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The
Community Organizing Toolbox
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TYPES OF CO GROUPS AND THE WORK
THEY DO
By one estimate, there are more than 6,000 community organizations in the U.S. using some form of CO to carry out their community-serving missions. Most have been formed in the past 25 years or so.36 A far smaller but rapidly growing number of groups, no more than several hundred, can be most accurately categorized as full-scale CO groups - groups of all sizes whose values, goals, accountability, governance, organizational development and operational strategies consistently reflect CO's core principles, and who can readily be distinguished from other types of nonprofit organizations. There are also some two dozen or more intermediary groups at regional and national levels that play critical roles in training community organizers and community leaders, and provide technical assistance and other services to strengthen CO.
Though community organizations with CO as their central strategy come in all sizes, shapes and locations, they share the elements listed below.
- They enable grassroots people - not the government, business, academics, the media or anyone else - to set their own priorities.
- They help their members and constituents to develop skills and know-how to act on those priorities.
- They have an impact, changing public and private policies and priorities to become more responsive to the needs of the people closest to the problem.37
The most advanced and highly regarded of CO organizations today work on a range of issues, are staffed, intend to be around for the long term, and are invested in building the capacity of their constituencies - often of many races and/or cultures - to address increasingly more difficult, complex and/or recalcitrant issues. Many CO groups also seek to contribute to the growth of a broad-based movement toward their vision for a more humane and just society, and may seek to model that vision in their internal structure and operations. Changes sought by CO organizations often require them to pursue collaborative efforts with other CO organizations, as well as with other types of groups, in order to effectively address issues at jurisdictional levels beyond the current scope of any one of the CO organizations. Most receive assistance from intermediary organizations that provide training, advice and resources.
Three Types of Groups. On the broadest level, CO organizations can be roughly categorized by where they most closely fit within three major approaches. (See Backgrounder #3 for examples of each approach.)
- Direct or individual membership groups that are typically small and geographically-based efforts to organize individual low- and moderate-income people. The members may be broadly focused on improving their neighborhood or working on a specific issue like workers' rights or environmental degradation. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now's (ACORN) individual groups are among those that fit this category.
- Issue-based coalitions that mobilize public interest groups, unions and other already established groups to affect a public policy or to address a common concern, such as a crisis in the public school system. The Campaign for a Sustainable Milwaukee and the Interfaith Coalition for Workers' Rights are two such coalitions.
- Institution-based organizing (or congregation-based or faith-based organizing) that is rooted in and brings together local religious (and most often other) institutions to work on behalf of a community. The IAF pioneered this approach with Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) in San Antonio, Texas.
None of the three CO approaches exists in "pure" form, nor are the approaches accompanied by hard and fast rules to which all CO organizations of a particular type subscribe. Many CO organizations employ approaches that are mixed "models" or hybrids. What is best for any given community can only be determined in the context of that situation. The CO field is quite dynamic: for CO groups, adjustments in organizational structure, tactics and strategies to meet changing societal conditions are more the rule than the exception.
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BACKGROUNDER #
3
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Examples of
the Different Types of CO Groups
Example: Direct or Individual Membership Groups In New York City, Oakland (California), St. Louis (Missouri), Denver (Colorado) and elsewhere ACORN has focused organizing campaigns on creating better schools. In the Rockaways section of Queens, ACORN first organized parents several years ago around the issue of a summer program that was slated for closing at one public school. The parents were successful, and this gave them confidence to tackle larger concerns about the school. Through a series of classes over a six-month period, they studied such issues as achievement tests, tracking, parent participation and teacher qualifications. They visited schools with innovative programs. They determined what kind of school they wanted for their children. Working with school officials, they created the Rockaway New School, a "mini-school within a school" for children from kindergarten through sixth grade. The school features hands-on and cooperative learning, multi-grade classrooms, collaboration between parents and teachers, and an exceptional level of parent involvement in both day-to-day classroom activities and the governance of the schools.38 Having built on this experience, New York ACORN runs high schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan and is organizing around issues such as attracting and keeping experienced teachers and smaller class sizes. Example: Issue-Based Coalition The Campaign for a Sustainable Milwaukee (CSM) brings together community, government, labor and business representatives to form "a grassroots organizing project for family-supporting jobs and a community voice in economic decisions." CSM's specific strategies integrate CO with coalition building and advocacy. In its jobs and welfare reform work, CSM created the Central City Workers Center, which has connected hundreds of low-income residents to family-supporting jobs - entry-level positions in the Laborers Union that pay more than $12 an hour. The Center demonstrates that there is a viable alternative to low-wage, dead-end jobs that have too often been the outcomes of welfare reform efforts in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The Center also serves as a means and a place for organizing residents into a membership-based union, deepening their understanding of community issues and developing their research, leadership and advocacy skills, so that they can take instrumental roles in developing and implementing CSM's action strategies.39 Example: Institution-Based Organizing When a Levi-Strauss cut-and-sew factory on San Antonio's South Side closed in 1990, coming on the heels of other plant closings and looming defense cutbacks, good-paying jobs were lost, many of them blue collar. Alternative jobs were in low-paying service industries. Meanwhile, higher-paying jobs in the health industry and elsewhere were unfilled for lack of skilled workers. Two powerful San Antonio congregation-based organizations affiliated with IAF - Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) and The Metro Alliance - joined forces to find a solution. The result - after years of house meetings, research actions, dialogue, and debate with corporate and public officials, and other organizing activities - is Project QUEST (Quality Employment Through Skills Training). It involves collaborative relationships among IAF, the business community, employers of high-skilled workers, the city government, the regional PIC, the governor, the Texas Employment Commission, education and training institutions, and state social service agencies. Project QUEST established a new intermediary that recruits employers and secures job commitments; designs training programs; recruits, evaluates and refers trainees; counsels and supports trainees; and supports the trainees' families. The Project heavily involves neighborhood residents in meeting its objectives. At its peak, before federal budget cutbacks several years ago, the Project had enrolled 1,200 people, most from IAF's organized low-income neighborhoods. At the end of its second year of operation, 85 percent of enrollees had stayed in the program and, by early in 1996, almost 400 had found and been placed in jobs in which the average salary paid was $7.83 an hour. Project QUEST, funded by the Ford Foundation and other private and public sources, has been replicated at other IAF sites throughout Texas.40 |
CO Organization Networks. CO today is primarily identified with a number of national CO networks, each with its own unique history and accomplishments. Core staff of the networks - mostly persons who are experienced community organizers - take a major hand in developing and supporting the networks' affiliated local organizing groups. They provide a range of assistance to initiate, fortify and evaluate the work of the local groups, help to train and develop community organizers and local leaders, and connect the affiliates together for broader impact in addressing regional and national issues. A number of regional CO networks are taking similar roles with
member groups in their areas. Finally, many CO organizations, while
drawing on advice and help from a range of intermediaries, are operating
independently in disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout the country.
Most of the independent groups are small, and some will eventually
affiliate with one of the networks. A few independent CO groups
have become significant, long-term city- and community-wide forces
for change in urban and rural areas. For more information on national
and regional networks, see the section on How
National and Regional Networks Provide Training, Technical Assistance
and Other Support for CO on page 31.
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36 Delgado, From the Ground Up, p. 27.
37 Jim Castelli and John D. McCarthy, Power Organizing: How to Build Community and Reinvigorate Democracy, forthcoming, p. 29.
38 As presented in Charles Bruner and Larry Parachini, Building Community: Exploring New Relationships Across Service Systems Reform, Community Organizing, and Community Economic Development, Washington, DC: Together We Can, 1997, p. 25.
39 Drawn from Larry Parachini, with Andrew Mott, Strengthening Community Voices in Policy Reform: Community-Based Monitoring, Learning and Action Strategies for an Era of Devolution and Change, Washington, DC: Center for Community Change, July 1997, p. 37.
40 Bruner and Parachini, Building Community..., p. 25. Project Quest's results were reported in Dennis Shirley, Community Organizing for Urban School Reform, Austin, TX, University of Texas Press, 1997, p. 198.