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89-454: (Redirected from Organizers ) [REDACTED] Look up organizer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Organizer may refer to: Job descriptions [ edit ] Community organizer , an advocate leading or seeking to lead or influence a community seeking changes in government, corporations and/or other institutions Event manager ,

178-456: A Gamaliel Foundation FBCO organization in Chicago. Marshall Ganz , former lieutenant of César Chávez , adapted techniques from community organizing for Obama's 2008 presidential election. At the 2008 Republican National Convention , former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani questioned Obama's role as a community organizer, asking the crowd "What does a community organizer actually do?", and

267-600: A taxonomy that maps community relations, and recognizes that actual communities can be characterized by different kinds of relations at the same time: In these terms, communities can be nested and/or intersecting; one community can contain another—for example a location-based community may contain a number of ethnic communities . Both lists above can be used in a cross-cutting matrix in relation to each other. In general, virtual communities value knowledge and information as currency or social resource. What differentiates virtual communities from their physical counterparts

356-407: A "community-building approach," which emphasizes raising consciousness to support the community's empowerment. Grassroots organizing is distinctive for its bottom-up approach to organizing. Grassroots organizers build community groups from scratch, developing new leadership where none existed and organizing the unorganized. This type of organizing uses a process where people collectively act in

445-444: A Democratic Society ) tried their hand at community organizing. They were critical of what they conceived of as Alinsky's "dead-end local activism". But the dispiriting reality was that however much they might talk about "transforming the system," "building alternative institutions," and "revolutionary potential", their credibility on the doorstep rested on their ability to secure concessions from, and therefore to develop relations with,

534-463: A centralized national agenda and exerts some centralized control over local organizations. Because ACORN USA was a 501(c)4 organization under the tax code, it was able to participate directly in election activities, but contributions to it were not tax-exempt. Grassroots organizing is vulnerable, being dependent on the support of more powerful people; its goals can be easily thwarted. Because grassroots organizing focuses on building relationships within

623-550: A common "language" about organizing while seeking to expand the skills of organizers. Many of the most notable leaders in community organizing today emerged from the National Welfare Rights Organization . John Calkins of DART , Wade Rathke of ACORN , John Dodds of Philadelphia Unemployment Project and Mark Splain of the AFL–CIO , among others. There have been many other notable community organizers through

712-528: A common agenda. Community development practitioners must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities' positions within the context of larger social institutions. Public administrators, in contrast, need to understand community development in the context of rural and urban development, housing and economic development, and community, organizational and business development. Formal accredited programs conducted by universities, as part of degree granting institutions, are often used to build

801-950: A knowledge base to drive curricula in public administration , sociology and community studies . The General Social Survey from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and the Saguaro Seminar at the Harvard Kennedy School are examples of national community development in the United States. The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York State offers core courses in community and economic development, and in areas ranging from non-profit development to US budgeting (federal to local, community funds). In

890-448: A log) and are the building blocks of major communities. Moreover, we can establish other non-taxonomic subdivisions of biocenosis, such as guilds . The concept of "community" often has a positive semantic connotation, exploited rhetorically by populist politicians and by advertisers to promote feelings and associations of mutual well-being, happiness and togetherness —veering towards an almost-achievable utopian community . In contrast,

979-497: A number of problems: (1) they tend to give the impression that a particular community can be defined as just this kind or another; (2) they tend to conflate modern and customary community relations; (3) they tend to take sociological categories such as ethnicity or race as given, forgetting that different ethnically defined persons live in different kinds of communities—grounded, interest-based, diasporic, etc. In response to these problems, Paul James and his colleagues have developed

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1068-466: A person who organizes an event Party organizer , a political party official Professional organizer , a person who helps others get organized Union organizer , a trade union official Arts and media [ edit ] Organiser (newspaper) , an Indian newspaper launched in 1947 The Organizer , a 1963 film co-written and directed by Mario Monicelli The Organizer (album) Other uses [ edit ] Personal organizer ,

1157-492: A relatively small number of organizers that generally are better paid and more professionalized than those in "door-knocking" groups like ACORN. FBCOs focus on the long-term development of a culture and common language of organizing and on the development of relational ties between members. They are more stable during fallow periods than grassroots groups because of the continuing existence of member churches. FBCOs are 501(c)3 organizations. Contributions to them are tax exempt. As

1246-1258: A result, while they can conduct campaigns over "issues" they cannot promote the election of specific individuals. The way in which faith based communities FBCOs organize has undergone a dramatic change with the introduction of digital technology. In ' ' authors Earl and Kimport (2011) provide valuable insights into this shift – namely how decreased costs associated with 'Taking Action on the Cheap' have opened up greater opportunities for involvement in religious initiatives or movements. Digital tools allow faith based groups to spread their message further, better coordinate collective actions across distances and mobilize supporters in unprecedented ways – greatly democratizing this kind of organizing effort. However, this transition to digital also poses complex challenges that must be addressed on topics such as community identity and collective action – as noted by Earl and Kimport themselves in their book ( [1] , 2011, p.95-97). Broad-based organizations intentionally recruit member institutions that are both secular and religious. Congregations, synagogues, temples and mosques are joined by public schools, non-profits, and labor and professional associations. Organizations of

1335-436: A sense of interconnectedness and trust among community members which is important in the community organizing process. The shift to community building was also caused by external forces, rather than just feminist organizer's motivations. During 1980s, the rising neoliberal agenda caused many community organizers to shift to the community-building approach. Some feminists argue that feminist community organizing can disregard

1424-434: A starting point for a general practice model, a model that defines community organizing as its own field of practice. However, this model depends on existing practice models adapted by the different types of community organizing. For example, FBCOs and many grassroots organizing models use the "social action approach" built on the work of Saul Alinsky from the 1930s into the 1970s. By contrast, feminist organizing follows

1513-462: A type of diary Electronic organizer , an electronic version of an organizer Open Programming Language , initially called Organiser Programming Language Spemann-Mangold organizer , also called embryonic induction , a cell or tissue which sends signals to other cells to instruct the fate of these cells Organizer box See also [ edit ] Organization (disambiguation) Organizing (disambiguation) Topics referred to by

1602-508: A variety ways. There are different approaches to community organizing. These include: Because of its focus on "local" issues and relationships between members, individual groups generally prioritize relatively local community interests by focusing on local issues. There has been an attempt to build a general community organizing practice model that ties the different types of community organizing together despite their differences. Scholars Shane R. Brady and Mary Katherine O'Connor construct

1691-515: A widely accessible power structure, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community. Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are open and democratic in governance. Such groups facilitate and encourage consensus decision-making with a focus on the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group. If communities are developed based on something they share in common, whether location or values, then one challenge for developing communities

1780-407: Is faith-based community organizing , or Congregation-based Community Organizing ). Community building can use a wide variety of practices, ranging from simple events (e.g., potlucks , small book clubs ) to larger-scale efforts (e.g., mass festivals , construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors). Community building that is geared toward citizen action

1869-530: Is an informal definition of community as a place where people used to live. In this literal sense it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient settlement —whether a hamlet , village , town , or city . The second meaning resembles the usage of the term in other social sciences : a community is a group of people living near one another who interact socially. Social interaction on a small scale can be difficult to identify with archaeological data. Most reconstructions of social communities by archaeologists rely on

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1958-421: Is community organizing with a feminist motivation. The goals of feminist organizing include: increasing women's employment opportunities; improving women's physical and mental well-being; and, raising consciousness. Organizers prioritize raising consciousness for women to understand how their personal struggles are interconnected with societal inequalities. While women have participated in grassroots organizing,

2047-538: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Community organizing Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community building , community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for

2136-589: Is generally drawn from the mainline denominations. ACORN tended to stress the importance of constant action in order to maintain the commitment of a less rooted group of participants. ACORN and other neighborhood-based groups like the Organization for a Better Austin had a reputation of being more forceful than faith-based (FBCO) groups, in part because they needed to continually act to keep their non-institutionalized members engaged, and there are indications that their local groups were more staff (organizer) directed than

2225-423: Is how to incorporate individuality and differences. Rebekah Nathan suggests in her book, My Freshman Year , we are drawn to developing communities totally based on sameness, despite stated commitments to diversity, such as those found on university websites. A number of ways to categorize types of community have been proposed. One such breakdown is as follows: The usual categorizations of community relations have

2314-564: Is largely low- or middle- income, so they are generally unable to support themselves through dues. In search of resources, some organizing groups have accepted funding for direct service activities in the past. As noted below, this has frequently led these groups to drop their conflictual organizing activities, in part because these threatened funding for their "service" arms. Recent studies have shown, however, that funding for community organizing can produce large returns on investment ($ 512 in community benefits to $ 1 of Needmor funding, according to

2403-637: Is only one aspect of the activity of organizing groups. To the extent that groups' actions generate a sense in the larger community that they have "power," they are often able to engage with and influence powerful groups through dialogue, backed up by a history of successful protest-based campaigns. Similar to the way unions gain recognition as the representatives of workers for a particular business, community organizing groups can gain recognition as key representatives of particular communities. In this way, representatives of community organizing groups are often able to bring key government officials or corporate leaders to

2492-468: Is specifically popular among marginalized communities of color. "Door-knocking" grassroots organizations like ACORN organize poor and working-class members recruiting members one by one in the community. Because they go door-to-door , they are able to reach beyond established organizations and the "churched" to bring together a wide range of less privileged people. FBCOs have tended to organize more middle-class people, because their institutional membership

2581-530: Is the extent and impact of "weak ties", which are the relationships acquaintances or strangers form to acquire information through online networks. Relationships among members in a virtual community tend to focus on information exchange about specific topics. A survey conducted by Pew Internet and The American Life Project in 2001 found those involved in entertainment, professional, and sports virtual-groups focused their activities on obtaining information. An epidemic of bullying and harassment has arisen from

2670-416: Is the opposite of the social action (Alinsky) approach (where the focus is on challenging social and political inequalities that impact the community). The community-building approach depends on the participation and collaboration of both community organizers and community members. This eliminates the power difference between an organizer and participants. Therefore, the community-building approach supports

2759-525: Is usually termed "community organizing". In these cases, organized community groups seek accountability from elected officials and increased direct representation within decision-making bodies. Where good-faith negotiations fail, these constituency-led organizations seek to pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting , sit-ins, petitioning, and electoral politics. Community organizing can focus on more than just resolving specific issues. Organizing often means building

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2848-558: The Gemeinschaft – Gesellschaft dichotomy as a way to think about social ties. No group is exclusively one or the other. Gemeinschaft stress personal social interactions , and the roles, values, and beliefs based on such interactions. Gesellschaft stress indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, and beliefs based on such interactions. In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis identify four elements of "sense of community": A "sense of community index" (SCI)

2937-488: The Asset Based Community Development Institute of Northwestern University . The institute makes available downloadable tools to assess community assets and make connections between non-profit groups and other organizations that can help in community building. The Institute focuses on helping communities develop by "mobilizing neighborhood assets" – building from the inside out rather than

3026-553: The Industrial Areas Foundation are explicitly broad-based and dues-based. Dues-based membership allows IAF organizations to maintain their independence; organizations are politically non-partisan and do not pursue or accept government funding. Broad-based organizations aim to teach institutional leaders how to build relationships of trust across racial, faith, economic and geographic lines through individual, face-to-face meetings. Other goals include internally strengthening

3115-468: The Latin communitas "community", "public spirit" (from Latin communis , "common"). Human communities may have intent , belief , resources , preferences , needs , and risks in common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. Archaeological studies of social communities use the term "community" in two ways, mirroring usage in other areas. The first meaning

3204-415: The abiotic environment, affect social structure and species richness, diversity and patterns of abundance. Species interact in three ways: competition , predation and mutualism : The two main types of ecological communities are major communities, which are self-sustaining and self-regulating (such as a forest or a lake), and minor communities, which rely on other communities (like fungi decomposing

3293-456: The epidemiological term " community transmission " can have negative implications, and instead of a "criminal community" one often speaks of a " criminal underworld " or of the "criminal fraternity". In Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies described two types of human association: Gemeinschaft (usually translated as "community") and Gesellschaft ("society" or "association"). Tönnies proposed

3382-433: The psychodynamic tradition, the most important period of socialization is between the ages of one and ten. But socialization also includes adults moving into a significantly different environment where they must learn a new set of behaviors. Socialization is influenced primarily by the family, through which children first learn community norms . Other important influences include schools, peer groups, people, mass media,

3471-588: The workplace , and government. The degree to which the norms of a particular society or community are adopted determines one's willingness to engage with others. The norms of tolerance , reciprocity , and trust are important "habits of the heart", as de Tocqueville put it, in an individual's involvement in community. Community development is often linked with community work or community planning, and may involve stakeholders, foundations, governments, or contracted entities including non-government organisations (NGOs), universities or government agencies to progress

3560-487: The 1980s, as organizing groups rooted themselves in one of the few remaining broad-based community institutions. This shift also led to an increased focus on relationships among religion, faith, and social struggle. A collection of training and support organizations for national coalitions of mostly locally governed and mostly FBCO community organizing groups were founded in the Alinsky tradition. The Industrial Areas Foundation

3649-545: The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF.org) in Pennsylvania, beginning in 2002. Community groups are organized to influence municipal governments to enact local ordinances. These ordinances challenge preemptive state and federal laws that forbid local governments from prohibiting corporate activities deemed harmful by community residents. The ordinances are drafted specifically to assert

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3738-627: The Needmor Fund Study, $ 157 to 1 in New Mexico and $ 89 to 1 in North Carolina according to National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy studies) through legislation and agreements with corporations, among other sources, not including non-fiscal accomplishments. Understanding what community organizing is can be aided by understanding what it is not from the perspective of community organizers. Robert Fisher and Peter Romanofsky have grouped

3827-688: The US as well as in South Africa, England, Germany, and other nations. Local FBCO organizations are often linked through organizing networks such as the Industrial Areas Foundation , Gamaliel Foundation , PICO National Network , and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART). In the United States starting in 2001, the Bush administration launched a department to promote community organizing that included faith-based organizing as well other community groups. FBCOs tend to have mostly middle-class participants because

3916-468: The United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has led in providing extensive research in the field through its Community Development Journal, used worldwide by sociologists and community development practitioners. At the intersection between community development and community building are a number of programs and organizations with community development tools. One example of this is the program of

4005-423: The assumption that people or households will share more similarities in the types and styles of their material goods with other members of a social community than they will with outsiders. Early sociological studies identified communities as fringe groups at the behest of local power elites. Such early academic studies include Who Governs? by Robert Dahl as well as the papers by Floyd Hunter on Atlanta . At

4094-604: The belief that power rests in the community and community empowerment is the process of building that power. Scholars Catherine P. Bradshaw et al. states that feminist organizers believe power is not quantifiable, and that power is created, rather than distributed. The hierarchical relationship between organizer and participant is broken down also by facilitating decision-making among community members rather than just by community leaders. To build relationships among community members, feminist organizers encourage sharing personal experiences. Feminist organizers believe that this forms

4183-487: The capabilities limitation. Though feminist organizers' intentions are to recognize women's diversity through unity, some are concerned that the vision of unity eclipses a diverse reality. There are studies that speculate that these limitations are caused by feminism's emergence from a Eurocentric perspective. Historically, European American feminists delegitimize the racial difference of women. In addition, European American feminists delegitimize women who do not follow

4272-428: The characteristics of feminism distinguish feminist organizing from other forms of grassroots organizing. Feminists want to break down racial and gendered boundaries and promote unity among women. Feminist organizing focuses on building relationships within the community, seeing such relationships as a prerequisite for raising consciousness. This type of organizing is called the community-building approach, which

4361-483: The community's right to make governing decisions on issues with harmful and direct local impact. The first rights-based municipal laws prohibited corporations from monopolizing horticulture (factory farming), and banned corporate waste dumping within municipal jurisdictions. More recent rights-based organizing, in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, Virginia and California has prohibited corporate mining, large-scale water withdrawals and chemical trespass. A similar attempt

4450-479: The community, scholars note that grassroots community organizing can be passive and depoliticizing. This approach to building community empowerment does not aim for a specific political or social goal. In other words, building relationships do not always directly confront institutions, though it might challenge an individual's views through one-on-one conversations with other individuals in the community. Feminist organizing, also known as women's community organizing,

4539-789: The congregations involved are generally mainline Protestant and Catholic (although "middle-class" can mean different things in white communities and communities of color, which can lead to class tensions within these organizations). Holiness, Pentecostal, and other related denominations (often "storefront") churches with mostly poor and working-class members tend not to join FBCOs because of their focus on "faith" over "works," among other issues. FBCOs have increasingly expanded outside impoverished areas into churches where middle-class professionals predominate in an effort to expand their power to contest inequality. Because of their "organization of organizations" approach, FBCOs can organize large numbers of members with

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4628-657: The decades: Mark Andersen , Ella Baker , Heather Booth , César Chávez , Lois Gibbs , Mother Jones , Martin Luther King Jr. , Ralph Nader , Huey P. Newton , Barack Obama , and Paul Wellstone . More recently has come the emergence of youth organizing groups around the country. These groups use neo-Alinsky strategies while also usually providing social and sometimes material support to less-privileged youth. Most of these groups are created by and directed by youth or former youth organizers. Prior to his entry into politics, President Barack Obama worked as an organizer for

4717-507: The depression era, such as that of Dorothy Day . Most organizations had a national orientation because the economic problems the nation faced did not seem possible to change at the neighborhood levels. Saul Alinsky , based in Chicago , is credited with originating the term community organizer during this time period. Alinsky wrote Reveille for Radicals , published in 1946, and Rules for Radicals , published in 1971. With these books, Alinsky

4806-514: The development of campaigns. A central goal of organizing is the development of a robust, organized, local democracy bringing community members together across differences to fight together for the interests of the community. Community organizers attempt to influence government, corporations, and institutions, increase direct representation within decision-making bodies, and foster general social reform more generally. Where negotiations fail, these organizations quickly seek to inform others outside of

4895-720: The emergence of an ongoing process of white flight , the ability of middle-class white Americans to move out of majority Black areas, and the professionalization of community organizations into 501(c)3 nonprofits, among other issues, increasingly dissolved the tight ethnic and racial communities that had been so prevalent in urban areas during the first part of the century. As a result, community organizers began to move away from efforts to mobilize existing communities and towards efforts to create community, fostering relationships between community members. While community organizers like Alinsky had long worked with churches, these trends led to an increasing focus on congregational organizing during

4984-412: The feeling of love and belonging. The process of learning to adopt the behavior patterns of the community is called socialization . The most fertile time of socialization is usually the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge and learn the roles necessary to function within their culture and social environment . For some psychologists, especially those in

5073-417: The general health of a specific interest group, rather than the community as a whole. In addition, community organizing seeks to broadly empower community members,through mobilizing efforts, with the end goal of "distributing" power and resources more equally between the community members and external political and social figures of power. When adapting the goal of community empowerment, organizers recognize

5162-406: The history of "community organizing" (also known as "social agitation") in the United States into four rough periods: People sought to meet the pressures of rapid immigration and industrialization by organizing immigrant neighborhoods in urban centers. Since the emphasis of the reformers was mostly on building community through settlement houses and other service mechanisms, the dominant approach

5251-616: The interest of their communities and the common good. According to scholar Brian D. Christens, grassroots organizing focuses on building and maintaining interpersonal relationships between their community members. Building social relationships allow community members to build collaborative skills, deliberative skills to handle conflict, and strengthen civil engagement. Some networks of community organizations that employ this method and support local organizing groups include National People's Action and ACORN . Although efforts in grassroots organizing are significant in marginalized communities, it

5340-538: The knowledge and application of certain rules. He states that this process goes through four stages: In 1991, Peck remarked that building a sense of community is easy but maintaining this sense of community is difficult in the modern world. An interview with M. Scott Peck by Alan Atkisson. In Context #29, p. 26. The three basic types of community organizing are grassroots organizing, coalition building, and "institution-based community organizing", (also called "broad-based community organizing", an example of which

5429-419: The leader (local volunteer) directed. (However, the same can be said for many forms of organizing, including FBCOs.) The "door-knocking" approach is more time-intensive than the "organization of organizations" approach of FBCOs and requires more organizers who, partly as a result, can be lower paid with more turnover. Unlike the existing FBCO national "umbrella" and other grassroots organizations, ACORN maintains

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5518-597: The local power structures. Community organizing appeared to trap the radical activists in "a politics of adjustment". By the beginning of the 1970s most of the New Left groups had vacated their store-front offices. Nonetheless, the Civil Rights Movement , anti-war protest, ethnic mobilizations, women's liberation , and the struggle for gay rights all influenced, and were influenced by, ideas of neighborhood organizing. Experience with federal anti-poverty programs and

5607-447: The member institutions by developing the skills and capacities of their leaders and creating a vehicle for ordinary families to participate in the political process. The Industrial Areas Foundation sees itself as a "university of public life" teaching citizens the democratic process in the fullest sense. While community organizing groups often engage in protest actions designed to force powerful groups to respond to their demands, protest

5696-420: The misuse of governing authority to benefit corporations. As such, the adoption of rights-based municipal ordinances is not a legal strategy, but an organizing strategy. Courts predictably deny the legal authority of municipalities to legislate in defiance of state and federal law. Corporations and government agencies that initiate legal actions to overturn these ordinances have been forced to argue in opposition to

5785-537: The national community organizing network was to partner with religious congregations and civic organizations to build "broad-based organizations" that could train up local leadership and promote trust across community divides. After Alinsky died in 1972, Edward T. Chambers became the IAF's executive director. Hundreds of professional community and labor organizers and thousands of community and labor leaders have been trained at its workshops. Fred Ross , who worked for Alinsky,

5874-569: The organization of the issues being addressed and expose or pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting , sit-ins , petitioning, and electoral politics. Organizing groups often seek out issues they know will generate controversy and conflict. This allows them to draw in and educate participants, build commitment, and establish a reputation for advancing local justice. Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are democratic in governance, open and accessible to community members, and concerned with

5963-472: The outside in. In the disability field, community building was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s with roots in John McKnight's approaches. In The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace (1987) Scott Peck argues that the almost accidental sense of community that exists at times of crisis can be consciously built. Peck believes that conscious community building is a process of deliberate design based on

6052-451: The powerless. Community organizing has as a core goal the generation of durable power for an organization representing the community , allowing it to influence key decision-makers on a range of issues over time. In the ideal, for example, this can get community-organizing groups a place at the table before important decisions are made. Community organizers work with and develop new local leaders , facilitating coalitions and assisting in

6141-520: The president's legislative agenda and played an important role in building grassroots support for The Affordable Health Care Act. Community In terms of sociological categories, a community can seem like a sub-set of a social collectivity . In developmental views, a community can emerge out of a collectivity. The English-language word "community" derives from the Old French comuneté ( Modern French : communauté ), which comes from

6230-436: The principle that social interaction in the past was conditioned by physical distance. Therefore, a small village settlement likely constituted a social community and spatial subdivisions of cities and other large settlements may have formed communities. Archaeologists typically use similarities in material culture —from house types to styles of pottery—to reconstruct communities in the past. This classification method relies on

6319-413: The racial and capability diversity among women. In the process of pushing for unity among women, feminist organizers are inclined to disregard the benefits of diversity. Economist Marilyn Power uses the term "homogenous category" to highlight the problem of masking racial diversity, while sociologist Akwugo Emejulu uses the concept of essentialism (reducing women to their gender stereotypes) to highlight

6408-542: The reaction against community organizing in the 2008 US presidential election by Republicans and conservatives both online and offline. Organizing groups often struggle to find resources. They rarely receive funding from government since their activities often seek to contest government policies. Foundations and others who usually fund service activities generally don't understand what organizing groups do or how they do it, or shy away from their contentious approaches. The constituency of progressive and centrist organizing groups

6497-465: The rights of "human and natural communities," and include provisions that deny the legal concepts of "corporate personhood," and "corporate rights." Since 2006 they have been drafted to include the recognition of legally enforceable rights for "natural communities and ecosystems." Although this type of community organizing focuses on the adoption of local laws, the intent is to demonstrate the use of governing authority to protect community rights and expose

6586-415: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Organizer . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Organizer&oldid=1131509456 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

6675-625: The scope of gender norms.  This negatively impacts women empowerment because it is the diversity that motivates women to mobilize. Faith-based community organizing (FBCO), also known as Congregation-based Community Organizing , is a methodology for developing power and relationships throughout a community of institutions: today mostly congregations, but these can also include unions, neighborhood associations, and other groups. Progressive and centrist FBCO organizations unite around basic values derived from common aspects of their faith instead of around strict dogmas. There are now at least 180 FBCOs in

6764-406: The social well-being of local, regional and, sometimes, national communities. More grassroots efforts, called community building or community organizing , seek to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities. These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for

6853-424: The table without engaging in "actions" because of their reputation. As Alinsky said, "the first rule of power tactics" is that "power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have." The development of durable "power" and influence is a key aim of community organizing. "Rights-based" community organizing, in which municipal governments are used to exercise community power, was first experimented with by

6942-450: The traditional gender norms influenced by white domestic middle class womanhood. Currently, feminist organizing focuses on addressing gender inequalities, which means only the problems of women who follow and are impacted by gender norms will be addressed. Feminist organizing becomes counterproductive for those who do follow gender norms. Psychologist Lorraine Gutierrez claims that feminist organizing disregards problems that are larger than

7031-502: The turn of the 21st century the concept of community was rediscovered by academics, politicians, and activists. Politicians hoping for a democratic election started to realign with community interests. In ecology , a community is an assemblage of populations—potentially of different species—interacting with one another. Community ecology is the branch of ecology that studies interactions between and among species. It considers how such interactions, along with interactions between species and

7120-406: The uneven distribution of material and social resources within society as the root cause of the community's issues. The process of creating empowerment starts with admitting that power gaps and resource inequalities exist in society and affects an individual's personal life. Though community organizers share the goal of community empowerment, community organizing itself is defined and understood in

7209-413: The upheavals in the cities produced a thoughtful response among activists and theorists in the early 1970s that has informed activities, organizations, strategies and movements through the end of the century. Less dramatically, civic association and neighborhood block clubs were formed all across the country to foster community spirit and civic duty, as well as provide a social outlet. During these decades,

7298-561: Was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor", a phrase produced on bumper stickers and elsewhere. Pontius Pilate was the Roman Prefect who ordered the execution of Jesus. After Obama's election in 2008, the campaign organization " Obama for America ," became " Organizing for America ," and has been placed under the auspices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Organizing for America sought to advance

7387-423: Was answered with resounding applause. This was seconded by the vice presidential nominee, Alaska governor Sarah Palin , who stated that her experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska was "sort of like being a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." In response, some progressives, such as Congressman Steve Cohen ( D - TN ) and liberal pundit Donna Brazile , started saying that " Jesus

7476-515: Was developed by Chavis and colleagues, and revised and adapted by others. Although originally designed to assess sense of community in neighborhoods, the index has been adapted for use in schools, the workplace, and a variety of types of communities. Studies conducted by the APPA indicate that young adults who feel a sense of belonging in a community, particularly small communities, develop fewer psychiatric and depressive disorders than those who do not have

7565-535: Was made by Denton, Texas to restrict fracking was initially successful, but then overturned and further legislation passed to prevent Texas communities from enacting similar bans. Community organizing is not solely the domain of progressive politics, as dozens of fundamentalist organizations are in operation, such as the Christian Coalition . However, the term "community organizing" generally refers to more progressive organizations, as evidenced, for example, by

7654-483: Was the first person in America to codify key strategies and aims of community organizing. The following excerpts from Reveille for Radicals give a sense of Alinsky's organizing philosophy and of his style of public engagement: In 1940, with the support of Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and Chicago Sun-Times publisher Marshall Field , Alinsky founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). The mandate of

7743-587: Was the first, created by Alinsky himself in 1940. The other key organizations include ACORN , PICO National Network , Direct Action and Research Training Center , and the Gamaliel Foundation . The role of the organizer in these organizations was "professionalized" to some extent and resources were sought so that being an organizer could be more of a long-term career than a relatively brief, mostly unfunded interlude. The training provided by these national "umbrella" organizations helps local volunteer leaders learn

7832-512: Was the principal mentor for Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta . Other organizations following in the tradition of the Congregation-based Community Organizing pioneered by IAF include PICO National Network , Gamaliel Foundation , Brooklyn Ecumenical Cooperatives, founded by former IAF trainer, Richard Harmon and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART). In the 1960s the New Left (beginning with Students for

7921-647: Was what Fisher calls social work . During this period the Newsboys Strike of 1899 provided an early model of youth-led organizing . During this period, much of community organizing methodology was generated in Schools of Social Work, with a particular methodological focus grounded in the philosophy of John Dewey , which focused on experience, education, and other sociological concepts. This period saw much energy coming from those critical of capitalist doctrines as well. Studs Terkel documented community organizing in

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