Last Updated on December 30, 2022 by Team TSW

Communities can be categorized at scores of levels such as rural, urban, tribal and many more. Every community has its own needs and when these needs are not met, problems, issues and concerns arise. To address these problems social work as a discipline provides a specialized method named community organization. To start practicing community organization, it is necessary to have a clear idea what community organization is, how it works, What are values attached. Various experts of the field have given a set of community organization definitions.

Concept

Community organization is one of the primary methods of social work. While the client of the caseworker is the “individual”, and that of the group worker is the “individuals within the group”, the community organizer works at  “community” level. The caseworkers help the individual client identify his/her problems; develop the will to deal with these problems; draw a program to enhance coping capacity. Similarly, the community organizer works with the entire community as the `client’. He/she understands its major subcultures, enables the community and guides them to identify their major needs and problems; It is the task of workers to develop the collective will within the community to deal with these problems; and guide them to get rid of them. Worker improves the capacity of the community to function as an integrated unit and develop brotherhood. In nutshell, the concept of community organization is to intervene in the life of a community in order to solve community problems and make it a nicer place to live.

Community Organization Definitions

Community Organization definitions given by experts have evolved at different times and in differing contexts. Let us look at some of the more widely accepted definitions of community organization.

☰    Lindeman

“Those phases of social organization which constitute a conscious effort on the part of a community to control its affairs democratically, and to secure the highest services from its specialists, organizations, agencies and the institutions by means of recognized interrelations.”

☰    Murray G. Ross

“A process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives, develops the confidence and will do work at these needs or objectives, finds the resources (external and internal) to deal with these needs and objectives, takes action in respect of them, and in doing so, extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practices in the community”.

☰    Harper

“Bring about and maintain progressively a more effective adjustment between social welfare resources and social needs”.

☰    Younghusband

“Primarily aimed at helping people within a local community to identify social needs, to consider the most effective ways of meeting them and to set about doing so, in so far as their available resources permit”.

☰    Peter Baldock

“ Community Organization is a type of activity practiced by people to identify problems and opportunities and to come to realistic decisions to take collective action to meet these problems and opportunities in ways that they determine for themselves. The community worker also supports them in the process of putting decisions, to help them develop their abilities and independence”.

☰    Kramer and Specht

“ Community Organization is a method of intervention, whereby a professional change agent helps a community action system, composed of individuals, groups, or organizations to engage in planned collective action in order to deal with social problems within a democratic system of values”.

☰    Loffer

“ Community Organization is the process of building trusting relationships, mutual understanding and shared actions that bring together individuals, communities and institutions. This process enables cooperative action that generates opportunity and/or resources realized through networks, shared norms, and social agency”.

Conclusion

Putting together all the definitions it can be easily concluded that community organization involves working with the community system, and thus requires working at the level of individuals, groups, organizations, community and coalitions. Community organization continuously operates on two levels, the first being making program goals which is acceptable to all the persons involved. Second is the path of constructing, maintaining and extending an organizational base. The ultimate aim of this method is to build ‘reinforced’ and ‘refreshed’ communities