WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

Typical challenges which engage organizers in community efforts 

• Negotiate with sponsors and groups to consider the most appropriate community organizing strategy
• Integrate useful social theories into organizing practice to find new ways of framing and discussing old problems and solutions
• Identify and adapt group process skills to accomplish organizing goals and meeting objectives

This book emphasizes 

• A philosophy and lessons learned from 50 years of experiences
• How to make community organizing a career with skills transferable across times, places and issues
• How to use organizing skills across four different platforms: employment, academic, representation and consulting
• Detailed cases with figures and examples to review when looking for fresh ideas

Examples and ideas can be found in the following cases 

The goal: Organize meetings, small and large, with a focus on designing process and structures and an emphasis on outcomes 

• Interorganizational linkages meetings between community health centers and local health departments (Case 2)
• Meetings to use of a Give-Get Grid to create a partnership between a regional Hispanic coalition and a regional university (Case 4) 
• A Data Blitz meeting to engage community and academic leaders to begin discussions to identify and document regional health disparities (Case 5)
• A Cancer Message WORKshop to structure conversations and planning between cancer survivors, advocates and clinicians (Case 8)
• A regional Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome conference to synthesize knowledge of researchers, clinicians, and community coalitions (Case 11)
• A three-month, two-step process of community listening sessions and professional advisory group deliberations to form recommendations for a new regional Recovery to Work substance abuse initiative (Case 14)
• A six-month, four-step community health assessment process for a new rural health foundation (Case 15)

Typical issues which lead to sponsoring an organizing effort 

• Your organization was charged with taking the lead on addressing a community health issue
• You got new resources and you must organize people or other organizations to respond and participate
• You want to promote internal organizational renewal or refocus attention  

This book emphasizes 

• How to clearly define goals for change and identify your desired outcomes
• View the full organizing process from background to outcomes
• How to design a process that sequentially builds from one activity to another
• Negotiating with a community organizer about strategies and how to promote accountability for outcomes

Examples and ideas can be found in the following cases 

The goal: Develop new relationships or organizations to address initiatives 

• Pilot an approach to encourage community health centers and local health departments to cooperatively address shared community health issues (Case 2)
• Redefine the process of an existing shared structure between two national associations to improve its effectiveness as strategic thinking group (Case 3)
• Organize multi-stakeholder community teams to develop plans to address local substance abuse issues in response to a challenge grant offering (Case 7)
• Conduct community-based research to assess factors for the design of new regional grant funding to encourage joint substance abuse and employment efforts (Case 14)
• Conduct a new foundation’s first community health assessment (Case 15)  

Typical issues which lead to a community group participating in an organizing effort  

• Your group or community has been approached to become a partner in a larger community improvement initiative
• A new health related problem has grown to become a community issue and you somehow need to get the conversation started of what to do about it
• You need to communicate about issues and actions with the broad community 

This book emphasizes 

• Ways that community organizing is helpful to communities facing issues
• Different types of organizing goals and strategies
• How to identify and use the skills of persons who are community organizers
• How to hold organizers and the group accountable for the process and outcomes  

Examples and ideas can be found in the following cases 

The goal: Build or strengthen a group’s unit of identity 

• Engage a rural community in grassroots cardiovascular risk reduction (Case 1)
• Begin steps for a new regional Hispanic coalition through forming community partnerships (Case 4) 
• Develop a promotional product with a new statewide group of safety net clinics (Case 12)  
• The goal: “Thinking before doing” to effectively use new resources  
• Reinvigorate community concern and action through developing county plans for tobacco use prevention (Case 13)
• Engage and organize diverse community stakeholders in local substance abuse problems through challenge grants (Case 7)  

Typical issues which lead to sponsoring or participating in an organizing effort 

• Course development, planning and instruction in community organizing
• Find reports of real-life examples of community organizing that address multiple types of health issues
• Demonstrations of how to integrate theory into practice for community work
• Examples of communities defining and addressing their own issues through community-based participatory research 
• Improve academic rigor as part of community-engaged scholarship activities

This book emphasizes 

• How to find partners for research and community-located learning opportunities for students
• Developing service opportunities for faculty
• Examples of how academic resources and energy benefit communities through engagement and partnerships emphasizing the value of academic approaches and expertise and energy shared with communities

Examples and ideas can be found in the following cases 

The goal: Define and shape community health issues through academic engagement with communities 

• Hands-on student learning in an assessment of rural community responses to a Medicare pharmacy assistance program (Chapter 3.3) and curricular opportunities to support of the formation of a regional Hispanic coalition (Case 4)
• A three-step qualitative research process to sequentially formulate rural communities’ definition of substance abuse and use issues (Case 6)
• Use facilitated focus groups to gather community interpretations of regional cancer disparities research and define cancer care issues (Case 9)
• Conduct constructive curricular conversations between rural Appalachian clergy and medical school faculty to improve appreciation of the role of faith in cancer care (Case 10)