Community organization is a method of social work that involves assessing community functioning and designing interventions. It aims to facilitate collaboration between community organizations and residents to address issues. Some key aspects of community organization include defining the change process, arenas for practice, and types of interventions. Early attempts at community social work included establishing councils to coordinate social services and organizing charitable fundraisers. Processes involved in community organization are research, planning, coordination, organization, financing, administration, committee operation, and advocacy. The roles of a community organizer include teaching residents, catalyzing change, facilitating collaboration, and linking communities to resources.

1. Social Work Practice with
Communities
What Is Community
Organization?

2. Community Organization
Working with the community
requires the generalist practitioner
to be able to assess community
functioning and design specific
intervention techniques.

3. Community Organization
Community organization has been
recognized for many years as one
of the main methods of social work.

4. Community Organization
• Kettner, Daley, and Nichols define community
organization in the context of a planned change
model.
• The three components of their model include:
a. the change process
b. arenas for practice,
c. types of interventive effort anticipated.

5. Community Organization
• In community organization work
the client is the community.
• The two major arenas for
community organization practice
are community organizations
and the community itself.

6. Beginnings of Community
Social Work
The first attempts to coordinate
community activities and actions
stemmed from the London Charity
Organization Society which tried to
eliminate duplication and fraud in
relief administration.

7. Beginnings of Community
Social Work
In 1909 in Pittsburgh and
Milwaukee, the first community
welfare councils in the United
States were established. They were
called Councils of Social
Agencies.

8. • These councils generally focus on three
main areas:
– Health
– Welfare
– Recreation
• The development of federated financial
drives was also an important aspect of
community social work.
Beginnings of Community
Social Work

9. • In 1887 the first federated drive in
the United States originated
under the auspices of the
Associated Charities in Denver.
Beginnings of Community
Social Work

10. • In l99l there were approximately
2,100 United Way Campaigns in
the United States and they
collected $3.3 billion.
Beginnings of Community
Social Work

11. • About 32 million people, or about
one out of every three persons
employed in the United States,
gave through their United Way.
Beginnings of Community
Social Work

12. Community Social Work
Processes
• The purpose of research in community
organization is to define what community
realities are and what to the facts do show.
• Planning is purposeful formulation of
future action and ways of procedure.
• Coordination is the process of working
together to avoid unnecessary duplication,
effort and conflict.

13. • Organization is the process of
establishing a structure to
accomplish certain goals.
• A formal organization usually
gives substance to a movement.
Community Social Work
Processes

14. • Financing is the process of
collecting, budgeting, and
spending funds in relation to
community needs and resources.
• Social work administration can be
defined as the process of
transforming social policy into
social services.
Community Social Work
Processes

15. • Committee operation is the
essence of social work
community practice.
• For adequate committee
operation there need to be
adequate representation for all of
the groups that may be interested
and involved in relation to a
particular project.
Community Social Work
Processes

16. • One of the significant
developments in community
social work has been the
increasing emphasis on client
advocacy.
Community Social Work
Processes

17. Roles of the
Community Organizer
• Rubin and Rubin have defined
four key roles in community
organization as follows:
1. Organizers as teacher
2. Organizers as catalysts
3. Organizers as facilitators
4. A linking role

18. Roles of the
Community Organizer
• The community organizers should
have the ability to relate to
people, to analyze problems, to
locate resources, to see potential
for change, and to be able to
create effective structures for
problem solving.

19. • The advocacy and social action
elements of community social
work practice focus on
empowering individuals and
communities.
Roles of the
Community Organizer

20. • Much of community organization
is done to change systems, and
many times the system resists
change.
• Social workers should have good
technical skills and be able to get
along well with people.
Roles of the
Community Organizer