Social Work Concepts: Community organization

 Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Definitions
  3. History
  4. Models
  5. Principles
  6. Impact of globalization 

Introduction

A community organization, also known as a Community-Based Organization, is an organization that works to improve the social health, well-being, and overall functioning of a community. Geographically, psychosocially, culturally, spiritually, and digitally bounded communities organize themselves.

Community work, community projects, community development, community empowerment, community building, and community mobilization are all examples of community organization. It is a popular model for organizing community within community projects, neighborhoods, organizations, voluntary associations, localities, and social networks, and it can be used to mobilize people based on geography, shared space, shared experience, interest, need, and/or concern.

Community organizing differs from conflict-oriented community organizing in that it focuses on long-term and short-term change through direct action and community organizing, as opposed to conflict-oriented community organizing, which focuses on short-term change through appeals to authority (i.e., pressuring established power structures for the desired change) (i.e., the creation of alternative systems outside of established power structures). Inclusionary networking, interpersonal organizing, listening, reflexivity, nonviolent communication, cooperation, mutual aid and social care, prefiguration, popular education, and direct democracy are frequently used.

Variations in size and structure exist within organizations. Some organizations are formally incorporated, with codified bylaws and Boards of Directors (also known as committees), whereas others are much smaller, more informal, and grassroots. Community organizations may be more effective than larger, more bureaucratic organizations in addressing needs and achieving short-term and long-term goals. The term "The New Community Organizing" refers to contemporary community organizing that incorporates perspectives and organizing methods. The number of institutions, groups, and activities does not always define community organization. However, interactions, integration, and coordination of existing groups, assets, and activities, as well as relationships, the evolution of new structures, and communities are characteristics unique to a community organization.

Community organization can frequently lead to a better understanding of local contexts. It is distinguished by community building, community planning, direct action and mobilization, community change promotion, and, ultimately, changes within larger social systems and power structures as well as localized ones.

Community organization meaning, principle, and models 

Community organization is typically carried out through non-profit endeavors, and funding is frequently directed directly toward organizing activities. Many organizations have faced complex challenges as a result of globalization, the pervasiveness of ICTs, neoliberalism, and austerity, including mission drift and coercion by the state and private funders. Because of these political and economic conditions, some people have turned to alternative funding sources such as fee-for-service, crowdfunding, and other novel approaches.

Definitions

In 1955, the United Nations saw community organisation as a complement to community development. The United Nations assumed that community development is active in marginalised communities and community organisation is active in areas with relatively high living standards and well-developed social services, but where a greater degree of integration and community initiative is desired.

Murray G. Ross defined community organisation in 1955 as the process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives, orders (or ranks) these needs or objectives, develops the confidence and will to work on these needs or objectives, finds the resources (internal and/or external) to deal with these needs or objectives, takes action on them, and thus extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practises within the community.
In 1921, Eduard C. Lindeman defined community organization as "that phase of social organization which constitutes a conscious effort on the part of a community to control its affairs democratically and to secure the highest services from its specialists, organizations, agencies, and institutions by means of recognized interrelations.

In 1925, Walter W. Pettit stated that "Community organization is perhaps best defined as assisting a group of people to recognize their common needs and helping them to meet these needs."

In 1940, Russell H. Kurtz defined community organization as "a process dealing primarily with program relationships and thus to be distinguished in its social work setting from those other basic processes, such as casework and group work. Those relationships of agency to agency, of agency to community and of community to agency reach in all directions from any focal point in the social work picture. Community organization may be thought of as the process by which these relationships are initiated, altered or terminated to meet changing conditions, and it is thus basic to all social work..."

In 1947, Wayne McMillen defined community organization as "in its generic sense in deliberately directed effort to assist groups in attaining unity of purpose and action. It is practiced, though often without recognition of its character, wherever the objective is to achieve or maintain a pooling of the talents and resources of two or more groups in behalf of either general or specific objectives."

In 1954, C. F. McNeil said "Community organization for social welfare is the process by which the people of community, as individual citizens or as representatives of groups, join together to determine social welfare needs, plan ways of meeting then and mobilise the necessary resource."

Murray G. Ross defined community organisation in 1967 as a process by which a community identifies needs or objectives, takes action, and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practises within a community.

In 1975, Kramer and Specht stated "Community organization refers to various methods of intervention whereby a professional change agent helps a community action system composed of individuals, groups, or organizations to engage in planned collective action in order to deal with special problems within the democratic system of values."

 Comparison between related terms

Community organisation and community development are inextricably linked, with both stemming from community social work. The community organisation method is used to achieve the goals of community development. According to the United Nations, community development is concerned with a developing country's overall development, including economic, physical, and social aspects. Community organisation is used to achieve total development. Democratic procedures, voluntary cooperation, self-help, leadership development, awareness and sensitization are all important aspects of community development. The same factors are important to community organisations as well.

History

In most societies, informal associations of people working for the common good have existed. The first formal precursor to the Community Benefit Organization was documented in Elizabethan England in order to address the acute problem of poverty, which led to beggary. Elizabethan poor law (1601) was established in England to provide services to the needy. During the late 1800s, England saw the formation of the London Society of Organizing Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicancy, as well as the settlement house movement.

This community organising model was carried over to the United States of America. The Charities organisation was founded in 1880 to bring order to the field of charity and relief. In 1877, Buffalo, New York, US, established the first citywide Charity Organization Society (COS). Rev. S. H. Gurteen, an English priest who moved to Buffalo in 1873, led COS to reach out to over 25 American cities. The American Association for Community Organization was founded in 1918 as the national agency for chests and councils, later renamed community chests and councils of America (CCC). The Cincinnati Public Health Federation, founded in 1917, was the country's first independent health council.

The Association for the Study of Community Organization (ASCO) was founded in 1946 at the National Conference of Social Workers in Buffalo. The primary goal was to improve the professional practise of social welfare organisations. ASCO joined forces with six other professional organisations to form the National Association of Social Workers in 1955. The Settlement movement and "settlement houses" are historically significant examples of community organisations that participated in both neighbourhood organising and development. During the early twentieth century, settlement houses were common in the industrial cities of the East and Midwest; Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, was a notable example. They were largely established in working-class neighbourhoods by college educated children of middle-class citizens concerned about the significant social problems that arose as a result of the social settlement movement's increasing industrialization and urbanisation. Throughout history, innovative community organising methods have risen in response to vast social problems. Child labour, working-class poverty, and housing were among the social issues that existed at the time of settlement houses. Settlement workers believed that by providing education (English classes) and social services to the poor (employment assistance, legal aid, recreational programmes, and children services), the income gap between them and the middle class would close. The majority of service funding came from charitable sources.

Following World War II, another development in the history of American community development occurred. The American Red Cross and United Service Organizations (USO) were crucial in recruiting a large number of people for volunteer services during the war. Following World War II, the emphasis of community organisation shifted to emerging issues such as rehabilitation of the physically and mentally challenged, mental health planning, destitution, abandoned ageing population, juvenile delinquency, and so on.

According to Baldock in 1974, the historical development of community organisation in the UK is divided into four phases.
  1. First Phase (1880-1920): During this time, community service was primarily viewed as a form of social work. It was regarded as a method of assisting individuals in improving their social adjustments. It served as a major player in coordinating the work of volunteer organisations.
  2. Second phase (1920-1950): During this time, new approaches to dealing with social issues and problems emerged. The community organisation was closely linked to central and state government urban development programmes. The association with the community association movement was a significant development during this time period.
  3. Third phase (1950 onwards): This period arose as a reaction to the neighbourhood concept, and it served as an ideological phase for the second phase. During this time, social workers' professional development took place. Recognizing the flaws in the existing system, it was a time when social workers sought a professional identity.
  4. Fourth phase: The current period has seen a significant involvement of community action. It called into question the very relationship between community service and social work. As a result, it was viewed as a period of radical social movement, and we could see community conflicts with authority. During this time, the social workers' union and the community are deprofessionalized. Thus, conflictual strategies were introduced in community work during this time period.

Categories

Community organisations are typically divided into the following categories: community service and action, health, educational, personal growth and improvement, social welfare, and self-help for the poor. 

Community-based organisations (CBOs) that operate within a given locality ensure the community's sustainability by providing sustainable community-service and actions in health, education, personal growth and improvement, social welfare, and self-help for the disadvantaged. This is possible because the community is directly involved in the action or operation wherever and whenever monetary and non-monetary support or contribution is generated. Community organisations include amateur sports clubs, school groups, church groups, youth groups, and community support groups.

Community organisations in developing countries (such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa) frequently focus on community strengthening, such as HIV/AIDS awareness, human rights (such as the Karen Human Rights Group), health clinics, orphan child support, water and sanitation provision, and economic issues. Other social animators are focusing on unusual issues, such as the Chengara struggle in Kerala, India, and the Ghosaldanga Adivasi Seva Sangh in West Bengal, India.

Models 

In 1970, Jack Rothman proposed three fundamental models of community organisation.
  • Locality Development - A strategy for collaborating with community organisations. The primary focus of the Settlement House movement was community building and community empowerment. This participatory process regarded leadership development, mutual aid, and popular education as essential components. The goal of locality development is to meet the needs of specific populations in a defined area (e.g., neighborhood, housing block, tenement housing, school, etc.).
  • Social planning is a method of working with a large group of people. The emphasis is on assessing welfare needs and existing services in the area, as well as developing a possible blueprint for more efficient delivery of services to social problems. It is a model that responds to the needs and attitudes of the community. For example, housing, health insurance, and affordable education.
  • Social action is a strategy used by groups, subcommunities, or even national organisations who believe they lack the power and resources to meet their needs. They confront the dominant power structure through conflict as a means of resolving inequalities and deprivation. For example, a structural system change in social policies that results in disparities between people of different socioeconomic backgrounds in social rights such as educational policies, employment policies, and so on.
Rothman revisited the three community organization typologies of locality development, social planning, and social action in the late 1990s and concluded that they were too rigid because "community processes had become more complex and variegated, and problems had to be approached differently, more subtly, and with greater penetrability." This resulted in a more expansive, nuanced, situational, and interconnected view of the models. The reframing of the typologies as overlapping and integrated, according to Rothman, ensured that "practitioners of any stripe [have] a greater range in selecting, then mixing and phasing, components of the intervention."

Principles

Value judgments are expressed in principles. It is a set of generalized guiding rules for good practice. Arthur Dunham developed a statement of 28 principles of community organization in 1958, categorizing them under seven headings. They are as follows:
  1. Democracy and social welfare; 
  2. Community roots for community programs; 
  3. Citizen understanding, support, participation, and professional service; 
  4. Co-operation; 
  5. Social Welfare Programs;
  6. Adequacy, distribution, and organization of social welfare services; and
  7. Prevention.
Siddiqui developed a set of principles based on existing evidence-based indigenous community organization practises in India in 1997.
  1. Objective movement
  2. Specific planning 
  3. Active peoples participation 
  4. Inter-group approach 
  5. Democratic functioning 
  6. Flexible organisation 
  7. Utilisation of available resources 
  8. Cultural orientation 

Impact of globalization 

The landscape of work, organisations, and communities is fundamentally changing as a result of globalisation. Many of the challenges posed by globalisation involve disinvestment from local communities and neighbourhoods, as well as a shifting labour landscape. Together with the transition to post-industrialization, grassroots community organisations are facing new challenges and opportunities. Scholars such as Grace Lee Boggs and Gar Alperovitz are known for their forward-thinking approaches to community organisation in this changing environment. The recognition that "communities" exist in the context of local, national, and global influences is at the heart of these understandings. As a way to rebuild local wealth in this changing landscape, these and other scholars emphasise the need to create new social, economic, and political systems through community organisation. Visionary organising, community wealth projects, employee-owned firms, anchor institutions, and place-based education are all related concepts.

Smaller community organisations in the age of globalisation typically rely on donations (both monetary and in-kind) from local community members, as well as sponsorship from local government and businesses. In Canada, for example, slightly more than 40% of the community organisations surveyed had revenue of less than C$30,000. These organisations are typically relationship-driven and people-oriented. Canadian community organisations of all sizes rely on government funding (49%) earned income (35%), and gifts and donations from others (13 percent ).

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