This revised edition of Community Organizing and Development fully examines the broad and changing political and social settings that influence actions while portraying the infra-structure of social change -- the knowledge, personnel, and organizations -- that enable such work to be successfully accomplished. The text brings together the practicalities of organizing and development -- fund raising, working out news releases, running an organization, orchestrating political actions, academic knowledge on why various approaches work, as well as the values and ideologies that guide what is to be done and why it should be.

Community Organizing and Development presents a comprehensive, holistic introduction to the array of approaches that guide social change, social activism, and economic and community development work. The various models of change are illustrated through dozens of real-life contemporary illustrations. Though the text clearly distinguishes between different theories and models of organizing and development, the text emphasizes that the approaches complement one another in a shared effort to bring about improvement.

Community Organizing and Development builds upon these theories to illustrate practical techniques of social mobilization, organization building, learning about social problems, and then the nitty gritty details of how problems are solved either through confrontional actions or by through economic and social development projects. Dramatic actions are described, successful projects portrayed as well as details on the technical skills and the behind the scenes routines that allow actions to succeed.

Features

• Broad scope of coverage--integrating direct action, social confrontational models with economic and community development approaches
• Systematically presents background explanations of the social and political problems that necessitate community actions--and then builds on these to present two complementary approaches to bringing about social change
• Examines the multitude of ways in which individuals are involved in social change work, as organizers, as social change professionals working for support organizations, local leaders and volunteers
• Provides detailed nuts and bolts examples of both how to undertake both social mobilization and social production actions
• Blends together practical advice, real world examples with back up material from academic studies
• Presents material in integrated units that can be taught independently but that also build upon one another
• Portrays the wide array of separate organizations, from small community groups, to national networks and advocacy groups, that together create a base for social change work
• Shows contrasts and similarities between a wide variety of models of organizing and development
• Argues that these models complement one another rather than conflict with each other
• Integrates academic theories, with practical knowledge and examples from real world social change actions
• Illustrates how community actions respond to the changing political, administrative, policy and social environments in which they take place
• Emphasizes the importance of individual social change
• Describes how empowerment, capacity, and community provide the three pillars on which organizing and economic and social production work are based
• Emphasizes the importance of understanding the framings that define what constitutes problems; how issues are understood; and the legitimacy of the actions of social change organizations.
• Emphasizes the importance of capacity building
• Shows how capacity expands both through the individual efforts of activists and with the help obtained from the support sector
• Emphasizes the importance of reflexivity; that is stepping back and systematically analyzing how well the actions taken mesh with the goals sought
• Emphasize the idea of pre-configuring; that is the community organizations being set up and run in ways that demonstrate the progressive values that underlie social change models
• Continual attention paid to multi-cultural organizing--especially as the underlying demographics of the country rapidly change