STEPS IN

COMMUNIT Y
ORGANIZATION
K AT H E R I N E I R A M A E C O R T E Z
GERALD JOE DOROJA
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
• Community organizing involves mobilizing a group of people to
address common issues and concerns and enabling them to take
action. It focuses on collective action; the power derived from the
synchronized actions of people in unity, as opposed to separate
individuals. Quite akin to the common saying, ‘United we stand,
divided we fall.’
• From fighting social injustice to inequality, community
organizing finds its roots in movements of the past such as the
suffragettes and the trade union movements, among others.
 STEPS IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

• LISTENING TO PEOPLE
• CLARIFYING COMMON GOALS
• FRAMING STRATEGIES FOR ACTION
• HELPING BUILD LEADERS
• MOBILIZING THE COMMUNITY
LISTENING TO PEOPLE
• This involves talking to people and finding out what their
concerns are and what pain points they’re facing and would
like to fight for (or against). Face to face meetings are the
most effective as they show people that you genuinely care
about wanting to help them help themselves (by achieving
the collective end goal).
• By listening and talking in person, you gain a fair
understanding of the people who want to work towards
bettering a situation as opposed to the ones who merely
want to vent but not work.
LISTENING TO PEOPLE
• Depending on the size of your outreach, use different
ways to contact people: go door knocking if you’re
targeting a neighborhood, or if your community is
scattered, use social mediato attract people’s attention and
set up meeting spots.
• The aim here is to identify a set of people who would be
willing to work towards a common cause, and are
interested in initiating action.
CLARIFYING COMMON GOALS
• The next step is to pinpoint your mission and its corresponding goals.
Whatever it is that your community is fighting for; reducing the usage of
fossil fuels by shifting focus on renewables or fighting for more/equal pay,
make sure to list out what it is you want to achieve.
• Internal goals: these are focussed on your community or organization
and involves aspects such as how to increase your community base and
how to reach out to more people.
• External goals: these are focused on the change that you’re looking to
bring; the bills you want passed, or the rules you want changed.
• By doing this, you’ve now kept the group centred on exactly what it
hopes to achieve.
FRAME STRATEGIES FOR ACTION
• For this, go about creating a blueprint of actions that your team is going to follow to
effect change. These could include (but aren’t limited to) organizing rallies, emailing and
calling legislators, holding press conferences and contacting local newspapers.
Depending upon the number of people you can mobilize and the sort of impact you
wish to create, choose a strategy which is both manageable and impactful
• Make use of different kinds of tools for implementation: patch through calling to
reach out to local representatives, peer to peer texting to mobilize supporters on the
ground, and social media to reach out to people are just a few examples.
• While strategizing, you’ll also have to keep in mind who your potential allies are,
and who or what your opposition is.
• Use a combination of methods which will help you achieve your aims. There isn’t a
one-size-fits-all approach.
BUILD LOCAL LEADERSHIP
• As community organizers, it is impossible to organize every minute aspect of a
campaign. Which is why you need a plan in place to develop community
leaders who can lead local initiatives. After all, if everyone in a group is
involved, everyone should be allowed to take up tasks of importance.
• The more people you have willing to go the extra mile, the greater is the
chance of reaching your objectives in a shorter amount of time.
• Developing leaders is an important step as they serve as a point of contact for
the flow of information among volunteers, other community heads, and district
organizers.
When people are passionate about an issue, they’d be more than happy to take
up additional tasks. By being community leaders, they get to do this.
• This step involves identifying potential leaders and giving them the necessary
training to take action.
MOBILIZE PEOPLE
• This step involves gathering people and taking collective action for achieving your
mission. It could be something like staging a rally, going door to door canvassing,
holding an event, or calling lawmakers to approve a bill.
• The point is you need to mobilize your volunteer base for these activities, for which
you require the right set of tools. Use peer to peer texting, phone calls, email, and
even social media to keep people informed about an upcoming event. If there are
many members, contact the community leaders who would then spread the word to
their respective groups.
• Creating a website for your community is essential; in addition to posting images and
videos of previous rallies and demonstrations, you can also post details of upcoming
tasks along with their venues and timelines.
• For mobilizing effectively, your outreach needs to be varied, as different people prefer
different ways of being contacted or informed. Use a combination of ways to contact
members.
• In different community organization strategies, a
five-stage process can be used in order to improve
its effectiveness. These stages are dynamic and
overlapping.
 FIVE STAGES OF COMMUNITY
ORGANIZATION
• CONDUCTING COMMUNITY ANALYSIS
• DESIGN AND INITIATION OF A CAMPAIGN
• CAMPAIGN IMPLEMENTATION
• PROGRAM REFINEMENT AND CONSOLIDATION
• DISSEMINATION AND DURABILITY
STAGE ONE: CONDUCTING
COMMUNITY ANALYSIS
• A commitment to community participation in health campaigns requires above
all else a knowledge of the assets, capacity, and history of a local community.
This is accomplished by a careful "mapping" of the community to document its
unique qualities, issues, and modes of decision making. This will provide the
basis of an informed approach that realistically matches health goals with
citizen readiness, expectations, and resources. Analysis is a critical first step in
shaping the design of campaign interventions, and it is important to involve
members of the community at this stage. The product of community analysis is
an accurate profile that blends health and illness statistics with demographic,
political, and sociocultural factors.
STAGE TWO: DESIGN AND INTIATION
OF A CAMPAIGN
• Following a community analysis and the identification of local priorities,
the design aspects for a collaborative community campaign begin to
emerge. A core group of citizens and professionals (with both public and
private sectors represented) will usually begin the process of establishing
a permanent organizational structure and making preliminary decisions
about campaign objectives and interventions. This group may also write a
mission statement and select a project coordinator. In organizing
community partnerships, several structural forms (e.g., coalition, lead
agency, citizen network) can be considered.
STAGE THREE: CAMPAIGN
IMPLEMENTATION
• Implementation turns theory and ideas into action, translating a
mission into an effectively operating program. At this stage,
organizations and citizens are mobilized and involved in the
planning of a sequential set of activities aimed at accomplishing
campaign objectives. Written plans with specific timelines have been
shown to be a critical forerunner of success. Cost estimates should
be included in the plan, along with monitoring and feedback
strategies to measure progress. The key element in this stage is the
careful determination and selection of priority intervention
activities that can achieve maximum impact.
STAGE FOUR: PROGRAM REFINEMENT
AND CONSOLIDATION
• During this stage both successes and problems in implementation
are reviewed. Task forces of the local citizen organization need to
determine any new directions or modifications for the program,
including activities to maintain high levels of volunteer involvement.
Efforts of organizers to have health program elements and
interventions become more fully incorporated into the established
structures of the community (e.g., exercise programs becoming a
regular part of worksite culture) should continue in this phase as
well.
STAGE FIVE: DISSEMINATION AND
DURABILITY
• In this last stage the strategic dissemination of information on
project results and the finalization of plans for the durability of
intervention efforts are the key considerations. Communities and
citizens need to receive clear, succinct messages describing what
has been accomplished and what continuing effort may be required.
Such messages are reinforced when community leaders and local
advocates are involved in their presentation. The local durability
plan should include a vision for future health and social
improvements and lay out a strategy to identify, recruit, and involve
new people in current or future projects and community activities.
• A common set of essential planning and organizing tasks has
emerged from the many community mobilization and health
promotion experiences of recent decades. These tasks include
selecting broadly representative community participants and clearly
identifying their decisionmaking authority, establishing an effective
organizational structure, achieving mission clarity and realistic
objectives, identifying community assets as well as resistance
factors, establishing evaluation and tracking mechanisms early,
managing and reinforcing volunteer involvement, conducting
ongoing training for citizen intervention skills, recruiting a
community organizer/facilitator with appropriate competencies and
experience, and securing the necessary resources for the durability
of program results.