Contents
Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 5 Apps/Notes/Refs
Community Organizing, Building and Developing: Their
Relationship to Comprehensive Community Initiatives, by Douglas R. Hess
Chapter 5: Recommendations
and Conclusion
Towards a More Comprehensive
Relationship Between CCIs and Other Practices back
to table of contents
What can be done to better integrate or support all three community
practices in CCIs? I would suggest the following:
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Training for all participating staff (and funders) involved in CCIs
in each community practice. An increased appreciation of each practice
is needed before any attempt at combining practices in a healthy and thorough
manner can become common. Not only do community organizers, developers
and builders need to understand each others’ practices, they also need
to appreciate how they can benefit from other community practices.
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A method for defining participation is needed (see Holleman, 1996;
Sviridoff and Ryan, 1996). What ever definitions are used, they need to
be operationalized into process studies of CCIs so that quantitaive reporting
on participation (for instance, the number of leaders developed) can be
added to more ethnographic studies (what leadership development means).
Community organizers may have to take the lead on developing ways that
their work, and the context in which it operates, can be evaluated (O’Donnell
and Schumer, 1996).
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A more profound understanding of power is needed and various approaches
and levels of power should be more explicitly discussed in CCIs. This
is especially true as it relates to race, class and other "fault lines"
which social capital discussions should not gloss over. Nor should projects
treat conflict along these lines as pathological, but rather as a natural
part of the evolution of complex projects which are sure to involve shifting
power relations.
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For community building and organizing to occur, some early separatism
between community based practices and collaborative bodies is needed
(and should be funded if CCIs wish to spread to communities missing strong
community organizing and building agents). First, community practice ventures
need to find their own agenda and build their own leaders. For nascent
organizations this might take several years (Center for the Study
of Social Problems, 1995, p.95; Walsh, 1997b, p.56). Second, as Yates notes,
conflict between community groups and external institutions does not mean
that future collaborative efforts are impossible (1998). Hence, allowing
community groups to occasionally flex their political activist muscles
should not be discouraged.
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Funding priorities should give attention to funding organizing if they
want the accountability results and ties to national politics organizing
can bring. To be true to organizing you must have organizing features
which includes staff and autonomy to organize members into a politically
respected organization (Traynor, 1995). The few consistent funders of community
organizing that do exist (for example the Needmor Foundation, Woods Fund
of Chicago and the US Catholic Conference’s Campaign for Human Development)
have developed ways to monitor and assist the progress of sound community
organizing. Other funders need to adopt these methods which, like CCI funding
itself, will require funders to rethink their roles with grantees.
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Experiment with allowing existing community organizing intermediaries
to develop CCIs. As opposed to including community organizing in CCI
as a pigeon-holed partner, some community organizing intermediaries should
be funded to allow their stronger chapters to experiment with developing
CCIs. As was noted earlier, some organizing groups which have complex and
multifaceted reform projects were once considered CCIs by some authors.
This avenue for starting CCIs should be explored further. Both ACORN and
the IAF, for instance, have established themselves as an organizing presences
in some cities for over two decades. Their organizing efforts have led
to the formation of an amazing array of affiliated community-based institutions,
including labor unions, media outlets, political coalitions, schools, land
trusts, job centers and housing corporations. Furthermore, ties to state
and national level policy debates is possible through working with intermediaries
(notably ACORN and the technical service provider Center for Community
Change) (Dreier, 1996). This should be a boost to CCIs hoping to solve
the problems which Smock (1997) and Dreier (1998) identify local projects
will have in dealing with social problems stemming from regional or national
political issues.
Conclusions
back to table of contents
Most social movements have developed multiple organizations, so why
would not neighborhoods seeking to build a community change movement based
on an alternative vision to the status quo in services, a challenging new
set of relationships, and accountable governance need multiple organizational
models, too?
In this paper I have argued that the complex and varying features of
community organizing, building and development should be recognized and
utilized to produce the most comprehensive efforts. Without both a more
thorough (or profound) understanding of the contributions of and differences
between earlier community practices, and some knowledge about the management
and/or coordination of projects involving them, comprehensive community
initiatives will fall short of the holistic approach to public problems
which distressed communities need.
Contents
Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 5 Apps/Notes/Refs