESF. An ACC application was subsequently reviewed and denied on the ground that its prospects for success did not seem sufficiently likely.

Effectiveness of the Review Process

It is a humbling experience to review the history of our grant activity, especially when one notes how much was given to projects which, in retrospect, had so little chance of success, or proved to be poorly conducted, and how cautious we were at times with grantees whose efforts turned out to be successful. It would probably have been productive to have given more support to Highlander Folk School. However, the failure of the person to complete the report which he had been commissioned by Highlander to prepare and for which he was paid might have affected our response to a request. Furthermore, there was a lack of communication concerning the potential effectiveness of certain workshops for college students, for which funds had been requested. As it turned out, the workshops held in 1960 and subsequently had direct impact on the organizing of citizenship schools, especially in Mississippi. (In addition, it should be pointed out that the Students Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was founded by a group of college students who had attended a 1960 workshop at Highlander) But we were unaware of the potential of college student involvement in such schools at the beginning.

Sometimes we gave more funding to a project than we should have. Sometimes, we were concerned about the size of the request, particularly in the amount of certain proposed elements of expenditure and, therefore, negotiated certain reductions. But this was a step taken only with caution. To overrule the applicant was to remove some of the responsibility from the applicant for the project result. In retrospect, too, it can be seen that the analysis of the practicality of a particular project was quite inadequate. The grant to the National Conference of Catholic Charities was a case in point. A more hardheaded look at the prospects might have diverted a significant amount of money to more promising experiments. The NCCC project was intended to assist groups in one or two locations to initiate development of a citizens organization on the basis of organizational methods and principles used by the Industrial Areas Foundation. For such an experiment to be successful, vigorous leadership at the top would be necessary. The risks inherent in Monsignor O'Grady's advanced age were not sufficiently appreciated, and within a relatively short period, he was unable to provide such leadership. A second requirement was a local group which understood and was committed to the experiment. It developed, however, that changes in the communities, in which the projects were expected to be initiated, made it necessary to terminate the commitments. A period of several months ensued before other participants could be found in other locations. The urgency to get started somewhere else resulted in an orientation process inadequate to the task of securing a knowledgeable commitment to the enterprise. A third factor involved the staff training element of the project. Training of project staff was to be provided by the Industrial Areas Foundation. Unfortunately, the perennial over-commitment of its personnel, which characterized IAF operation resulted in a less than adequate training experience. This is something that should have been foreseen. A fourth factor had to do with the inherent limitations of the communities finally selected. More attention should have been paid to the accelerating deterioration of the economic base of the city of Butte, for on this base depended the prospects of the citizen organization for achieving financial independence. In the case of Lackawanna, the fact that it was overwhelmingly a single-employer town and given its anti-politics history, the obstacles to a successful result were serious. A more thorough and realistic appraisal of the chances might have prevented these grants from being made, or, at least, refunding might not have been granted.

One more example of a decisive element, only dimly appreciated at the time, involved Hudson Guild and the Penn Station South project. Although it was known that a major housing project was coming, its overwhelming impact on the community was not understood. Fully as important was the fact that the Foundation did not know, until much later, that at the same meeting at which the grant was announced, the Hudson Guild board adopted a resolution supporting the construction of Penn Station South. These two actions, in effect, placed the applicant in a conflict of interest situation.

Such speculations, of course, arise more readily in retrospect than in advance. Given the wish to experiment, for example, with respect to the applicants' ability to apply IAF principles in other situations, it was necessary to take some risk with respect to future prospects for the projects involved. There was another consideration, impossible to assess in advance, which had a decisive influence on the course of several projects. Unfortunately, the element of change to which the Foundation's own program was responding, was also at work in the projects to which grant support had been given. It became increasingly apparent that the kind of quality of personnel employed by grantees to carry out the funded projects were of critical importance. The decision to make a grant included, of course, an assessment of the ability of the staff of the applicant agency or organization, but what determined success fully as much if not more was the character of staff subsequently employed to carry out the work. But even where this was known, as in the case of the grant made to University College of the University of Chicago to explore how more effective block organization could be achieved as part of community organization-a change occurred within a few months. The individual who had written the proposal and was to carry out the work left the area for personal reasons. The replacement knew little about block organization, and, indeed, his experience and expertise were in the area of group dynamics and the field of human relations. Although the addition of a second staff person may have helped to restore some of the original emphasis, the character of the project was changed. In another case, where the staff person was employed subsequent to the grant (Goddard College), an approach to working with communities was developed that differed from what the Foundation expected on the basis of the initial discussions with the applicant.

There was a further hazard, in addition to changes or decisions with respect to staff personnel, and that had to do with the change within the applicant agency itself. The most conspicuous example of this was the project conducted by the South Chicago Community Center, where the facilities and program were taken over by a different church denomination and the staff terminated. Intrying to determine the success or failure of a given project, it must not be overlooked that for many the dice were loaded against them. In several cases, a settlement house or neighborhood center was in reality faced with what became a hopeless task. Although the Kenwood-Ellis Community Center did not distinguish itself in trying to carry out its project, the implications of an almost total turnover of population in its area within a three-year period cannot be ignored. In the case of Hull House, Ed Hulbert's vision of what could be achieved if a general plan were developed was useless in the face of the existing political realities. The system supported the large Italian community in its position that there must be no change at all, on the one hand, and, on the other, it backed the determination of propertied interests, supported by city agencies, to bulldoze old neighborhoods out of existence; thus, only a bit of Hull House was left, a tiny island in a new sea of brick and mortar, to remind the passerby of what once had been.

Ongoing Relationships with Grantees

The question of how much involvement there should be between a grantor and grantee is a critical one. At what point does raising questions or offering suggestions tend to constrain the grantee, perhaps, to the point of vitiating the project? We understand that some foundations review the application, perhaps interview the applicants, make a grant and then leave the grantee to carry out the work until the project has run its course. This approach would be quite the reverse of that of the Rockefeller Foundation, which in the case of its University Development projects abroad became virtually a partner in the activity, even supplying personnel. During the institution-building phase, which might last from five to ten years, there would be a critical mass of outsiders introduced into the situation. The Rockefeller Foundation staff would be active and aggressive.  Later, the role would become more like that of an advisor, the principal activity being to propose ideas. But throughout these phases, their personnel would be actively involved.

In the case of the Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation, this aspect of the executive secretary role varied, depending upon the nature of the project and the extent to which the activity overlapped my own experience. Because of our commitment to our rationale and because of the inherent difficulties experienced by grantees in achieving the objectives of improving civic competence, site visits were occasions for raising questions. But questions were raised by letter also. Several grantees were kind enough to say that this was quite helpful to them, especially with respect to seeing more clearly what it was that they wanted to do and how they might proceed. One such intervention involved the Industrial Areas Foundation.

The aim of its CSO program in California was to develop the abilities of Mexican-Americans through their involvement in community action. They did learn to act. My question to Alinsky was: To what ends are the actions directed? Was there not a need, I asked, for some kind of educational program to help those participating in the action programs to consider why they were doing what they were doing and with what results? These questions led to subsequent proposals for funding, to make available persons who could conduct educational activities, which in certain communities had a profound effect on the operations of Community Service Organizations. One of the later proposals provided for the employment of women as educational leaders also in order to increase the informed participation of women in the CSO program. After some initial hesitation, this program was given strong support by Fred Ross, who was in charge of organizing for the Industrial Areas Foundation in California. He recognized that better informed members would be invaluable to the organizing effort. But when funds were requested by the IAF to organize in Woodlawn in South Chicago, no funds for such purposes were listed. This omission seems consistent with the view that Alinsky was not an educator at heart. It was the power of the organization that mattered.

In the case of the 4H Club project, I offered to indicate something of the range of possible commitments which might be made under the rubric of citizenship education. This was done in a three-page memorandum. Three major emphases were developed: the state and political process, the citizen as determiner of policy and the citizen as requiring certain character traits. Something of the range of choices possible in connection with each of the three was also set forth. The principal value probably lay in pointing out that conclusions about ends and means could not be taken for granted; choices must be made.

A different relationship developed with the Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago and the Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council. To recapitulate briefly: These two metropolitan level organizations applied for support at the same time; were proposing to work at a neighborhood level in the same city; and the program activities proposed by them-though clearly different-were, nevertheless, closely complementary. That is to say (with respect to the last point), the WCMC proposed to hire field staff to assist community organizations to form, or, if already in existence, to become more effective. The MHPC proposed to hire a field staff to provide technical assistance to any such organizations which wanted help on housing, planning, zoning or urban renewal problems. The need for and value of coordinating their efforts, rather than ignoring each other, seemed obvious. The desirability of trying to bring about such coordination was discussed with the trustees at their spring 1956 meeting, and it was agreed that the applicants should be approached on the matter. Subsequently, Leonard Rieser, vice-president of the Foundation, whose office was in Chicago, undertook to open discussions with the two applicants. The presidents of the two organizations approved of our suggestion, and, in due course, project directors and staff of the applicant organizations formed a group to monitor coordination activities, pursuant to a joint understanding by the two applicant agencies. It is our impression, however, that once the formal agreements had been drafted and agreed to, and the funds released, very little joint activity ensued. At least, only meager acknowledgments are made in the final reports of the commitment to joint action.

Why did it not? There were probably several reasons. (1) Most important, there was too little shared ground of concepts, values and professional goals on which the two staffs could meet and work together. (2) The MHPC could not wait for the WCMC staff to develop a community organization with which the MHPC could work. And in any case, the WCMC staff was only minimally successful in organizing or promoting the effectiveness of existing neighborhood or community organizations to a stage of development such that the MHPC involvement would be appropriate. In this connection, the MHPC report noted that community organizations were "more concerned about issues than their capability as organizations, and the issues in most cases were urban renewal and conservation." The report goes on to assert that the same could be said of the Association of Community Councils through which the WCMC was trying to work. And (3) cooperation, even had the staffs felt a genuine commitment, would depend in part on visible evidence of the possibility of successful collaboration in specific cases. Success, of course, depended upon the willingness of city agencies to work with local groups. But such cooperation on the part of city departments and agencies was not very evident although, "maximum feasible participation" on the part of local citizens was legislated as a fundamental principle.

In the end, cooperation and coordination could not be imposed from above nor from the outside. Each group was the prisoner of its own rhetoric, grounded in its own professional values and perceptions. To the extent that there were significant differences in these respects, cooperation would be unlikely to result. The memorandum of understanding between the two applicants quickly became a dead letter, if, indeed, it was not stillborn. We do not know that our effort to promote cooperation between two grantees worked to their disadvantage, except for the wasted time and effort involved. On the other hand, there is no evidence that there was any beneficial result,

A different kind of intervention occurred in the case of the AFSC Interns-in-Community Service program. Sometime after our support began, we proposed to the AFSC that a study be made to discover whether and to what extent changes took place in participants consistent with the objectives of the project. In this case, the attempt to get the grantee to agree to something not contemplated in the original application seemed to have turned out well. It provided the Foundation and the AFSC with evidence of tangible progress toward project objectives and pointed the way to desirable changes in the larger program of the AFSC. It also contributed significant information to the field at large concerning the citizenship education of young adults in residential situations.

Reporting on Project Experience

The Foundation's concern with reporting was expressed in a variety of ways.

1. Our general practice was to make production of a final report a condition of grant approval, this requirement being waived in only a few cases. In requesting a final report, it was usually stated that it should include a discussion of the aims or purposes of the project, as well as a description of the activities to be conducted. In addition, there was to be an explanation of the relevant principles for making the program work and a demonstration of the mutual appropriateness of the activities and purposes. Usually, I would meet with the applicant to discuss the kinds of information and insights we were interested in receiving. An outline of topics to be covered would be developed and confirmed by letter.

In several circumstances, grants were made with a budget item earmarked for preparation of a report.⁴The results were mixed. In the case of Hull House, a substantive, detailed history of its citizenship project was prepared by a member of the history faculty of Roosevelt University. Produced in mimeographed form, it is a gripping story of the dynamics which defeated a vision of the good of a whole community. But the report focuses almost entirely on what happened in dealing with the problems of a deteriorating urban environment and hardly at all on the changes in the residents. However, the lack of information on this latter point can properly be attributed to the lack of substantive activity involving citizens per se.

In view of the critical importance of the results, it is especially regrettable that the sums made available to Highlander Folk School and to the Industrial Areas Foundation for the preparation of reports were never adequately redeemed. In the case of Highlander Folk School, the individual commissioned to undertake the necessary study and report could reasonably have been considered fully competent to present an outstanding document. Unfortunately, a debilitating illness, becoming progressively worse over time, prevented the work from being done.  The writer accepted and used the funds but never produced the product. Fortunately, Aimee Horton undertook an exploration of the historical development and significance of the school and its program as her doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, and this document was most helpful in the preparation of this report.

It is ironical, too, that the recipient of the largest grants (the IAF) did not fully meet its report commitments either, even though $5,000 had been made available for that purpose. A lengthy narrative document was produced by Fred Ross which contained a great deal of valuable material, but its structure and direction did not conform to the original charge which Alinsky had accepted. In an effort to extract as much value as possible from this material, I proposed to Alinsky that he undertake to annotate this manuscript, to underline the principles and tactics with respect to their interrelationships. He agreed but failed to do so.

2. In several instances, where it seemed that a substantive program had emerged, that a project staff member with writing ability was available and that a publisher might be interested, additional funds were provided to make the writing possible. For example, a special grant was made to enable Algernon Black to take the necessary time to write a book on the Encampment for Citizenship program. In addition, a subvention of $2,500 was made available to the publisher to enable the price of the book The Young Citizens to be reduced.

Similarly, a special grant was made in the case of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference to make it possible for Julia Abrahamson to write A Neighborhood Finds Itself. In addition, the Foundation assisted in the negotiations with Harper and Brothers concerning its publication and distribution (which were further supported by a subvention). A grant was also made for preparation of a final report on the Migrant Ministry's Migrant Citizenship Education Project. The report was published by Friendship Press under the title Dignity of Their Own. According to the Migrant Ministry, the press run was to be between 50,000 and 100,000 copies. They were to be extensively utilized in the 1966-1967 men's discussion programs in various denominations, the theme of which was poverty.

3. In a few cases, where the activity appeared to be generating significant results, arrangements were made to provide additional support to strengthen the reporting process. For example, the AFSC Interns-in-Community Service was judged to be such a project. And because a competent research group was available and interested and because the grantee was willing, an arrangement was made with the National Opinion Research Center to make a scientific study of the program. The results were published by the NORC under the title "The Young Volunteers: An Evaluation of Three Programs of the American Friends Service Committee." In the case of the Encampment for Citizenship, the initial grant was made to support a research study by Herbert H. Hyman and Charles R. Wright ("Youth inTransition"). Later, the results of this research were combined with studies of other encampments and published under the title Applications of Methods of Evaluation: Four Studies of the Encampment for Citizenship by Herbert H. Hyman, Charles R. Wright and Terence K. Hopkins.

4. In 1967, the Foundation asked Herman Blake (a member of the faculty in sociology of the University of California at Santa Cruz and whose father had been born on Johns Island) to spend a summer in the Sea Islands and in Woodlawn to see what more could be learned about the results of these projects. He received excellent cooperation from Highlander, and was able to spend a great deal of time with Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson and others.  His insights were very helpful. (It is gratifying to note that a principal focus of Blake's research subsequently became concerned with the Sea Islands and the developments there. In addition, Daufuskie Island and St. Helena have become the locus of an active field study program of the Santa Cruz campus.)

Blake's attempt to explore the results of the Woodlawn project received very little help from the grantee. In fact, Alinsky refused to see him apparently because of his own involvement in the writing of Rules for Radicals. This was unfortunate because at that time the situation in Woodlawn was not one to make it easy for strangers to learn much about the community and its activities. Nevertheless, the descriptions of the work of various Woodlawn subgroups were very valuable in documenting the kinds of changes in civic competence resulting from the work of TWO. Woodlawn presented a unique problem for the Foundation from the standpoint of reporting because it became such a closed community to outsiders. Although Reverend Arthur M. Brazier's book describing TWO filled in a great many gaps, it did not supply sufficiently pointed information for our purposes on achievements in the area of citizen behavior. It was necessary to rely on inferences from the data available.

5. In addition to final reports, we asked for copies of any annual reports published by the grantee, as well as reports on an annual basis specific to the activities covered by the grant. We also requested copies of current newsletters produced and distributed by the grantee. The latter kind of material was valuable because it usually provided an ongoing record of activities involving outside groups, which in turn gave some clues to the nature and success of activities of grantees. From such information, inferences could often be drawn as to the kind of training such activities were providing for participants in the project.

In spite of these several devices to ensure adequate reporting, the reporting requirement turned out to be difficult to implement. In the first place, grantees were primarily concerned with the activities for which they had requested support.⁵ They were interested in achieving some goal. They wanted to do good. They saw the obligation to devote energy and time to the preparation of a report as a diversion from their main concerns. Second, many lacked a conceptual framework and the skills needed to prepare an adequate report. Third, writing is for many people a highly disagreeable task. A fourth difficulty was that changes in staff introduced different perceptions of the ongoing activity, together with some loss of awareness of what had gone on before. The new staff, not having made the commitment to produce the report, understandably did not feel the same obligation to do so. And, of course, some projects were buried by external events, as, for example, in certain redevelopment areas.

In retrospect, it might have suited the Foundation's purposes better to have employed full-time staff to insure getting as much data from the grantees as possible and then producing a summary report covering the range of Foundation activity (or, alternatively, producing a series of reports on different aspects of the Foundation's grant-making activity). This, of course, could and should be supplemented by evaluation and reports by outside groups, which could bring to a particular project the specific expertise lacked by the Foundation.

What might have been done differently in order to improve project reporting and evaluation? (1) It is the view of the trustees that it would have been desirable to have supported more evaluative research studies like the NORC and encampment studies. (2) The study made of the League of Women Voters by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan was, of course, a substantive scientific effort. Perhaps the Foundation should have initiated discussions with the center and league on the desirability of publishing the results in more appropriate form and for wider distribution. And (3) there were also other reports which, even though they were not the equivalent of technical research surveys, were substantive enough to have merited publication. Included in this group are D'Arcy McNickle's report on Crownpoint, Paul B. Johnson's historical analysis of the Hull House project, Ernestine Neff's report on the American Studies Program of Roosevelt University, and Glenn Dildine's extensive documentation on the 4H Club Foundation's citizenship program. Hindsight indicates that Foundation attention and funding would have been better directed toward assisting in their publication than to supporting some of the community organization projects which we funded-except for learning something worthwhile about what not to do.

For the majority of projects, the best we can say about them is that perhaps they did some good and little harm. Furthermore, we can only try to infer from the sometimes meager reports, the reasons for failure to achieve the results hoped for. But there are other projects where some kind of further investigation would have been useful. We did make an attempt to do something in the case of the American Indian Center in Chicago. In considering how to assess the AIC contribution to the improvement of civic competence, it occurred to us that it might be helpful to have a series of case studies of individuals who had been active in the AIC. Robert Rietz, executive director of the AIC, believed that the internal program of the center, as well as those activities involving cooperation with outsiders, provided suitable and acceptable opportunities for center members to relate to the outside world without unduly compromising their Indianness. We felt that a series of extended interviews in the Chicago area, especially with persons involved in some leadership role in the program, would have made it possible to document behavioral changes relating to civic matters. When this was proposed to Rietz, there was no reply; the condition of his health would not permit it, and his death followed soon thereafter. It was not feasible to pursue the matter without him.

There were two other possibilities for study, both relating to the CSO programs in California. First, the astonishing expansion of the adult class programs in English and citizenship, which had been organized by the various CSO chapters, has never been documented. Yet, it surely was one of the most significant single activities ever undertaken in conjunction with community adult schools in California. This task might still be done as an important contribution to the historical record, for it contains lessons still relevant to the promotion of basic education of adults-provided there is involvement by an effective community organization. The second opportunity which the Foundation did not pursue concerned the "educationals," which had such a powerful impact on those CSO chapters where they took hold. Had an independent study been undertaken at the time, some very valuable insights could have been gathered about the interrelation of education and action.

There were other projects in which an interview approach could have yielded valuable data. A follow-up in selected areas in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama would have determined the extent to which citizenship schools helped to develop community leadership. The South Chicago Community Center's report on its work in Trumbull Park Homes did not describe the adult individuals and the tasks each performed, nor whether community skills learned within the SCCC framework were ever employed in other contexts. The same could also be said about those who worked in the Chelsea project, the Earlham program in Kentucky, and those who took part in the Migrant Ministry training program in California and the young leaders in the Benton House clubs.

Unfortunately, in the beginning, we relied too much on grantee reports and failed to provide sufficient funds for the documentation of progress made toward achieving objectives. By the time it became clear that we would not get much of the evidence we expected, it was too late to pursue alternatives. In the end, out of the forty-three projects for which a final report was required, there were seven final reports published in letter press; ten mimeographed documents, in some cases consisting of several volumes each, which had been prepared by competent social scientists; twelve reports by grantees suggesting a significant basis for certain conclusions; and five projects which supplied somewhat fragmentary materials, from which at least some conclusions might be drawn. We can say something useful at least about thirty-four of the forty-three projects.

Evaluation

Like any institution which undertakes to bring about certain changes, the Foundation was concerned to find out whether a given effort had achieved any significant success.⁶The question seems simple, but getting useful answers was not so easy-especially as the answers depended on activities carried on by others and, furthermore, on what evidence they could provide of success or failure. In addition, concealed in this seemingly simple question were other questions with which grantees were not ready to deal effectively. For example, some were not really clear about their objectives, nor were they certain about what constituted evidence of progress toward them.

It should be made clear, too, that although we expected grantees to be honest and prudent in their expenditure of funds, our reporting requirements did not concentrate on this. Nor were we looking for a mere recital of activities. Rather, we wanted reports from the grantee showing clearly what was done and why, what difficulties were encountered, what results could be identified, what reasons could be advanced for observed successes and failures in reaching the objectives and the consequences that flowed from these results. By paying attention to such matters, we hoped both parties would obtain a clearer picture of the reality in the situation. By raising such questions with grantees, we were asking them to test their perceptions of reality. Is the situation really what they think it is? We were trying "to help the operator to see potentialities for improvement they may otherwise have overlooked."⁷

In summary form, our evaluation approach embodied the following elements: (1) The goal of the Foundation was to assist applicants to bring about certain changes in individuals, that is, improvements in their abilities as citizens in a democratic society; and (2) these changes in behavior involved changes in ways of thinking, feeling and acting which were specific to citizenship. Some examples of such behavior were gaining information concerning requirements for voter registration, developing understanding of an issue such as conservation versus redevelopment of a neighborhood and learning to think creatively about how to apply zoning regulations to improve conditions in a neighborhood. Feeling in one's citizen role might refer to developing an attitude of acceptance of others for what they are as individuals-free of stereotypes; developing a conviction that joining with others to try to solve neighborhood problems would be worthwhile; developing a willingness to serve in some capacity, say, as chairman of a committee; gaining the courage to stand up for one's rights: and developing a sensitivity to the rights and feelings of others. Acting in a citizen role would also imply a range of possible behavior: gaining the skills of leading a discussion on some problem or issue facing one's group or neighborhood and learning to organize and conduct a campaign to solve such a problem.

Acting includes thinking and feeling, behavior which becomes effective in action as one gains the skills to mobilize the strengths on one's own side (if that is the appropriate model in the given situation) to surmount the obstacles to achievement of a goal. Anyone of average intelligence should be capable of understanding these models of behavior. Yet it became obvious that in almost all cases applicants had never thought about their programs in this way. The 4-H Club study staff was, of course, an obvious exception. But county 4-H Club agents, when asked what they were doing to achieve citizenship objectives, would merely respond by listing activities which they conducted.

Hence, a good deal of my discussion with grantees about final reports focused on the kinds of changes that might be brought about in the behavior of people. But to most applicants, a focus on behavioral changes had not been their starting point. Like the 4-H Club agents, their concern was with participation in some activity. It is our hope that these discussions enabled participants to identify more fundamental purposes than they had originally envisaged. That is, for a staff to bring about some result in the community would be less useful in the long run than helping the participants to bring about changes. There was also another aspect of the problem which presented difficulties. If a change were sought in some behavior (suitably identified and stated), how could one ascertain that progress had been made toward achieving it? What kinds of evidence must one look for? This question was also explored with grantees.

The following will illustrate some of the types of answers as to what might constitute evidence of progress toward objectives. (1) When blacks on Johns Island learned that payment of taxes on property above a certain value would qualify them to register, regardless of their ability to read, this represented evidence of their progress toward the objective of gaining information about their rights of franchise-gaining information is an aspect of thinking. (2) When CSO members in Stockton studied the proposed urban redevelopment project which would affect their barrio, they learned that annexation meant their homes would be condemned because they could not meet housing code requirements and that any purchase payments would be applied against welfare payments previously received, Through the discussions in an "education" meeting they came to understand (another aspect of thinking) that every interest would benefit but themselves. (3) When I asked an old man what the CSO meant to him and he replied, "Senor, we are no longer afraid," he was providing evidence of a gain in courage, a most important kind of change in feeling. And (4) when the president of a local group appeared before the city council for the first time in his life and argued effectively in support of his group's position, answering questions, countering objections and marshaling arguments, he had learned to act as a leader of a group.

In addition to the items discussed above, attention was also given to exploring with grantees the kinds of data needed for evaluation. If precise data could be produced, this would be welcome. But one must not confuse precision with relevance.⁸Very often, common sense data could be very helpful in establishing what and why it happened, with what result and what, if any connection existed with subsequent results. As already noted, these simple examples seemed difficult for grantees to grasp and place at the core of their reporting. One reason for this may be that the goals of grantee and grantor were usually not the same. We were interested in people acquiring new, or improving existing, behavior appropriate to citizenship. The grantee would typically be interested in forming an organization or solving a problem. The grantee report would emphasize activities carried out rather than changes in various attitudes involved in the role of citizen. Hence, the hoped for changes in individuals had to be inferred from grantee reports. However, certain reports did provide direct evidence of behavioral change. The most noteworthy were the NORC report on the AFSC Interns-in-Community Service and reports by the Bureau for Applied Social Research on the Encampment for Citizenship. These evaluation research studies provided substantive, detailed evidence of behavioral change, especially in attitudes.

There is one further point to be noted. It was stated earlier that the trustees had no intention of initiating projects to achieve their goals for the improvement of American citizenship, either as direct undertakings by Foundation staff or by contracting with others. At the same time, we have acknowledged our discussions with grantees, in which we raised questions about what they were doing. In the process, we challenged their assumptions and questioned the mutual consistency of their objectives and activities. And we talked with them about participant activities as embodying various citizenship functions and about ways of encouraging change in citizenship behavior. For some grantees, such questions had the effect of pushing them into new ground. Most of these, I believe, welcomed the new perspective, but not all. Alinsky moved in this direction only grudgingly. He, after all, saw the goal as the building of power, and the problem was to teach local leaders his way of achieving power. In conclusion, insofar as the questions I raised significantly changed the grantee's goals and its conception of how to achieve them, then to that extent the Foundation's view had had some measure of influence on the grantee's view. To that degree, the Foundation shared some responsibility for the project.

What Was Learned About the Improvement of Civic Competence

I come now to the question of what was learned from grantee projects about citizenship education. The answers will be dealt with in two parts. The first part is concerned with what was learned about the reasons for success and failure in the formation and operation of citizen organizations established more or lesson a community basis. Based on the experience of our grantees, I believe that we can assert that certain principles and methods were more effective than others. Because this account is based on the projects supported by this foundation, it will not constitute a comprehensive treatment of the field. Nevertheless, the results are sufficiently useful to warrant offering statements about such matters as the appropriateness of the basic aim of the grantee vis-à-vis the people served, who should be included in a community organizing effort (anyone or just those with certain interests? individuals or organizations?), availability of local leadership, the need for staff and the reasons therefor, the possibilities for financing staff and other costs, confrontation versus cooperation as an organizational tactic and the comparative effectiveness of various kinds of sponsorship. The second part deals with what was learned about changes in participant behavior which were relevant to citizen roles. What kinds of changes occurred in ways of thinking, feeling and acting? Under what circumstances did they take place? What were the dynamics which appeared to be at work? Did participation in citizen organizations encourage significant improvements in civic competence? What can we say about the relative impacts of didactic instruction and of interactions of members of a group?

As noted earlier, in some cases the evidence on such questions is often frustratingly meager. Furthermore, by considering such problems separately (as we must), we are, in effect, trying to free the content of a given question from the web of interrelated variables affecting the interactions of individuals in a specific situation. Thus, in our attempt to grasp the reality of what has occurred, by looking at one element at a time, we do violence to the total picture. Hence, whatever we may say about any one element must usually be qualified by reference to other variables. Nevertheless, I believe something useful can be said.

What Was Learned About Community Organizing

Before proceeding to explore the principles employed, by design or otherwise, by our grantees in assisting the formation of citizen organizations, there are two general considerations to be noted. The first concerns those grantees whose projects involved a community focus and how they understood the idea of community. The second question, which arises from time to time, asks whether someone has the right to go into a community with the purpose of changing it. Although the latter point is not one which was raised in more than a very few cases, it did come up.

The Community as Understood by Grantees

Although an extensive literature on community theory does exist, our grantees, for the most part, did not seem to be overtly concerned with theory. The materials describing the various projects-American Indian Development, Community Dynamics Program, Goddard College, Industrial Areas Foundation, Migrant Ministry, Highlander Folk School, Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, and South Chicago Community Center do, however, contain statements which can be taken as overtly indicative of the nature of the community, that is, any community which the several grantees might seek to address. In certain other cases, elements of such a theoretical commitment can be inferred from the activities undertaken. In still other cases, the nature of the community seems to have been taken entirely for granted, and we are left with a mere description of boundaries or of ethnic composition or of some other variable applicable to a particular community.

For D'Arcy McNickle, the "community" referred to a cultural homogeneity, to kinship threads which bound the people together, rather than to mere physical proximity. It is a place where common interests are shared, where people work together, where trouble between people can be settled where it occurs, where there is mutual respect, trust and tolerance. Then differences can be resolved for the good of the group. But in this instance, these considerations are imbedded in a value system quite different from that of white culture. Hence, the worker from the outside must be extremely careful not to damage the community by inappropriate initiatives, no matter how well intentioned. In a community so conceptualized, the power of decision must rest in the hands of the people, to be exercised in accordance with their traditions, modified as they come to see the need to do so, in order to adjust as they see fit to changing conditions. For such a change to occur, there must be a process of self-realization. This process can be assisted but it cannot be imposed.

Strangely enough, the Goddard College project eventually came to a view of the community not so far removed from that of American Indian Development (AID). But the Goddard College project reflected a change in the concept of community between the drafting of the proposal and its implementation. Initially, the community was thought of as a locality which had not yet realized that its problems were to a significant degree due to a profound shift in the relative importance of agriculture and industry in Vermont. The proposed annual residential workshop (the establishment of which had been urged by the Vermont Labor and Farm Council) was thought of as a vehicle through which lay people and professionals in various state organizations would discuss the problems of the state and the resources available to deal with them. The fruits of their labors were to be conveyed to the local community level through their several contacts and be utilized there with the help of project staff.

The assumption that this process would work from the top down proved faulty. The anticipated connection between a statewide official or representative and a specific community did not materialize. And, in any case, the concept was quite at variance with what the project staff person believed. To see local people as the starting point was part of his definition of community. He saw them as being able to choose goals and move toward them in ways they would find satisfying, without his interference by way of suggestions as to community needs, to desirable activities or to methods of action.

Put in these terms, we can see some similarity to the AID concept of the Crownpoint Navajo community and of how the staff should work with it. A difference, of course, was that the Vermont community would vigorously reject what it would perceive as an attempt to infringe upon its independence. The Crownpoint Navajo would simply withdraw-but, I would expect, with their disillusionment remaining as a barrier to participation by an outsider in any future community development initiative. The responses would be different, of course, because the two communities differed from each other.

To William and Loureide Biddle, a community is a potential thing, an aggregation of people who have the capacity for cooperative, self-directed activity toward pro-social goals. The people are seen as able to become intelligently and ethically self-controlled individuals with the assistance of helpful but non-domineering friends. Each person is valuable, unique and capable of growth toward responsibility. Each has underdeveloped leadership abilities. Their abilities tend to emerge when they work together in small groups that seek to serve the common good. Although there will always be differences, they can be handled in such a way as to make the differences creative. The responsibility for the welfare of the whole (of all persons) rests upon responsible groups made up of responsible individuals. A concept of the common good can grow out of group experience addressed to the welfare of all residents in an area. This sense of community must be rediscovered for most people today. The goal is not the solution of this or that problem but to achieve "responsible competence to work on their problems."⁹ Ultimately, the concept of community derives from a Christian belief in the redemptive capacity of each human being. Like the AID and Goddard College projects, the emphasis in the Community Dynamics Program (CDP) is on the people and the need to respect them as the focus for change. The difference seems to lie in the level of initiative taken by the project workers in each case. In the AID, the staff stood ready to help, but only if asked. In the Goddard College project, the staff is only modestly more assertive. In the CDP, the Biddles went to a community and "visited around" on the assumption that there must be problems, which, after their articulation, the Biddles offered their services to help the community learn to solve.

The view of the community held by these grantees assumed that any resident should be able to take part in a community effort on a basis of equality with any other. Others viewed the community as containing adversary interests, one of which was to be chosen to be helped. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), for example, sought to organize those residents in a community who were the victims of discrimination because they lacked the power to secure fair treatment. Gaining and using power was necessary because otherwise those guilty of discrimination would not stop such practices. Appeals to good will, reason or justice were seen as likely to be ineffectual. The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference (HP-KCC) defined its part-community as consisting of those residents who wanted to live in an interracial community of high standards. Therefore, it did not recruit among members of the real estate profession. Nevertheless, it felt that cooperation of the contrary-minded could be forthcoming if they could be involved in a realistic appraisal of the facts in the situation. Appeals to abstract moral principles were considered counterproductive. The South Chicago Community Center addressed itself to that group of parents in Trumbull Park Homes and South Deering who wanted a nursery school for their children even though it would be integrated. The South Chicago Community Center position on tactics was not too dissimilar from that of the HPKCC. Highlander also identified part-communities when it helped disenfranchised blacks through its training programs to become registered to vote. Each served a constituency needing help to get fair treatment from the larger community. Each also saw its constituency as needing help to learn how to carry on for itself when the project was over.

The Migrant Citizenship Education Project (MCEP) ostensibly saw the community in similar terms, its part-community being migrant workers, but, historically, it had also included establishment interests (churches, social work agencies, growers) in its program approach. Hence, its operations were somewhat ambivalent, attempting in some circumstances to try to serve two masters-which it could not successfully do. On the other hand, the Migrant Ministry staff in California identified about as closely with the approach used by Ross and Chavez as an evangelical organization could be expected to do. The difference lay primarily in the holdover in the MCEP of old patterns of providing services to migrants with a nod to the need for their own self-development and the emphasis given in the California trainee program for Migrant Ministry staff, stressing the importance of learning to help oneself, especially within an organization including one's fellows. (Between the ending of the MCEP and the eventual acceptance by several religious organizations at the national level of the idea of community development as a vehicle for service by the church to the migrant community, there seems to have been a change-not totally, but a change, nevertheless in thinking by MCEP staff as revealed in final reports on the Migrant Ministry projects.)

Even though there was a great deal of variation in what our grantees said or implied about the nature of the community with which they intended to work (and some said nothing about this), they all said something that was descriptive of the particular community in which the grantee proposed to work. The most obvious response to what constituted the community was to describe it geographically. This was, of course, an element common to all of the community organizing projects. Geographic boundaries were sometimes stated precisely, for example, by the streets bounding the community. In Crownpoint, the community was defined by those chapter areas, for example, a drainage area, whose leaders elected to travel to Crownpoint. In fact, the Crownpoint community expanded as leaders who lived farther away from Crownpoint than did the original group decided that it would be worthwhile to take part in the Navajo Development Committee meetings. Granted, however, that the geographic element was a necessary factor, the only project known to be affected in a decisive way by a choice of geographic boundaries was Hull House. Because the boundaries in this case included a large Italian area, controlled politically by the West Side, the way was blocked to gaining support for an urban conservation and renewal program.

In other cases, factors such as ethnic composition became part of the definition. So, in the case of the Community Service Organization (CSO) program, although articles and bylaws typically rejected ethnic exclusivity, in practice it was rare for a CSO member to be other than a Mexican-American. The citizenship schools, which evolved from the Highlander project, recruited blacks only.

The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) was not entirely black, but virtually so, the exceptions being a few white merchants and clergy and a few Latinos. But then, the Woodlawn community was almost entirely black by the time organizing was well underway.

Social class also proved to be a factor. As an example, the Freedom House project started because its middle-class members wanted to protect their substantial investments in their homes. Their immediate concerns were not those of the lower-class majority. And this touches on one of the most significant issues involved in assisting citizens to improve their communities: the question of who should be organized, which will be discussed below.

And, lastly, because no community organization included everyone in the community, those not sharing in the range of interests defined by the areas of organization activity would not be members of that organizational community. Hence, the specific elements which singly or in some combination served to delineate a particular community were geography, ethnic composition, social class and interests or concerns.

Who Decides to Organize?

Only four grantees (AID, Earlham College, Goddard College and the IAF) asked the question, By what right does an outsider enter (intrude) into a community to try to change it? AID, of course, would deny that it entered the community with intent to change it. And the IAF said that it responded only to an invitation from a community. In the other community projects, the Foundation acted on the premise that the situation in virtually any community could stand improvement, and if an outsider was willing to help on terms acceptable to community residents and in ways consistent with the Foundation's purposes, then a request for financial assistance should be considered. This view may seem straightforward enough, but insome projects, agreement on what was acceptable was less than community-wide because the organizing effort was directed only to a part of the community

But let us look at the various positions on this issue as revealed in the projects we supported. First, we should note that in a case like the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, the organizing effort was wholly indigenous. Intervention from the outside was not an issue. Second, in all the other cases involving the community, the grantee was in some sense an outsider. But within this group there were differences as to assumptions on whether change ought to take place and as to what the relationship of project and community ought to be.

The grantee most overtly concerned with the question of intrusion was American Indian Development. This was so because the staff did not see itself as coming to Crownpoint with the intention of helping the Navajo to change. If after considering the matter, the Navajo indicated a wish to move in a certain direction, and if they wished the staff to help them, the staff stood ready to do so. But when, at the end, they saw the group make a decision which the staff believed to be disastrous and which they might have prevented, they refrained from doing so because "saving the project" could not be done in this way. They would merely have destroyed the trust which had been built up, and they would have been perceived by the Indians as being just another group of manipulators of their future. The AID staff believed that they could be helpful but only if and so long as the Navajo could continue to trust the AID staff.

In its original form, the Goddard College project stressed a commitment to help communities solve problems which the grantee had already identified in part. But when the staff person was hired, he began to talk about the community as the place in which "areas, directions, motivation and methods of change--if any--are deemed to reside most meaningfully...."¹⁰The process was conceived of as entirely open ended. Changes would be important to a community only if they were self-chosen. The grantee's initiative was to be limited to offering to meet with a community group and to discuss what they would like to do and how the staff could help. All of the initiative was to reside with the local community.

The other community-oriented programs all involved some commitment to the notion that some kind of change ought to take place. But they seemed to differ as to the degree of initiative to be taken, and the amount of "guidance" to be given, by the grantee to the community. Highlander was probably closest in this group to the AID viewpoint. If queried about the AID position, Myles Horton would have understood it. At the same time, he would feel justified in taking a more active role while being careful not to preempt the community residents' responsibility for decisions. The principle steadily followed was that not only must the interested citizens in the community make the decisions but that the decision should be an informed one. This view emphasized change in the individual rather than solving a problem merely for the sake of doing so.

The Community Dynamics Program of Earlham College, like Highlander's, emphasized the development of citizen competence to solve their own problems "in contact with helpful but non-domineering friends."¹¹ The central goal was not to solve problems but the growth of individuals toward handling responsibility. A difference between them, however, was that Earlham staff played a more active role in the community than Horton customarily did. The Biddles, assuming problems existed, went into communities to work with local residents.

When we look at other projects with a community focus, we find that each grantee believed that problems existed in the community and that assistance should be made available. The IAF wanted to help eliminate the discrimination practiced against members of lower socio-economic groups. Because it believed that powerlessness was at the root of the problem, its first task was to convince enough members of a community that this was a valid diagnosis and that something could be done about it. Nevertheless, Alinsky would say that the IAF would only undertake to organize in a community upon invitation of local residents. How bona fide an invitation this might be, it is hard to judge. Certainly, a significant group invited the IAF to come into Woodlawn. And in at least some California communities, local citizens requested assistance to set up a CSO like those they had observed or heard about elsewhere. But in most cases involving the IAF, some preliminary explorations and discussions by IAF staff preceded the invitation.

Other grantees, also servicing lower socio-economic groups, were more direct. The Migrant Ministry's MCEP staff simply kept looking until they found some individual or group with which to cooperate. Neighborhood houses considered themselves to be members of their neighborhoods, so, presumably, they did not view an organizing effort as an intrusion but merely as a way of helping their neighbors. Many lower-status residents, of course, might not necessarily look at the matter in this way. In the case of Hudson Guild, for example, it is doubtful that more than a handful of Chelsea residents were aware of the application for funds to support an organizing effort. But Hudson Guild saw the need to solve problems, including securing better housing, as justifying its taking the initiative.

If we think of the various initiatives described above as lying along a continuum, I would suggest that the National Conference of Catholic Charities (NCCC) projects represent the most arbitrary form of entering a community. I say this because the decision was two steps removed from the local residents. That is to say, the NCCC was in the position of having to find a local sponsor, which would then have the responsibility of managing a program it had not conceptualized in the first place. This circumstance would seem to have been a negative factor in subsequent events, especially in Lackawanna. It is remarkable that in Butte the sponsoring group accomplished as much as it did.

Upon reviewing the various attitudes of grantees toward undertaking some kind of organizing in a community, one may conclude that the AID position was grounded in a commendable fundamental principle, but does this make the IAF position wrong? I would not say so. The Crownpoint Navajo, as McNickle encountered them, were still largely members of a folk culture. To have tried to push them beyond what they would consider acceptable behavior would have been self-defeating. On the other hand, in California the IAF was dealing with people who could see that their interests were adversely affected by the rules and practices of growers, local governments, welfare departments and Immigration and Naturalization staff. They were anxious to fight back, once they were convinced it would not be futile. They might become disillusioned and apathetic upon failure to secure redress of their grievances, but it seems unlikely that hope would be shattered beyond retrieval.

On the basis of the record available to us, it seems to me that in only a few cases did the manner of entry into the community, or the differences in outlook between would-be server and those to be served, determine the success or failure of organizing efforts. In these few cases, the "invitation" was not real, or those proffering help differed so greatly from the community involved that little if anything happened. In Altoona, the Highlander staff workers who tried to start something, "from out of nowhere," as it were, were unable to overcome the mistrust of community residents. In Lackawanna, there was no real invitation; Catholic Charities of Buffalo merely agreed to accept and spend the money. There was no genuine burning desire to organize; the organizing effort never seemed to come to grips with interests and issues in the community. This could be said of several of the neighborhood house projects as well. Chicago Commons Association (CCA) and Hull House can be cited as further examples of the gap between the would-be helper and the community because of fundamental differences in values and perceptions of community needs. In sum, the Foundation took the view that so long as the grantee staff was prepared to work with community residents in such a way that the latter could make decisions on an informed basis, significant good and minimum damage might be expected to result.

So much for general considerations. Let us now turn to a review of what was learned, insofar as the record discloses it, from the carrying out of the various community-oriented projects.

Factors Affecting Success or Failure

In the pages which follow, I propose to describe some of the principles which appeared to influence the success or failure of efforts by our grantees to form and operate community organizations. The elements which seemed to be critical in these projects included the following: (1) Was the purpose to solve problems or to teach local citizens how to do so? This issue deals with the question of why the activity is undertaken. (2) Who was to be included? anyone or only those with certain interests? (3) What is to be the basis of membership? individuals or organizations? (4) How can prospective members be reached? (5) How is the program to be conducted? Are program elements mutually consistent? How are goals and activities to be decided? How are goals to be achieved? through conflict or cooperation? (6) Where may leadership be found? anywhere? Who makes decisions? staff or members? How can leaders be trained? (7) Why is staff needed? (8) How can organization costs be financed? (9) What considerations, if any, applied especially to Indian projects? and (10) How does the kind of sponsorship affect the result?

These points appear to have been critical to the success or failure of projects conducted by those grantees who undertook, more or less directly, to assist citizens to form community organizations. Although they can be treated separately, in practice they were, for the most part, interconnected. For example, if the purpose were to help citizens learn to help themselves, then the role of community leaders would be maximized and the staff role muted accordingly. In order to clarify the impact of the factors listed above, there follow selected illustrations of their effect in practice.

Basic Intent. It is not my intention here to review the wide range of the many specific project purposes. Rather, I wish to indicate the markedly different views held by grantees with respect to the basic reason for helping citizens form a community organization. Some saw the amelioration or solution of problems (for example, discrimination or lack of housing at affordable costs) as the reason for organizing a community. But of these, at least one grantee saw that solving the problem required the development of sufficient power to accomplish the result. This depended in turn on helping members of the organization learn how to build a power base. In a sense, however, being able to use power to eliminate the problem was primary and the learning was subordinate to that purpose.

Others, while not rejecting the solution of problems as desirable, saw the primary goal as bringing about changes in the behavior of people so that they could learn to take responsibility for deciding what problems to tackle, if any, and for solving their problems themselves. Those who held this view considered it, first, more consistent with an attitude of respect for the individual (which some felt to be an imperative, especially in some of the projects involving Indians), and second, a way of ensuring that the community would continue to be able to solve its problems after the grant ended. Another kind of purpose characterized only the United Community Fund (UCF) project in San Francisco. In this case, problem solving was eschewed by the staff in favor of trying to create a sense of community among neighborhood residents.

It should not be expected, of course, that our projects fitted neatly into the groupings just noted. There were gradations from one to another. Perhaps at one extreme was American Indian Development, which stood ready to help the Crownpoint Navajo learn how to deal with community problems but only if they wished AID to help them do so. AID would respond but only with great sensitivity. It would help only in ways which would not contravene basic values of the Crownpoint Navajo-even at the risk of "failing" to solve, for example, the problem of how to put the Community House and its service enterprises on a sound footing. The value of this emphasis on change in the individuals involved was recognized by the area director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs when he contrasted McNickle's approach with that of his own staff who have "no time to teach." The emphasis in their work was on conduct of a program to extend services. The changes needed in the individual to enable him to incorporate new possibilities into his mode of life tend to be ignored in the typical bureaucratic program.

Other examples include the American Indian Center. Its success in developing a sense of identity and self-esteem was directly dependent on the freedom of each participant in the center to create and test, in a sense, his own program. The American Indian Chicago Conference exemplifies remarkable growth in the outlook of many Indians, a growth which was possible because from the beginning it was made clear that this was to be an Indian program and not a program for Indians. The key principles were open communication and the right to decide. Other grantees also emphasized the importance of the individual's role in the process of organizing to solve problems. Highlander continually turned responsibility back to the individuals in the group to determine what should be done about a situation. The Community Dynamics Program, too, was concerned with the individual's development as the primary, though not only, goal.

Alinsky's approach was somewhat different. For him, there were twin goals. The primary goal was to achieve the solution of the problems identified by the organization and, secondarily, to develop the abilities of leaders and members of the organization (and staff, if there were any) to the point where an effective problem-solving organization could maintain its power on a continuing basis. Development of individuals was considered necessary to creating the organization power base upon which solution of problems depended. Ross, I believe, shared this position to a point. The principal difference would have been that Ross would place a relatively higher value on development of the individual.

On a smaller scale, the staff of the Metropolitan Center for Neighborhood Renewal (MCNR) although established to promote education and action to improve neighborhoods, especially its physical aspects, was very careful to encourage the local organizations with which it worked to take responsibility. Hence, the latter were able to develop the ability to apply what they had learned to new situations, taking and carrying out new responsibilities.

The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, because of the complexity of its structure (involving a relatively large, high-status board of directors, hundreds of persons in block clubs represented by a Block Steering Committee and hundreds of volunteers coordinated by a relatively large professional staff), is more difficult to categorize. Because of the nature of the problems faced and the complexity of the urban renewal program and the fact that the conference must act in an uneasy alliance with the South East Chicago Commission and the University of Chicago, the staff at times took action which may have preempted responsibility that should have been exercised elsewhere in the organization. On the other hand, the staff went to great lengths to communicate to members and other residents of the community what the conference was trying to accomplish and what it was, in fact, doing. And, of course, the hundreds of volunteers learned much about working together to deal with public problems.

The Migrant Citizenship Education Project is of particular interest on this question because it shows the effect of conflicting purpose. The genesis of the project lay in the perception that those served by the Migrant Ministry needed the chance to learn to exercise greater control over their own lives. This required a shift from the traditional pattern of providing services to migrants under the aegis of local committees made up of Migrant Ministry staff, church and other agency personnel and growers. In reality, however, customary practice sometimes prevailed. For example, at the first public meeting held in two of the communities to determine whether a commitment should be made to continue organizing efforts, it was the MCEP staff member who reviewed the purposes and history of the organizing activity and only then turned the meeting over to a local leader. An excellent training opportunity for the local leader was missed. Fortunately, in this case, the organization was able to continue on its own. But in Metro Heights, organizational growth was dampened by the emphasis given to improving welfare services. Gradually, however, the staff began to function in ways that were more nearly consistent with project goals.

In contrast with the projects just discussed, there were others in which the grantees did not seem to appreciate the importance of participant involvement in decision making, of participant responsibility for managing their own affairs or of learning how to establish and maintain a continuing framework for local action. On the Pine Ridge reservation, for example, Indians were asked to serve on a committee advisory to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) staff-the reverse of what should have been done had the goal really been to help Indians to take responsibility for their situation. In the case of Freedom House, the social work-trained staff continued to do things for the community organization (serving as officers, chairing meetings, etc.) instead of encouraging the members of the organization to take responsibility, The Citizen Participation Project staff of the Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago (WCMC) complained about one community group because it wanted to discuss physical facilities rather than social welfare problems. To try to decide which problems local citizens should discuss is certainly an extreme example of denying organization members the right to take responsibility for decisions about matters fundamental to building a viable citizen organization.

In sum, we have seen that while circumstances differed in different communities, in general, projects committed to the development of individuals were more successful in helping communities than those which were primarily concerned with the solving of problems and without due regard to the right of and need for community residents to take responsibility for the decisions affecting them.

Who Should Be Included? There were two principal positions on the question of who should be recruited into an organizing program. A third view was applicable to only one project. One principal position was that organizing can only be done effectively by bringing together individuals who share or can be brought to share a sense of certain needs or problems. The other was that one and all should be invited to join and work together to help solve community problems. Of those who reflected this latter position (principally social work-oriented persons), some did so from the conviction that it would be morally wrong to exclude anyone from a community organizing effort. Others may not have seen an issue on this point at all but merely assumed that a community effort should include everyone. The third position was really not concerned with solving problems as such but saw the purpose as developing a sense of community as an end in itself.

The rationale for the mutually reinforcing cluster-of-interests position, that is, organizing on the basis of interests and issues, included several elements. First, it made sense to some grantees to recruit members who would have a strong motivation to work for the organization. Second, it was important that the interests be diverse enough to ensure bringing in sufficient members for the organization to become powerful enough to make a difference. Alinsky, especially, urged these principles. Third, it was important not to incorporate interests which were inimical to the goals of the organization. To do otherwise would be self-defeating. For this reason, the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference deliberately refrained from recruiting among groups affiliated with the real estate industry in order not to compromise its goal of building an interracial community. This principle was not fully observed, however, in the case of the Community Service Organization (CSO). Typically, a CSO would be organized on the basis of a cluster of issues which, as a whole or in part, would appeal to less-advantaged Mexican-Americans. (Almost no Anglos or blacks were members.) These issues/problems included discrimination with respect to naturalization, police activities and access to social welfare and employment. When a CSO devoted itself to such issues, it achieved a significant base. But when middle-class elements joined to share in CSO-achieved power and status and in the process succeeded in moving the program emphasis away from confrontation on issues which embarrassed middle-class members, the bulk of the chapter membership vanished. (The consequence of such frustrating developments in one CSO after another contributed to Cesar Chavez' decision to organize farm workers into a new kind of union, that is, one that would be free of the tactical clichés of the existing union organizations and free of the internal incompatibilities which led ultimately to the breakdown of the CSO program. The fact that the union was limited to farm workers in itself ensured that the cluster of interests principle was being applied.)

The cluster-of-interests principle was even more successfully applied in The Woodlawn Organization (TWO). Many issues such as fair business practices and better health programs were of concern to all. As for issues of concern to low-income members, such as welfare, no evidence came to my notice that such issues were a problem to middle-class members in Woodlawn. Although its ESF project was very successful, Highlander is somewhat more difficult to analyze in relation to this cluster principle because it did not take responsibility for organizing communities as did the IAF. Nevertheless, it did train leaders and potential leaders, and in certain circumstances its staff assisted local leaders to organize citizenship schools.

Who, then, constituted the community to be addressed? The citizenship school program, for example, included only blacks, but all of them were interested in supporting the goal of acquiring the franchise. Although this goal could not be openly opposed by any black, some would hesitate to declare themselves on so dangerous an issue. Therefore, the goal determined the membership; hence, the success of the organization was unlikely to be vitiated by self-canceling struggles in the organization (except, of course, as struggles for control might ensue). And once voter registration of blacks reached significant levels in a community, interest in political campaigns, both in issues and candidates, followed.  Then others could visualize the possibility of reducing discrimination in jobs or access to services. A series of compatible interests could grow and attract corresponding support. The Highlander programs supported by ESF and others were perhaps as successful as any to which we contributed in part because they were based upon a cluster of compatible interests.

The consequence of failing to recruit on the basis of a compatible cluster of interests can be seen in the MCEP project in Fruit Plain. In fact, initially there was a failure to include minority group representation at all. When such persons were invited, it became obvious that they wanted to have nothing to do with migrants and their problems. Only when a leader of a group of recent dropouts from the migrant stream was persuaded to try to bring other blacks like himself together with black migrants could an organization begin to coalesce. The problem of the MCEP was that it could not quite erase from its memory the notion that the Establishment committee in the community was the proper starting point-in spite of basic incompatibilities of interest with migrants.

The effectiveness of associating compatible interests, even in the face of overwhelming odds, was forcefully demonstrated in Trumbull Park Homes. In this case, a sagacious, dedicated social worker staff was able to build an interracial group of parents, concerned for the welfare of their children, into an effective organization in spite of the violent, anti-black, anti-welfare campaign waged by the surrounding community. When certain church groups tried to make integration the issue, the SCCC director rejected their participation. But the SCCC succeeded in integrating its program; the church groups did not. Everett Cope, SCCC director, also stressed the importance of seeking another problem to work on, as soon as the first problem was on the way to solution. So establishment of a successful nursery school was followed by a club program for teenagers from both Trumbull Park Homes and South Deering. Later, meeting the needs of the elderly became the basis for discussion and cooperative action. For Cope, this process meant that by remaining united in efforts to solve a problem, the group could better defend itself against attacks seeking to destroy the enterprise.

Of the projects described above, the three funded to test the possibility that others might use IAF principles were unsuccessful. They were unsuccessful in part for reasons related to the cluster-of-interests principle. In organizing Butte, about which effort Alinsky was quite euphoric in the initial stages, interests were recruited which eventually failed to agree on important issues. The organizing campaign had proceeded so vigorously as to become in effect a "whole community" approach-an approach quite contrary to IAF principles. Splits developed between Protestant and Catholic interests and between business and labor interests. Appointing a prominent union leader as chair of the committee on industry proved to be a mistake. There was a dispute over fund raising. But it must at the same time be recognized that there were other negatives which affected the eventual failure: authoritarian leadership, strikes, economic depression, etc. In Lackawanna, organizing was conducted as though disclosure of interests was to be avoided to protect the organization and its program from becoming labeled as controversial. No issues were identified as a rallying point for recruitment of members while various groups (for example, the Chamber of Commerce) worried about threats to their own interests. Some successes were achieved, but they were sporadic, and no clear, vigorous program emerged from the conflicting array of interests and non-interests. It is almost as though the Citizens Federation of Lackawanna (CFL) was trying to avoid playing a forthright role. Because there was no step-by-step development of a set of interests undertaken with due regard for their mutual compatibility and for their potential for attracting support, there were only a few exceptions to a record of comparative inaction.

Chelsea displayed a different, and also unsuccessful, version of the interest cluster principle. In this case, the organization was fatally flawed from the beginning because it was based on irreconcilable elements. The commitment of the grantee's board to the construction of Penn Station South was incompatible with the interests of some 10,000 Irish-Catholic residents of Chelsea, plus many Puerto Ricans as well. Even when it became evident that construction of Penn Station South was inevitable, the internal conflicts which had developed prevented a successful campaign to provide for a more humane and effective relocation program.

That the Chelsea project turned out as it did was also due, in part, to the incompatibility of goals articulated by Alinsky in the staff training process (looking to the development of local leadership and working for an effective relocation program) and those reflecting the interests of Hudson Guild. While the latter did not demonstrate its ability to promote a mass citizen organization, its position in the community meant that it could block the other side. And it did. Irreconcilable goals and interests defeated the enterprise.

Contrasted with the cluster-of-interests idea which, in effect, sought to limit organizing to those members of the community sharing such interests, is what I call the whole community approach, which several of our grantees employed. For example, the Community Dynamics Program of Earlham College was wholly devoted to it. It seemed to the Biddles that a community organization should be all-inclusive because rejection of consensus and mutual acceptance as goals would be morally indefensible. Inthe CDP project in Kentucky, this approach appeared to work well presumably because flood control was a problem of concern to all. But in Indianapolis, significant issues could not be undertaken in the same way as, for example, in Hyde Park-Kenwood where there were enough blacks and whites who would support efforts to maintain an interracial community because they valued the privilege of living in an area of high (that is, middle-class) standards even if this required the addition of a staff person to encourage white tenancy to prevent apartment buildings from becoming all black. In Indianapolis, blacks could not accept such a commitment. Therefore, the organization could only work on such relatively bland issues as protecting a neighborhood park (successfully) from conversion to a parking lot. If a group in the neighborhood wanted to try to work toward an interracial community, it could not do so within the organization because it would be immobilized by those who did not accept the goal.

What of the other grantees who preferred a whole community approach? In the Crownpoint community, our grantee was concerned that whatever was done should be acceptable to the Indians served. But, of course, Indian societies, like white societies, have their internal differences. But all were free to join in the meetings of the Navajo Development Committee. Decisions were arrived at by consensus in the traditional way. Excellent progress was being made when there was a sudden overturn in the tribal government in which young tribal members defeated older council members, the educated "progressives" ousted the more traditional Navajo and got control, not only of the Tribal Council but of the tribal staff and, through these, of the new wealth from mineral leases. The slow but steady growth, as a result of the project, in information, understanding and confidence of the traditional leaders of the off-reservation Navajo around Crownpoint was callously ignored and came to a halt. The Crownpoint leaders asked for little in comparison with the sums the new tribal staff members offered. What the former could not accept was that the purposes to be served were not those identified by the leaders of the community but purposes imposed by the tribal bureaucracy. So the whole community approach proved to be only partial in practice but not because of any decision by the project sponsor. (Also, it must be remembered that the tribal staff at Window Rock was far away and, hence, was not part of the Crownpoint community. The community which has the power to control events may well extend beyond the limits of the community within which organization members live.)

The Goddard College program also encouraged a community-wide basis for its work. In at least one case, the approach worked in spite of undertaking to deal (successfully) with a school consolidation problem which had divided the community for many years. In San Francisco, on the other hand, the United Community Fund project failed in the attempt to inaugurate a housing program in Haight-Ashbury. It failed because in the absence of any membership requirement, opponents could simply take over any meeting by dint of superior numbers. In this case, the whole community approach became an exercise in anarchy.

From the above experience, it appears that most of the successful community organizing programs were those which began by identifying a cluster of reasonably compatible concerns. The cluster identified those interested in being part of the organization, who were or could be motivated to work together toward the agreed goals. Such cooperation could also characterize projects which welcomed all in the community to join; but, in such cases, the goals must be such that all would support them. The whole community approach depends, then, upon an indispensable minimum of shared values and interests. However, if an important issue should arise on which some would register vigorous dissent, the organization would be likely to split or become immobilized. Even if the point is implicit in what has already been said, it should be reemphasized that where a minority had to struggle to secure basic rights-civil, economic or political-the inclusion of those opposed to making vigorous use of the organization to secure such rights would be self-defeating. It was the businessmen and school personnel in Lackawanna who opposed the appeal of the Albright tenants for help. Hence, if the purpose of the organizing effort were to combat discrimination against part of the community, it would not be served if the organization also recruited those who discriminated or wished to pretend that discrimination could be eliminated by being "cooperative."

Before leaving this topic, note should be taken of a collateral aspect. In its final report, the Metropolitan Center for Neighborhood Renewal (MCNR) noted several community organizations which it thought were less representative than they should have been. In one case, an existing organization ignored black newcomers. The latter formed their own organization and ignored the whites in turn. The MCNR thought this was a bad thing. My view is that we cannot be sure of this until we know what their respective goals were. A second case seems clearer; a businessmen's group was successful in improving its own area but ignored the surrounding residential section. Its deterioration undid the benefits achieved from renewal of the business area. In this case, the goals of the businessmen's group were too restricted to serve their own best interests. The boundaries of the community should have been widened to include others who had other, though compatible, interests.

Basis of Membership. Closely related to the matter of who should be organized is the question of whether the emphasis should be on recruiting members as individuals or by groups. The record of our grantees does not provide unqualified answers to this question. What the record does show, however, is that, with few exceptions, the choice of one approach or the other seems to have been determined by local circumstances rather than principle. Alinsky's position was one exception. Having emphasized the development of power to influence events as the prerequisite to achievement of its ends by a citizen organization, he argued that the most effective way to do this was to recruit organizations sharing the purposes of those trying to build the citizen organization. This approach would bring in more members quickly. The organizations would offer ready channels of communication into the community. Also, he believed that it would be easier to raise money from dues if they were paid by organizations rather than by individuals. The risk in trying to build an organization of organizations, of course, was that the range of viewpoints within some groups might be so diverse that the thrust of the organization toward its goals might be adversely affected.

In Woodlawn, the organization-of-organizations model worked very well. There were many church groups, fraternal organizations, block clubs and improvement clubs. Because so many residents shared many of the same problems, recruiting organizations as members did not dilute the force of TWO's program. (It is not irrelevant that Woodlawn was almost entirely black.) With organization dues set at $125, TWO received a significant amount of income, sufficient to bridge the gap until other sources could be developed. Also, because each member organization sent perhaps eight to ten delegates, plus several alternates, to the annual Community Congress, there was a great deal of participation and involvement in the business of the organization. The organizational structure was further strengthened by the policy of asking someone who came to TWO for help, for example, a problem with the owner of an apartment building, to organize the other tenants as a group holding membership in TWO.

Even in Butte and Chelsea, significant community organizations were built on the basis of organizational membership. Their failures were due to the incompatibility of elements among the members, among other reasons. But in some cases, forming an organization of organizations was simply not feasible. In the Mexican-American community of California there were virtually no effective organizations. Hence, individual membership was the only feasible alternative. Had the service center idea been pursued earlier in connection with a financial program to support a staff, the CSO might have persisted much longer. But individual membership was the preferred choice of the HP-KCC. It was chosen as the basis of membership because organizational membership might not meet the test of support for the goal of building an interracial community. In this effort, it was successful.

In Lackawanna, neither membership option was clearly espoused. The organizers recognized that if a powerful organization were the goal, it would be helpful if powerful organizations would become members. They were not invited to do so, however, because it would first be necessary to explain what the proposed organization hoped to do. And this, it was feared, would, given the previous history of Lackawanna in dealing with community matters, lead to condemnation of the proposed program as controversial. So, individuals known to be influential in a number of organizations were invited to join what eventually became the CFL. In effect, the discussion of issues was deliberately muted; hence, there was no clear program on the basis of which interested persons and groups could be recruited and organized into an effective force to achieve agreed-upon ends. Because discussion of issues was suppressed at the beginning, elements became involved which proved to be mutually antagonistic. The unwillingness to explore openly what the basis of membership should be suggests that Lackawanna was not an appropriate place for the project in the first place.

In sum, it appears that if the possibility of choice exists, an organization of organizations can probably aggregate power more quickly than can an individual membership approach. But of greater significance is the question of compatibility of interests among the members and the level of competence with which the organizing effort is pursued.

Organizing Tactics. I have pointed out that the basic intent of the grantee had much to do with the kinds of results achieved. But whether the intent was to eliminate a particular problem (for example, inadequate housing) or to help eliminate discrimination against minority citizens or to help citizens to learn how to cope more effectively for themselves, the grantee had to find a way to reach those to be helped. Unfortunately, few of our grantees provided information on this question.

There are, however, a few points which can be made. (1) It did not prove useful to try to approach through other groups the persons who were to be helped. For example, little happened of value to migrants in Fruit Plain so long as the MCEP staff tried to work through the local council of churches. Nor did it help to bring in "leaders" of the black community who were known to council members. Only when the staff began working with a leader of those who had only recently been migrant workers was any progress made. The organizing work had to be done among those who were to be served. (2) Because conditions varied from group to group, the techniques for seeking out persons who might support the organization differed also. In a middle-class community like Hyde Park, membership and other support could be sought through existing organizations-churches, meetings, synagogues, PTA groups, etc. This is a conventional and often an effective approach. But it would not work in the Californian Mexican-American community of the fifties or sixties. The device which worked there was the house meeting, bringing together relatives and trusted friends. The house meeting was a vital key to organizing in such communities. Another useful starting point in low-income communities was the neighborhood bar (the clubhouse in depressed urban areas). And (3) once the organization was functioning, the more successful organizations combined program activity with recruitment of new members, vide, use of the service center idea by the CSO and the TWO practice of basing help to an individual on his undertaking to organize others with the same problem into a group which would then join TWO. These three techniques seem obvious in retrospect but many grantees appeared unaware of them.

Mode of Operation. By "mode of operation," I refer to the approach or methods used in conducting the activities of the citizen organization, including the ways in which grantee staff, organization staff and members interacted. Actions, of course, are guided by a point of view; and, in the present context, mode of operation includes views about staff and their proper role and the degree to which the decisions of the organization should be influenced by professionals or determined by the members, and about how the organization relates to the larger community-whether it asks for help as a boon to be given or demands certain help as a matter of right or, going a step beyond, marshals its forces to compel concessions to its goals. There follow several subsections in which I explore such views held by our grantees which had an impact on results of the projects.

If those being organized are not to become confused or frustrated or even reject the tutelage of project staff, there must be consistency in principles, that is, the advice or training provided must be consistent with the purposes of the program as the former understands them. Given the understanding of community residents that the staff of the Citizen Participation Project of the Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago (WCMC) was to help them to form their own organization, it was a violation of the understanding for the staff to urge the organization to work on problems other tha