Definition of Community
Organization (by Murray Ross)
Definition of Community Organization
a process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives;
orders (or ranks) these needs or objectives;
develops the confidence and will to work at these needs or objectives;
finds the resources (internal and/or external) to deal with these needs or
objectives;
takes action in respect to them;
and in so doing extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes
and practices in the community.
Context of CO
• Working with communities is fundamentally based on the premise of
social change. By social change is meant a process by which
alteration occurs in the structure and function of social system. It can
refer to variations or modifications in any aspect of a social process,
pattern or form. It is also defined as a transformation in the social
situation of the people, a modification in the interaction between the
people and their environment.
• Social change is regarded as a means, as an end, as a program, as a
social movement, as a state of affairs, as an ideology, as a principle,
as a doctrine or even as a problem.
Assumptions underlying the
Theory of Social Change
1. Belief in the dignity of the person, his/her right to equal opportunity
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and the qualities of justice
2. People are capable of changing and of setting their own goals for their
future
3. The self is the basic tool by the worker in mobilizing the resources
within the person and his/her environment in order to alter the
interaction of the two
4. Social change is best achieved in a partnership arrangement between
the worker and the client
Major Types of Social Change
1.Cataclysmic Change
It refers to changes in society arising from natural
catastrophe or calamity such as the volcanic eruption
that can drastically transform the landscape of the
community, a strong earthquake, a killer flash floods,
and the like.
Major Types of Social Change
2. Planned Change
This type of social innovation involves a conscious and
purposive efforts to alter the interaction between the people
and their environment, a modification in the social situation
or in the people themselves. Examples are the technological
advances, legislation, program of government or private
organizations, etc.
Major Types of Social Change
3. Socio-Cultural Drift
There are changes in society which are unplanned, unforeseen or
not expected. These are the unintended effects of planned social
change such as the changes in the roles performed by members of
the family brought about by industrial revolution, by urbanization, or
by modernization. Some examples are the phenomena of migration,
women-headed families, street children, squatting, etc. The
Internally Displaced People (IDP) can also be an example if war is
to be viewed as planned change.
Major Types of Social Change
• Community Organizing (CO) being a
social intervention or strategy for social
transformation, its context is planned
social change.
Basic Social Change Strategies
1. Empirical-rational strategy
• Main assumptions:
Every person is a rational, thinking being. He/she will follow his/her
rational self-interest. This means that someone will adopt change, if it can
be rationally justified and if it can be shown by the proposer of the change,
that he/she will gain by the change.
The most important enemies of this strategy are ignorance and
superstition.
Basic Social Change Strategies
• Strategy involved: Giving information. Research
results are translated in the behavior and this
information is given to the people.
• Limitation: it has worked only in areas where
almost universal readiness for accepting was
already present in the people.
Basic Social Change Strategies
2. Normative re-educative strategy
Main assumptions:
The person is active, in quest of impulse and need satisfaction. He/she does not
passively await given stimuli from the environment to respond.
Relationship between person and environment is guided by norms, by the culture.
• Therefore changes in behavior are changes in habits and values at the personal level
and changes in normative structure and institutional roles at the socio-cultural level, not
only changes in the rational, informational equipment of the person.
People’s problems are not assumed to be those which can be met by mere technical
information only.
There is a dialogic relationship between change agents & the people.
Basic Social Change Strategies
Strategy involved:
Emphasizes the involvement of the people in working out programs of
change & improvement for themselves. Change agent & people must
work together to define & solve the latter’s problems.
Recognizes the non-conscious elements which impede problem-
solution that must be brought into consciousness.
Accepts the principle that people must “learn-to-learn” from their
experience. Experience-based learning is emphasized as an
ingredient of all enduring changes.
Basic Social Change Strategies
3. Power-coercive strategy
Main assumption:
A democratic, re-educative methods of changing have a place after
changes in power allocations have been achieved by power-
coercive methods.
• Strategy involved:
Its emphasis rests upon political & economic sanctions in the
exercise of power; and/or the use of moral power, playing upon
sentiments of guilt & shame.
Basic Social Change Strategies
Three types : Power-Coercive
3.1 Strategies of non-violence:
• (a) non-cooperation
• (b) civil disobedience
3.2 Use of political institutions to achieve change - strategy that enforces
change through declaring new laws, administrative rulings or judicial
decisions.
3.3 Changing through the re-composition & manipulation of power elites
Basic Social Change Strategies
Power-Coercive Strategy
• Emphasis: looking for a counter-force in the
society to challenge & to overcome the power of
the ruling class
Basic Social Change Strategies
From vantage point of ideology, one’s position vis-à-vis change in
society is described by any of the following variants:
Conservative – describes society as it is and strongly resist
change or describes society as it was once and seeks to return
to that kind of society.
Liberal – wants change but a modification only.
Progressive – wants radical change according to a vision of
society that has never been but someday will be.
VALUE ORIENTATION OF
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Values of CO
1. A commitment to democratic processes and goals.
2. The right of a client community to self-determination.
3. Belief in the capacity of people to change.
4. Belief in the innate dignity of the individual in the community.
5. The commitment to seek social justice.
VALUE ORIENTATION OF
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Goals of Community Organization
1. Task Goal – concerned with concrete tasks to be undertaken to meet specific
needs and people’s aspirations to solve particular problems.
2. Process Goal – concerned with the process of helping people in a community or
group strengthen their quality of participation, self-direction and cooperation. Its
concern is to help people grow and develop to prepare them for their specific roles
in community building and development.
3. Relationship Goal – focused on changing certain types of relationship and
decision-making process in a community by diffusing power to a wider base. CO
believes in participative leadership since people’s participation in community
undertakings develops enlightened citizenry.
VALUE ORIENTATION OF
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Objectives
The purpose of CO is to give professional assistance to a community or
group or population unit to help them achieve any or all of the following
objectives:
(1)To solve certain social problems
(2) To achieve selected social goals
(3) To strengthen their capacity for problems-solving & cooperation
Two kinds of problems identified by the social work profession which the
CO worker needs to address itself:
Two kinds of problems identified by the social work profession which the CO worker needs to
address itself:
1 . Residual problems
• These problems are brought about by the operational breakdown of either the producing
system or the consuming public. This breakdown results to gaps in services & lack of
resources that manifest itself in social problems, crimes & delinquency. It also breeds social
unrest.
2. Institutional problems
• These refer to the irrelevant or defective social policies and community decision-making
process which need to be changed or modified as they adversely affect the interests and
welfare of the majority of the people. When the interest and welfare of the majority are in
jeopardy, the situation is likely to breed social problems, unrest and instability in the society.
Principles of Community Organization (by Ray Johns
and David F. Demasche)
CO is a means and not an end.
Communities like individuals and groups are different.
Each has peculiarities, its own problem and needs. To
deal with communities effectively, they must be
individualized.
Communities, like individuals, have a right to self-
determination.
Principles of Community Organization (by Ray Johns and David F.
Demasche)
Social need is the basis for organization.
Community welfare rather than agency self-interest
should be the first consideration in determining
program.
Coordination is a process of growth.
CO structure should be kept as simple as possible.
Principles of Community Organization (by Ray Johns and David F.
Demasche)
Services should be distributed equitably.
There must be balance between centralization and
decentralization.
Barriers to communication must be broken down.
Communities need professional help.
