• If your organizing for social action then you are concerned with not only mobilizing people, but making sure the people in the community/neighborhood are involved in deciding what the issues and problems are.

• Focus attention to building bonds, assessing strengths, and weaknesses of a neighborhood.

• There are many different meanings of a neighborhood and what makes up a neighborhood. You have to think about the social system, norms, values, wants, etc.

• As an organizer you have to start by characterizing your neighborhood. You can have neighborhoods that are essentially parochial or integral.

a) Parochial- closed; prohibited; not interested in people being a part of their group

b) Integral- Bridges from people outside with people in the neighborhood; bonding amongst neighborhoods. 

• A neighborhood could also be anomic which consist of rambunctious people who happen to live in the same geographic area, but have no connection with each other, or people outside. They tend to be powerless.  
• As an organizer, you can work with existing communities, or build a community. 
• When thinking about a community, you should think of it as a unit of solution. A community has to be ready to act. Solutions can be found in a community; it’s a base for resolving problems. If you can effectively organize the people, and the resources, and direct them towards an issue or towards change, then a community isn’t just a location, it becomes a place where solutions are. Alinksy, for example, only worked with communities that invited him. Meaning that if they invited him to their community, it showed that they had already identified a need, and have sat down amongst themselves to try to find a solution. 

1. Mass Mobilization-  

Organizing individuals around an issue. Used to shock the system/disrupting; visual public action. Used for short term issues/ short lived; issue oriented. Uses media to scare or threaten the elite (i.e. politicians). It’s a key source of power for the powerless. Someone involved in mass mobilization most be a risk taker, outgoing, assertive, with strategic capacity. It’s less expensive, immediate, and empowers an individual for a short term.

Example: Marches, Protest 

2. Social Action- 

Focuses less on the individual and more on building/sustaining an organization. Change is possible by building strong stable organizations. Offers the possibility of long term issues. *Alinsky’s style of organizing (military) fits under this model. Build an organization from a local level, then work with the coalition of organizations at a higher level which represents more numbers. The problems with social action is funding, conflict in a community, limited resources, members drop-out, lose of sight of what the issues are, amongst other things. When talking about social action your talking about organizational success or organizational failure. Social action borrows from co-optation because it’s easier to co-opt an organization for power, money or resources. Co-optation is the idea that someone from outside you community gains control of your organization. It becomes a part of the system instead of challenging the system. It shifts the weight from your agenda. Therefore social action can either make or break a community when these problems arise. 

3. Citizen Participation- 

Involve citizens in planning. Citizen participation can work if you have shared power. You can incorporate citizen ideas into gov’t policy. Programs designed for representation. Involve citizens in formulating and implementing gov’t policy. The problems with this is the lack of education on issues; no interest; dependability. 

4. Public Advocacy-

 Individualistic; taking ideas to gov’t. Focus more on organizers than the community itself. Advocacy is more of a tool for organizing to empower. They empower through legislation (law). It’s a small group approach with the idea that all groups should be represented in gov’t. Through research and legal policy they educate individuals and organizations about issues/concerns; lobbyists.  

5. Education- 

Building self-awareness; building community. Building a more critical understanding of the world. 

6. Service Development- 

 *** The six strategies/models sometimes overlap were someone may do social action and advocacy or citizen participation and service development as a means of organizing.

• 10 different sections of the Bronx came together to form the coalition.
• It’s in its 25^th year.
• Dates back to 1974.
• Came about by the deterioration of the Bronx due to burnt and abandoned buildings; infestation of drug dealers and rodents, people leaving the community causing the refusal of banks to give housing loans.

According to the video there are (5) ways a coalition works: 

1. organize ordinary people to get together with their neighborhoods to solve problems.
2. paid staff
3. negotiations
4. a focus on the issue
5. team up with another organization. (In their case the NPA- National People’s Action.

Victory=ordinary people

Victory=community