Principles of Community Organizing

There are many proven practices and strategies for engaging with communities and building up participation, whether around an event, a campaign, or a cause. Here are the five core principles as we see them from our work:

1. Focus on Shared Goals and Shared Ownership

First, identify what your community wants to do – what it is coming together around, whether it’s an event, an action, or a movement.  Next, identify what you want to do, what your organizational goals are.  Those two “wants to do” will overlap and that gray area is the sweet spot. It’s important to remember that not everything your organization wants to do or achieve, matches up with with your community wants to do, and vice versa. The key is that that’s okay!  Maybe you provide services, and your community doesn’t want to be providing those services, but they are happy you are doing so. And maybe the community wants to endorse a specific candidate, and your organization doesn’t. But both the community and your organization want to see certain laws passed, things improved, programs created or groups supported.  That’s the sweet spot where you can focusing your calls to action and community engagement.

2. Transparency

Be transparent with everything: in goals, activities, membership, successes, challenges, issues within the community, and so on.

This also means don’t build it in secret and then “launch” it  – regardless of whether it’s an online space, a program or a campaign. If it is really something that is coming from the community, you can’t just take the idea and run; you’ll want to co-create it from idea to implementation.

Be sure you lead by example:  interact with the community the way you want other organizations and the community members to do.  It’s like the golden rule for community engagement.  I like this picture for this point because often mother ducks will bring up the rear, supporting the ducklings and swimming along side them, instead of shooting ahead and expecting them to keep up.

3. Go Where the People Are

Different platforms have different users – be sure to do your homework by reviewing statistics and reports from various social media tools to know who’s really using them, and ask your community where they want to engage with you.

Being active in the community leads to organizational engagement, creates community, builds followers. If you know your followers are into LBS, then be in that community and reward their activity in unique ways, such as check in 3 times and get an unique BK Art Star Badge.

Leverage the power of the online communities and networks, such as with Tweetsgiving. Highlight the work of the community on the home page of the campaign or website.

4. Cultivate Leaders

Leadership development is incredibly important. You don’t actually want to be the one maintaining the engagement forever – if the community can take over your role, it’s a sign it’s not just sustainable but thriving!

Striving to be replaced can be a tough one for most everyone. It isn’t exactly in our nature but it is key to the ethos of a community builder. One way to work on supporting your community to not need you managing the program, platform, or whatever else is to encourage interaction without you. This touches back on letting the community know itself. If you’re making connections and supporting conversations across the network, you’re helping the community create strong ties that will not require your time and energy to maintain.

Striving to be replaced also means rewarding and spotlighting leaders. Positive reinforcement is one of the best leadership development practices you can build into your work across the board, whether it’s online or offline, on your facebook page, newsletter, annual fundraiser or neighborhood events.

Lastly, be active in sharing your toolbox. You can model behavior all you want but if no one can tell what tools you are using to be so successful, there’s no way they can jump in and help man the ship.

5. Know Your Community

Part of doing this well is letting your community know itself. That means don’t take credit where it isn’t yours, highlight the leaders and contributors in the community, and making connections across the network. It also means letting community members connect directly with one another, without going through you.

Knowing your community also means knowing your role in the ecosystem. It’s important, as I mentioned earlier in the strategy steps, to identify what your role or roles are as the organization and stick to them. Once you start spreading out, you squeeze out room for others to grow and develop or even to explore what’s possible. Not to mention create far more for yourself!

Knowing your community also means you help it grow. Sometimes that means making mistakes. Hopefully they are tiny and harmless, and that you’re there to learn alongside the community.  But, it’s just to say that you are in it just like the community is, and not everything we try in life works smoothly. Instead, design for growth and sustainability from the start with lots of room for feedback, evaluation and iterations to continue developing and redeveloping. The best time to fail is early and openly – that way you can learn and build to move forward.

Case Studies

Check out the slides below to examine four case studies of these principles in action:

Resources & Links

• http://socialbysocial.com
• http://wearemedia.org
• http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2011/05/03/how-to-create-love-online-case-study/
• http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2011/02/24/follow-the-leader-innovative-social-media-activism/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/05/07/guest-post-on-online-community-report-sustainable-community-building/
• https://amysampleward.org/2009/08/06/online-community-building-gardening-vs-landscaping/
• https://amysampleward.org/2011/01/20/diy-community-engagement-metrics/
• https://amysampleward.org/2011/05/18/crowdsourcing-vs-community-sourcing-whats-the-difference-and-the-opportunity/

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Web Thinking Manifesto | EchoDitto – "Our field is maturing rapidly. The next generation of movement leaders is overcoming its fetish with technology and expertise as secrets to online success. Indeed, now faced with existential challenges from a fast shifting landscape, the time has come for us all to rethink our most deeply held tenets in this struggle to remain relevant. Thankfully, a brave few are trying – and they're finding answers. Looking beyond traditional online strategy, they're fundamentally transforming how they and their organizations work – shifting their entire perspective towards what we call "Web Thinking" – to better reflect the reality of our time. And they're winning. They're charting a path forward for us all."
• film music | mobygratis.com – Are you looking for music to use for free in your nonprofit's video? Well, here's your source! If you want to use it for a commercial production, that's okay: they have an easy license for that as well ("with any money that's generated being given to the humane society.").
• 3 principles for reporters and bloggers in a networked era | Online Journalism Blog – I totally agree that context is just as important as content. "Dina Rickman posed a question to me this week about the role of a reporter in our current networked age. I thought I’d expand on my response, shown above. Depending on your point of view, this is either a draft manifesto for networked journalists and bloggers – or a set of gaps in the market; new scarcities in an age of abundance."
• Zero Strategist – Holistic Social Media, Web Strategy & Innovative Design – Todd has an excellent post about Blog Strategy with insights, examples, and best of all: strategy recommendations! "This is the first in a series of Social Media/Web Strategy Articles that I am going to be writing over the next few months. The first topic is blog strategy. You might be thinking that the blog and blog strategy topic is quite dead and that it is old news. We figured that out years ago right? I would say that it is not dead at all. Rather, it is evolving past a critical turning point right now and is relevant in the evolution of technology for quite a few reasons."
• FourSquare: Novelty or Buzz Worthy? – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – Have you heard about FourSquare – maybe you are already the Mayor of some of your local businesses. Allyson Kapin explores whether: "is FourSquare valuable enough to become the next Facebook or Twitter? Should nonprofits take a more serious look at FourSquare and explore ways to leverage it?"