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Organizing Approaches to Change

Imagine living in a rural community where strip and deep mining for coal takes place and where wells are going dry or turning up contaminated. Imagine reading in the local newspaper that a waste disposal company plans to build a huge landfill just outside your town. Imagine being a resident of an urban neighborhood where children and elderly people are going cold in the winter because the utility company shuts off electricity due to non-payment of a bill, and the rates are too high for people on a fixed income.

All of these situations have occurred in places where KFTC is active. In all these situations, one of the first things people affected by the problems did was get together and form a group.

Perhaps there is a similar problem or situation in your community or neighborhood and you have just organized a group, or you're planning to do so. One of the most helpful things your group can do at the beginning is to think about ways in which you might approach changing the problem or situation.

There are various ways to approach social and economic change. Three of the most common are direct service, advocacy and direct-action community organizing.

Some characteristics or descriptions of direct service are:

• people helping others in need by providing for that need
• involves a recipient and a provider
• immediate, direct aid, treats symptoms, not preventive
• a dependent, one-way relationship
• "power over" instead of "power with"
• charity
• public service or social service

Some examples of direct service are the Red Cross, soup kitchens and food pantries. An example of providing direct service in one of the situations given at the beginning of the article would be to give or raise money to pay utility bills for those who can't.

Some characteristics or descriptions of advocacy are:

• people, such as experts, resource persons, lawyers or lobbyists, helping others by speaking for them or acting on their behalf
• depends on the expertise of a few rather than many
• recipient/provider, we/they relationship
• separated, removed from the problem
• standing for a person or group, pleading another's cause

Some examples of advocacy organizations are the Legal Aid Society and the National Rifle Association. An example of providing advocacy in one of the situations listed above would be for a lawyer and a water quality specialist to speak in Frankfort (the state capitol) on behalf of the people who are losing their wells.

Some characteristics or descriptions of direct-action organizing are:

• people helping each other and themselves
• people working together to solve a problem or achieve a common goal
• putting pressure on people with power to make the changes a group wants
• confrontation
• people using their own power to bring about change
• involves groups
• bottom-up, not top-down

Examples of organizations that use direct-action community organizing are KFTC, Save Our Cumberland Mountains and the Community Farm Alliance.

Using this approach to change in one of the situations given earlier might mean, in the town where a landfill is planned, that a group forms. They meet to brainstorm solutions to their problem, choose one that is winnable and plan a strategy. Then they take action, such as holding a forum where county officials are asked to explain their positions in a public setting. Local and regional media are invited to the forum and a press conference afterward where citizens tell what they thought about what the government officials said. They then plan ways to hold those officials accountable for any promises made.

There are other approaches to social and economic change in addition to these three. Some of them are:

• research and education (Highlander Center)
• electoral campaigning (political parties)
• mobilization (marches on Washington)
• networking (Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste)
• economic development (food co-ops, credit unions)
• technical assistance (environmental consultants)
• lobbying (political action committees)
• organizational skills training programs (Southern Empowerment Project)
• religious conversion, evangelization, prayer ("The 700 Club")
• militarism, violence, terrorism, intimidation (KKK)
• economic pressure or boycott (Nestle, grape, lettuce boycotts organized by different groups)
• passive resistance, non-participation in the system (conscientious objectors, war tax resisters)
• education and publications (Institute for Policy Studies)
• media use (Appalshop)
• labor organizing (United Mine Workers of America)
• crisis intervention (farm hotlines)
• litigation (Kentucky Citizens Law Center)

There are both similarities and differences between KFTC's chosen approach to social change, direct-action organizing, and direct service and advocacy. All the approaches are alike in that they all involve people working to solve a problem and they are often motivated by a desire for justice. They are different in that direct-action organizing doesn't involve a provider/recipient relationship as do the other two approaches; instead everyone works for each other.

Other differences are that organizing focuses on institutional change, organizing is long-range and aimed at prevention, and the people who benefit from the change through organizing are the ones who take the action for change.

There is an appropriate use and need for all the approaches (with a few exceptions, such as violence). For example, if you or someone else were literally starving or freezing to death and there were no direct service providers to take care of your needs, organizing for long-term change might not be practical or possible!

An organization or group should be clear, deliberate and explicit about the approach(es) to change on which they decide to focus. If a direct-action organizing group is not clear about its priorities, it could easily become consumed by networking, advocacy or other approaches that don't lead to the desired long-term change.

Groups should take some time to look at various approaches to change and decide which approach they can take most effectively, given their members and resources. An organization that is clear about its priorities has a better chance of staying focused and accomplishing its goals.

Direct-action community organizing is one of the most, if not the most, empowering for people, since they become stronger as they unite with others, act for themselves, and work for structural change.

This article originally appeared in balancing the scales, a publication of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.