What is Community Organizing?

One-on-ones are an important part of community organizing, as they lay the foundation for all the work that comes afterwards. The main goal of the one-on-one is to listen and gather information. The organizer must learn what community members' concerns are, and find out what they identify as problems, not tell the community what the problem is. That is why an organizer meets first with people individually, rather than try to meet everyone in a group.

2. Create an Action Team

Review your one-on-ones and invite people to join your community action team (or committee, task force, group). Ideally, teams should have up to 10 to 20 active members so they are big enough to have representation from the community, but not so unwieldy that the team can't make decisions/progress. Try to build an action team of core leaders who have time, energy, passion for the issue, possess a "can-do" attitude and represent a diverse cross-section from many sectors of the community.

3. Develop an action plan

Work with your team to develop an Action Plan.What problems has your group identified? What policies would address that problem? What is the decision-making body you need to impact? What other steps will your team need to take to change policy? Break your work down into manageable steps and tasks. Hold a meeting to discuss your plan of action and include a timeline for when things will happen and identify who is responsible. It should be realistic, feasible, and flexible.

4. Mobilize to action

Building your base of support is a necessary part of your Action Plan. While your leadership group will guide your work, more people are needed to create real change. Tasks you will need to consider:

"-  Identify potential supporters by going door-to-door- 
"-  Build a base of support in the community
"-  Determine constituents and likely allies
"-  Contact constituents and meet with key members
"-  Make presentations
"-  Identify elected officials who you think will be supportive
"-  Solicit advice of supportive politicians for more political contacts
"-  Ask people to get involved--give them specific tasks

Once your group has identified its goals, your responsibility as the organizer is to keep the momentum of the group moving forward. To do this you should:

"-  Break large jobs into small tasks
"-  Get and keep your team members engaged, informed,
    involved, and in the spotlight
"-  Be responsive and reliable--get people what they need to complete       their tasks
"-  Keep group focused and on track
"-  Don't let opponents get your group off message or task

5 .Implement

Once you achieve your goal, your group will need to decide how it will maintain the change and ensure that the desired results are achieved. Likewise, your group will have to decide what its future will be once you attain your goal. Once people have experienced some success in creating change themselves, it is essential to build the momentum.

6. Evaluate

As you implement your plan of action, it's important to carefully review your progress during the campaign to ensure you stay on track, as well as to evaluate the campaign after  it has ended to see what went right or wrong and learn lessons for the future.

 During the campaign , make sure you are continuing to make progress toward your goals. Check up on the process, to make sure your group is effectively working together. Examples of evaluation questions to ask leaders and other stakeholders in your campaign might include:

"-  Is the campaign making a difference? How?
"-  Are we making progress toward our goal?
"-  What factors are most important in achieving the goals of the   campaign?
"-  What are the biggest challenges or obstacles for the campaign?

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