Building Powerful Community Organizations: A Personal Guide to Creating Groups that Can Solve Problems and Change the World / Edition 1

by Michael Jacoby Brown

Overview

Intended for individuals who want to start, strengthen, or revitalize a group to address a community issue, this indispensable guide includes a series of practical steps that help build a successful community orgranization and offers sample cases that more clearly illustrate each step. In addition to addressing common problems that are often encountered, the book also discusses how to run engaging meetings, recruit and motivate community members, raise necessary funds, and turn a passion into a powerful tool for social change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780977151806
Publisher:	Long Haul Press
Publication date:	09/28/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Michael Jacoby Brown has more than 30 years of experience building community organizations. He has trained hundreds of individuals involved with a variety of nongovernmental organizations who have proceeded to build groups focused on social change. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

Building Powerful Community Organizations

A Personal Guide to Creating Groups that Can Solve Problems and Change the World

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By MICHAEL JACOBY BROWN

LONG HAUL PRESS

Copyright © 2006 Michael Jacoby Brown
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9771518-0-6

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Chapter One

What Is Community Organizing, Anyway?

(If you already know what community organizing is, you could skip this chapter. But if you read it anyway, you still might learn something.)

* Community Organizing: Power, Self-Interest, and Relationships

Community organizing, building the power of a group to change the world, is both an art and a science. It requires understanding your self-interest in the deepest sense, building relationships with others, and a desire to change the world.

Story: Me and My Dad

When I was a little boy, I went with my father, a commercial artist, to collect the pay for some work he had done. We went to the home of the man who had hired him.

I remember the big house. My dad and I stood there on the porch, dwarfed by the tall white pillars, waiting. Finally, the door opened. The owner came out and stood in the doorway. He told my dad he couldn't pay him. I looked at the grand house and thought about how rich this man must be. He had such a big house! I remember riding back home, in silence, feeling powerless, unable to make that rich man pay. By himself, there didn't seem to be anything my dad could do. I wanted to dosomething about that. My dad had already done the work for that man. I wanted the power to make the man pay my father.

Like developing successful intimate relationships or raising children (and you can find hundreds of books on these subjects!), bringing groups of people into effective community organizations takes skill and attention to many details and dynamics at the same time. It takes knowledge of yourself and your community. It takes understanding how groups work, why people join them, how to structure them, how to lead them, how to pay for them, how to set dues, goals, and rules, how to develop values, and how to move people to action. Successful groups need solid internal management, good group process, secure funding, effective communication, and a sense of trust and community among their members.

Like intimate personal or family relationships, groups can be disturbed, and even destroyed, by internal dynamics. With more people than the usual family, the opportunities for imbalance, disunity, and self-destruction are magnified.

There are plenty of horror stories about poorly run nonprofit community organizations-just as there are such stories about government and business. There are sloppy finances, poor communication, and backbiting among staff and members. There are authoritarian directors, inadequate resources, overworked staff, and under-appreciated volunteers. Some organizations pressure everyone to work 80 hours a week. Meetings run on too long. There are corrupt and incompetent leaders, financial mismanagement, and worse-all the ills to which humans and groups of humans are susceptible.

Yet, we need organizations-for justice, for democracy, for a sense of community, and for effective problem-solving. Humans have always lived in groups. Groups have accomplished almost all important contributions to human welfare. Leaders play key roles, but so do groups. We learn that Washington crossed the Delaware to defeat the British, but we know he didn't do it by himself. Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but he had a lot of help.

Groups have won improvements in civil rights, women's rights, working conditions, the environment, and health care, to name just a few examples. Organizations have improved the treatment of groups of people, including veterans, children, and people with disabilities. People have come together in alliances that have improved schools, neighborhoods, playgrounds, arts education, business ethics, and many other areas of public (and private) life.

Part of the genius of America has always been our ability to form grassroots groups to solve problems. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his travels here in the early 1800s, Americans, unlike Europeans, build community organizations to deal with our problems. De Tocqueville must have been on to something. His book, Democracy in America, is still in print almost 200 years after it was written.

Horatio Alger at the Barn Raising

Americans have long held on to two dissonant beliefs about individualism and community. On the one hand, we glorify the "self-made man." On the other hand, we idealize the sense of community in small towns and neighborhoods. We long for a place where neighbors help each other out: the quilting bee, the barn raising, the old neighborhood bar or diner. These two themes have run throughout American history and continue to influence our thinking, culture, and politics today.

Although groups have won improvements in many areas, the number and magnitude of the challenges don't seem to diminish. Toxic chemicals and global warming threaten our environment. Many of our schools are not succeeding. Health care is more costly and unavailable for many. Basic services for our more vulnerable citizens are disappearing. Our roads are clogged with cars. Jobs are evaporating, or if they're still available, they're too stressful. Higher education is too costly for most people. Sexism, racism, violence, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and many other ills continue to plague us.

Government and business cannot solve all these problems. Businesses must compete on a daily basis for customers. They must cut costs and improve efficiency to make a profit and stay in business. Corporations are not going to provide national or neighborhood security, environmental protection, public education, roads, water supply, safe food and drugs, or other things we need. Nor can government solve all our problems. Government officials often are too distant from the details to be effective. Sometimes those in authority do not care about or understand the problems people face.

* The Theory Behind Community Organizing

Group Dynamics and Group Theory: Why We Need the Involvement of People at the Grassroots

Solving peoples' problems and improving their lives requires the active participation of those most affected by the problems.

Kurt Lewin, the first theoretician of group dynamics, figured this out in the 1930s. Lewin discovered that those closest to any change must be involved in the change in order for the change to be effective. Lewin's discovery about human behavior points to one reason why we need to build community organizations to drive change: If we did not need the active involvement of those closest to the problem, then good policies or the dissemination of good ideas alone would achieve the improvements we seek. They do not. The right information alone is not sufficient when it comes to making social improvements or changes in people's behavior.

Lewin developed this theory over 60 years ago. Working with anthropologist Margaret Mead in Iowa during World War II, Lewin designed an experiment to discover how best to reduce the consumption of rationed meats. Lewin first located the "gatekeepers" (Lewin's term) who controlled the selection of meats. It was the housewives, who were responsible for acquiring food and preparing meals for their families. Their reluctance to buy and prepare nonrationed meats had to be reduced. Lewin designed an experiment with two groups of homemakers. He had a nutritionist lecture one group, explaining the benefits of eating the non-rationed meats. In another group, he facilitated a group discussion among the women about how they could prepare the non-rationed meats so that they would be good to eat. The members of the facilitated discussion group changed their consumption behaviors much more than those in the group that received the nutrition lecture. The conclusion was clear. Changing people's behavior requires the active involvement of those whose behavior you are trying to change.

This theory has been corroborated over many years by experience in the workplace. Marvin Weisbord, an organizational consultant, has observed:

From 100 years of experience repeating the same patterns over and over again, we can predict social consequences of any improvement project: the less involvement of those affected, the less likely will be the implementable solution. -Marvin Weisbord, Productive Workplaces

If we need the active involvement of those most affected for an improvement project to succeed, then what does it take to involve those affected?

It takes a powerful group.

And what does it take to get a powerful group? Developing a group powerful enough to represent people's opinions and interests takes skill. Even in Lewin and Mead's simple experiment, the housewives needed a skilled group facilitator to get them to come to agreement. It took skill to recruit the participants and to explain the goals of the group. It took skill to facilitate the meeting so that the women felt that their voices were heard as they devised strategies for changing their behavior.

Lewin first recognized that groups behave differently than individuals. Groups are more than the sum of their individual members. He was the first person to use the term group dynamics-in an article he wrote in 1939. He saw that groups had lives of their own, so he explored how they worked. This theory is central to the methods, theories, and art of building community organizations. Those who build organizations must understand and work with groups as special entities, with distinct developmental processes and their own rules for growth, maintenance, and health.

Alfred Marrow, Kurt Lewin's biographer, summed up Lewin's early theory of group dynamics:

The gist of his theory might be stated as follows: A man who joins a group is significantly changed thereby. His relations with his fellow members alter both him and them. A highly attractive group can bring great pressure to bear upon its members; a weak group will not have as much molding power.... [Lewin's] formulation was simple: "The whole is different from the sum of its parts; it has definite properties of its own." -Alfred J. Marrow, The Practical Theorist

One of my first lessons in group dynamics came when I was in high school. I learned something about how "a highly attractive group can bring great pressure to bear upon its members":

Story: How Quickly a Group Can Achieve (and Lose) Power

Riding the bus, I saw a boy who was beaten black and blue after pledging with a high school fraternity. I wanted to be in a fraternity, but I didn't want to get beaten up. So I got together with a few friends and we formed our own fraternity. We called it "Sigma Tau." We got some "Sigma Tau" sweatshirts printed at a sports store and soon had underclassmen pledging for us. I learned about the power of a group when the captain of the junior varsity football team, only a year younger than me, did pushups in the dirt on my command.

We soon gave up giving orders. We wanted friends more than we wanted power over younger kids. But it struck me how powerful a group can be and how quickly it can exercise authority.

I also learned how fragile a group can be. Soon after we graduated, the fraternity faded-even before our sweatshirts wore out.

Active Participation Requires Organization

Given the power differentials in our society, most people cannot be heard without the amplified voice a group provides. Those without money cannot buy ads to get their message out. Most people without fame, wealth, or power do not appear on TV talk shows. They have a tougher time getting elected to public office. For many, it's a stretch to go to an evening meeting. Given the pressing demands of everyday life, they rarely have the time even to write a letter to the editor, let alone to negotiate with government decision-makers about the conditions that affect their lives. Sometimes, with long hours at work and long commutes, they can't even find the time to vote on Election Day, even though voting is one of the most streamlined methods our democracy offers for taking action about conditions that affect our lives.

The voices of those who are the real experts, those closest to and most affected by the various social problems, are rarely heard-because no organization represents them. People who want to help themselves often have nowhere to go to make a difference. It often takes the creation of a new community organization-or, sometimes, attention to strengthening an old one-to combine individual voices into an organized group that can force those with power or authority (such as government officials or owners of large businesses) to do the right thing.

It Takes an Ongoing Organization to Solve Problems

Community groups can provide the intelligence we need to solve the problems we face. No one individual, no matter how smart or experienced, can solve difficult social problems by herself or himself. No one person can see all perspectives and imagine all possible consequences of any action. It takes an ongoing organization-one that focuses the energies and intelligence of many people who are close to the problem, one with the power and resources to exist for the long haul-to solve problems.

Story: The Person Closest to the Problem Sees the Solution

At the time when the Camfield Gardens housing development was being demolished and rebuilt, it was owned by the federal government's Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD and the tenants were in partnership with the State Housing Finance Agency in the redevelopment. All but three families had relocated to allow for reconstruction of the entire development. The three remaining families had leases with the City Housing Authority. The federal and state agencies could not figure out how to break the leases with the three families so that they could relocate them. The Camfield Tenants Association called a meeting with all the parties to resolve this. Representatives from the entire congressional delegation came, as did representatives from HUD, the State Housing Finance Agency, the City, the Mayor's office, and the Housing Authority, as well as the tenants and their advisors, including me.

None of the government officials could figure it out. At one point, the HUD official (I am not making this up) said we would need an Act of Congress to move the three families.

The Tenants Association President was annoyed. She had already been moved off-site and every day the three families stayed in the development was another day her family had to wait to move back. She knew a lot about the leases because she had lived there for a long time. So she came up with a simple solution: Have another agency take over the leases. No Act of Congress needed.

Someone close to the problem came up with a solution while others, not so close to the problem, could not.

I call this the $10,000 meeting, based on an estimate of the cost of all the staff at the meeting, including me. The irony, of course, is that the one person not being paid to attend the meeting had the answer.

The problem was solved because the Tenants Association had the power to bring all the government officials together into one room, so none of them could pass the buck. Getting that power took years of work. Without that organization, who knows how long it might have taken to relocate the three families.

* The Group Provides a Sense of Community

Aside from the social, economic, health, educational, and other improvements that groups have brought us, these same groups have given many of us a sense of community and meaning in our lives. Congregations, veterans' groups, Granges, PTAs, civic associations, and many other community organizations have provided many of us with a sense of belonging, friendship, and community in an often isolating and difficult world.

Many of us are looking for a greater sense of meaning and community in our lives. Government, corporations, and other authorities do not provide this sense of belonging, caring, and purpose. It is in community groups that we find people to pray with us and people to stand with us as we mark the passages of our lives-birthdays, graduations, confirmations, weddings, housewarmings, and deaths in our families. Community groups can provide a place where, like the Cheers bar, "Everybody knows your name"-where we find people to drive us to the doctor or deliver meals when we are sick, watch our children while we go to the market or out to dinner, and do all the other little things in life that we can't do by ourselves and that make the world a friendlier, more human, more enriching and nurturing place.

Whether the organization is a congregation, a neighborhood civic association, a community group working to improve schools, or a statewide or national association to change national policy, many of the group dynamics and skills needed to build the organization are the same. Groups both small and large require attention to group development.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Building Powerful Community Organizations by MICHAEL JACOBY BROWN Copyright © 2006 by Michael Jacoby Brown. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Exercises,
Table of Case Studies,
Table of Quick Tips,
Table of Stories,
Acknowledgments,
About the Exercises,
Introduction,
SECTION I: THE INSIDE STORY,
Chapter One / What Is Community Organizing, Anyway?,
Chapter Two / Step by Step — Building a Community Organization,
Chapter Three / Developing a Mission, Goals, and Objectives,
Chapter Four / Structure: How to Build our Organization to Last,
SECTION II: POWER MEANS MOBILIZING YOUR RESOURCES,
Chapter Five / Developing Power: Why Recruit?,
Chapter Six / How to Recruit: The Nuts and Bolts,
Chapter Seven / The Way to Develop Power Is to Develop Leaders,
Chapter Eight / Mobilizing Resources: Meetings,
Chapter Nine / Mobilizing Resources: Raising Money,
SECTION III: MAKING CHANGE,
Chapter Ten / Organizing: Pathway to Change,
Chapter Eleven / Taking Action, Solving Problems, Getting Results,
Chapter Twelve / Building Community,
SECTION IV: OUR FUTURE,
Chapter Thirteen / Where Do We Go From Here?,
Afterword / Your Turn,
Community Organizing: A Very Annotated Bibliography,
Other Resources,
Appendix / How to Get Tax-Exempt Status,
Index,
About the Author,
Feedback Forms,
Quick Book Order Form,

Editorial Reviews

"Michael Jacoby Brown distills more than 30 years of organizing into his book, which every aspiring and veteran activist should own. This book is strongly recommended." —Library Journal

'At a time when national power is held by the wealthy classes, there is an urgent need, if democracy is to survive, for people to organize in their own communities. For this, Michael Brown is a superb guide. His book is full of thoughtful, practical advice for community organizers, and indeed for anyone who wants to participate at the grass roots in making ours a more just society." —Howard Zinn, author, A People’s History of the United States



"Clearly relevant to precinct organizing and political campaigns." —Michael S. Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts



"Covers all the organizing principles and methods and also breaks out 25 specific written exercises people can do." —Social Policy



"This no-nonsense, user-friendly guidebook is replete with sound organizing advice . . . the book's nicely illustrated, jargon-free, pragmatic, and skilled pedagogical format makes it a wonderful textbook for teaching community organizing." —Journal of Community Practice



"A practical, much-needed skills-building manual for a wide range of readers. Beginners will find a broad guide to the work. Veterans will find critical points of reflection, evaluation and re-orientation." —National Organizers Alliance Ark Magazine

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