2 History of Community Organisation - IGNOUignou.ac.in/upload/bswe-03-block1-unit-2-small-size.pdf · History of Community Organisation 19 2 History of Community Organisation * P.F

History of Community Organisation 19

2

History of CommunityOrganisation

* P.F. Abraham

Introduction

The previous chapter have given you a bird’s eyeview of the concept of community organisation andits various principles. It has been practiced as amethod of social work in the western countries;especially in England and USA. However, little hasbeen written about the history of communityorganisation. Community organisation is a processand is all about solving the present day problemsof common interests by means of adopting democraticprinciples and people’s participation. People haveused this method in the past and have attaineddesired results. Thus, it is important for the studentsof community organisation to understand the past,draw lessons from it and develop and experimentwith new models and methods required to workwith community.

In this chapter, we will be dealing with the Historyof community organisation in England, USA and provideyou with a brief idea about the community organisationpractice in India. In the later part of the chapter,we will also discuss some of the models and approachesof community organisation.

* P.F. Abraham, B.R. Ambedkar College, Delhi

20 Social Work Intervention with Communities and Institutions

Why Should We Study History

We can learn a lot from history, that variety ofsocial change groups faced with many odds and withpoor beginnings have won in the end. History makesus clear that slow progress need not mean the deathof hope. But lends us patience while teaching uspersistence. The strategies adopted in the past provideus concrete lessons on tactics and approaches allowingeach generation to build on the knowledge of itspredecessors. It is all about the problems the peopleexperienced and the success they achieved.

In short, history sensitizes us to the problems andpossibilities of change, provides concrete advice forpresent-day action, and sustain our action with thehope and pride that comes from learning of pastexperience. Therefore, the study of the History ofcommunity organisation becomes essential for a socialworker.

Community Organisation

The term “community organisation covers a seriesof activities at the community level aimed at bringingabout desired improvement in the social well beingof individuals, groups and neighbourhoods”. Communityorganisation is about creating a democratic instrumentto bring about sustained social change. Accordingto Murray G. Ross, “ Community organisation is aprocess by which a community identifies needs andtakes action, and in doing so... develops co-operativeattitudes and practices.”

Philosophy of Community Organisation

The early attempts in community organisation werean outcome of the serious problems i.e. problemsof unemployment, poverty etc. faced by the


communities. Thus grew up many organisations andsocial agencies to provide support to the community.Soon, it was realized that all these efforts need tobe co-ordinated and streamlined so as to avoidduplication of work and to reduce the gap in thedelivery of services to the community. At one pointof time we might ask, what has been the drivingforce behind all these efforts that prompted thepeople of goodwill to render services to the community?Let us look at the Philosophy of CommunityOrganisation, which may throw some light on thistheme.

� The fundamental aspect of the communityorganisations is the principle of “Co-operativespirit” which promotes the people to unite togetherto address a common issue.

� Community organisation recognizes the spirit ofdemocratic values and principles with the focuson creating democratic involvement.

� Organising is about empowering. When peopleunite together, and get involved in communityorganisation, they develop confidence. Thisempowerment comes when people learn skillsto help themselves and others. The collectiveaction helps in community building.

� The community organisation recognizes the powerof individual. It believes, that through the collectivestrength of the people, better teamwork andadoption of scientific methods, can providecomprehensive solutions to social problems.

� Another Philosophy is that of coordination. It isconcerned with adjustments and inter-relationsof the forces in the community life for commonwelfare.


� Community organisation is therefore, a continuousprocess in which adjustments are made and remadeto keep pace with the changing conditions ofcommunity life.

History of Community Organisation

In a broad sense we can say wherever people havelived together, some form of organisation has emerged.These informal associations of people always triedto do good to the people in need and protect therights of the society. On the contrary the historytalks about the formal organisations which wereset up for the welfare of the community. The firstefforts at community organisation for social welfarewere initiated in England to overcome the acuteproblem of poverty, which led to beggary.

The first effort of its kind was the Elizabethan PoorLaw (1601) in England, which was set up to provideservices to the needy. Another important landmarkin the history of community organisation is theformation of London Society of organising charitablerelief and repressing mendicancy and the Origin ofthe Settlement House Movement in England during1880.

In fact, these movements had a major impact inthe United States of America. In 1880 the Charitiesorganisation was set up to put rational order in thearea of charity and relief. The major communityorganisation activities in the United States couldbe classified into three periods:

1) The Charity Organisation Period, 1870-1917

This era is the beginnings in social welfare in USA.The first citywide Charity Organisation Society (COS)


was established in the Buffalo in 1877 in USA. Thismovement was started with the influence of LondonCharity Organisation established in 1869. In USA,Rev. S. H. Gurteen, an English priest who had someassociation with London Charity association and hadmoved to Buffalo in 1873 gave the leadership tothis movement. Within a short span of six years theCOS had reached to more than 25 American cities.

Charity organisation was concerned about two things:

� Providing adequate personal services to familiesand individuals in need.

� Take steps to address the issues/problems insocial welfare.

Apart from this service, the COS also took initiativesin promoting co-operation among the various welfareagencies. From this movement of charity organisationemerged many such service oriented organisationsi.e. Social service exchange, Community welfarecouncils, Councils of social agencies.

2) The Rise of Federation 1917 to 1935

It is a period where we can see the growth anddevelopment of chests and councils. It started withthe rise of war chests in 1917 and ended with theenactment of social security act, which set the stagefor development of the public welfare programmesin 1935. A large number of chests and councilscame up after first world war. The AmericanAssociation for Community Organisation was organisedin 1918 as the national agency for chests and councilsand it later became known as community chestsand councils of (CCC) America. The Cincinnati PublicHealth Federation, established in 1917 was the firstindependent health council in American City. It is


in this period that the American Association of socialworkers organised in 1921, the first generalprofessional organisations, set up its training forthe social workers and others who specialized incommunity organisation.

A community chest is a voluntary welfare agency,co-operative organisation of citizens and welfareagencies, which is the powerful local force forcommunity welfare that handles large funds. It hastwo functions. It raises funds through a community-wide appeal and distributes them according to asystematic budget procedure. Secondly it promotesco-operative planning, co-ordination and administrationof the communities social welfare.

3) Period of Expansion and ProfessionalDevelopment 1935 to Present Time

It is in this period that we see the greater use ofthe community organisation process in the field ofpublic welfare. A marked significance of this erais the establishment of Federal Security Agencywhere we see maximum involvement of the Govt.in welfare programmes. In 1946 the agency wasstrengthened and re-organised following which in1953 Department of Health, Education and Welfarewas established.

Another important development during the periodis the professional development that took place. Someof the important professional developments were:

The National Conference of Social Work in 1938-39 undertook a study on community organisation,which was later published under the title “GenericCommunity Welfare Organisation”. Based on this,another study took place in 1940, but due to American


involvement in World War II an active programmecould not take off.

In 1946, at the National conference of social workin Buffalo, the Association for the Study of CommunityOrganisation (ASCO) was organised. The main objectivewas to improve the professional practice of organisationfor social welfare. In 1955, ASCO merged with sixother professional organisations to form the NationalAssociation of Social Workers. Community organisationhas been recognized as integral and important aspectof social work education in the American Associationof Schools of social work education. At present thereis an active committee of Council on Social WorkEducation involved in the production of teachingmaterials in community organisation. The firstcontemporary textbook on community organisationtitled “Community Organisation for Social Welfare”published in 1945 has been written by Wayne McMillan.

Another development in the history of communitydevelopment is seen in the wake of World War II.Wartime needs were very special and crucial. Duringthis time many councils and community war servicescame to the forefront. Among them (USO) UnitedService Organisation is of prime importance as itwas the union of many forces that served the needsof the military personnel and defense communities.The other striking characteristics of the period isthe immense increase in the volunteer service i.e.defense council, American Red Cross and USO whichco-ordinated and recruited the volunteers.

Another development that took place at the wartimeis the growth of closer relationship between labourand social work, which is considered a great significantto community organisation.


The other developments that took place after theWorld War II that are very specific to communityorganisation area are as follows.

� The rehabilitation of the physically and mentallychallenged

� Mental health planning, problems of the aging

� Prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency.

In order to address these issues separate bodieswere set up and we see the entry of internationalagencies in the field of community organisation.The present situation in community organisation isthe emergence of the new community developmentprogrammes, which aim at providing, services tothe less developed areas in international social welfare.Therefore the present agenda is on working withthe whole community and greater emphasis is onself-help.

Community Organisation in UK

Baldock (1974) has summed up the historicaldevelopment in UK by dividing it into four phases.

The first phase: 1880-1920: During this period thecommunity work was mainly seen as a method ofsocial work. It was considered as a process of helpingthe individuals to enhance their social adjustments.It acted as major player to co-ordinate the work ofvoluntary agencies.

The second phase: 1920-1950: This period saw theemergence of new ways of dealing with social issuesand problems. The community organisation was closelyassociated with central and state Govt.’s programmefor urban development. The important development


in this period was its association with communityassociation movement.

The third phase 1950 onwards: It emerged as areaction to the neighbourhood idea, which providedan ideological base for the second phase. It was aperiod of professional development of social work.Most of the educators and planners tried to analyzethe shortcomings in the existing system. It wasalso a period where the social workers sought fora professional identity.

The fourth phase: It is a recent period that hasseen a marked involvement of community action.It questioned the very relationship of communitywork and social work. It was thus seen as periodof radical social movement and we could see theconflicts of community with authority. The associationof social workers and the community were de-professionalised during this period. Thus it was duringthis period that conflictual strategies were introducedin the community work, although even now thereis no consensus on this issue (Baldock 1974).

History of Community Organisationin India

A historical account of community organisation isnot available in India, as there has been only limiteddocumentation on social work literature in generaland on community organisation in particular.

Community organisation has its roots in the Charityorganisations in the United States. They realizedthe need of the people and tried to organise thepeople to co-ordinate their work. The main activitieswere social welfare, raising funds, seeking enactmentfor social legislation and co-ordination of welfare


activities. The spirit behind all these activities wascharity. In India, the very concept of charity is deep-rooted in the religious philosophy. Even before thecommencement of the social work education in Indiain 1936, the community work was in place, alreadyin existence. But in the first phase from 1936 to1952 the community work was in a dormant stage.During this period social work was in its infancyand not many were employed in the communitysettings because there were hardly any jobs thatprovided an opening for community organisation.Professionals preferred to work in casework settings.

It was in 1952 that the community developmentproject was launched by the government of Indiaand with this we find the emergence of a new eraof community work. The basic objective of communitydevelopment in India was to awaken the rural peopleof their needs, instilling in them a sense of ambitionfor better life and making them aware of their rightand power to find a solution for their problems.According to Mukerji (1961) “Community developmentis a movement designed to promote better living forthe whole community with the active participation,and if possible, with the initiative of community”.According to him community development can bedivided into two process. 1) Extension education, 2)Community organisation. Extension education wasexpected to improve the quality of human beings byimproving his/her knowledge and skills. By communityorganisation Mukerji had in mind the setting up ofthree institutions in the village.

� Village Panchayat

� The village co-operative

� The village school


During this period the thrust of the community workremained in rural areas whereas social work remainedmostly urban in character.

From 1970 onwards we could see a new trend inthe community work practice. The social workersexpanded their scope and operational area from theirtraditional approach of casework to other developmentfields. For example, people working with schoolchildren started working with the community. TheNGOs and voluntary organisations adopted communityapproach. This shift has in-fact led to the use ofprocess of community work. By and large thecommunity work has remained welfare-oriented.

The current phase of community work in India isexperiencing a growing dissatisfaction with its ownpractice or rather the outcome of its practice. Soefforts are on to create alternate ways of workingwith communities. In-spite of these, the professionalsare involved in a variety of projects in both ruraland urban areas, to promote better living for thecommunity.

Another trend in the community work is theinvolvement of the Business houses in promotingwelfare in their neighbourhood. This is commonlyknown as CSR. (Corporate Social Responsibilities)The business houses i.e. Tata’s, Escorts, and someof the multinational companies too have joined inthis venture. This trend has attracted manyprofessionals in this field.

The main objective of community development is todevelop village communities by methods, which willstimulate, encourage and aid villagers themselvesto do much of the work necessary to accomplishthe desired goals. The changes conceived and promotedshould have the involvement of the people and shouldbe acceptable to them and put into practice by them.


There is a common philosophical link betweencommunity organisation and community development.Both aim to enable people to live happily and a fullydeveloped life. Both have basic faith in the commonman and his right to self-determination within theframework of the society. Both give emphasis toself-help and help the people to help themselvesto solve their own problems. However, communityorganisation and community development should notbe considered as synonymous.

� CD is concerned with the promotion of all aspectsof life including social, economical and cultural;both in rural and urban areas. While CO isconcerned with adjustment of social welfare needsand resources in cities, states, nations as wellas in villages.

� CO is practiced in the USA on a voluntary basis,while in almost all the developing countries CDis a government-sponsored programme.

� CO is a product of urbanization andindustrialization. Here the main concern isproblems of the population mobility, problems ofthe family, problems of the aged, problems ofjuvenile delinquency, of unemployment andprovision of social security. But CD is concernedwith how to induce people to meet their basichuman needs.

� CO tends to be more process oriented while CDas practiced in India tends to be target oriented.

Gandhian Approach to Community Work

Gandhi has not given a clear-cut definition of theterm community. For him the village is the basiccommunity with it geographical limitation where a


number of families come together and co-operateto build a common life. According to Gandhi thebasic element of a community is mutual co-operationand common sharing.

The emphasis of Gandhian concept of communitywork is the reconstruction of the community ratherthan on organising an unorganised or disorganisedcommunity or on the development of an entirelynew community. Therefore the Gandhian objectiveof community work is to reconstruct the villagecommunities spread all over the country. Thisconstruction is based on the constructive programmesdesigned to meet the social welfare needs of thecommunity. It is through the construction of thevillage community Gandhi aims to realize the goalof reconstructing the “sarvodaya social order”. Gandhihas not given any specific or fixed pattern for thereconstruction programme but left it to the capacityof those community organisers working to suit differentconditions and social situations.

The role of the worker in this approach is verydistinct. Here, the worker not only deals with thosegroups of people or communities who seek his guidancebut he would also approach those communities, whichdo not ask for help because his prime work is towardsthe reconstruction of the society anywhere. In thisapproach the worker takes initiatives and graduallystimulates the community. It demands regularityand sincerity of the worker in the reconstructionprogramme in his area of work.

Models of Community Organisation

What is a Model ?

Before we proceed to understand the different methods


and models of community organisation it is good tounderstand the terminology. What is a model?

Model

It is a medium through which a person looks at thecomplex realities. Model is a simplistic version ofa complex situation. Models serve as a referencefor the work and give us a clear understanding ofwhat would happen. They describe strategies foraccomplishing a vision, and the appropriate stepsto be taken to get there. Some models grow out ofthe specific ideologies of change and some in responseto concrete situations.

Jack Rothman has introduced three basic modelsof community organisation. They are:

� Locality development

� Social planning

� Social action

1) Model A – Locality Development

Locality development model is a method of workingwith community groups. It was earlier used by thesettlement houses. Here the important focus is aboutthe process of community building. Leadershipdevelopment and the education of the participantsare the essential elements in the process.

According to Murray Ross the “process of self-helpand communal action is valuable in its own right”.The model of locality development is based on thisparticular thought process. It originated from thetraditional community organisation practice. The main


focus of this model is whole community or a partof it. The basic belief is that communities havesome common needs and interests and once thepeople realize this need and work togetherdemocratically, they can take appropriate steps toimprove the quality of life.

Here the role of the community organiser is to enhancethe involvement of the people in the communityand help the community members to plan and finda solution to the problem. It is similar to the workof community development, which is done in theunderdeveloped world.

It refers to the community organisation practicewhen a worker or an agency attempts to developvarious schemes and programmes to meet the needsof the target population in a defined area. It alsoincludes coordination of the work of various agenciesproviding a variety of services in the area.

2) Model B – Social Planning

It refers to the type of community work where aworker or agency undertakes an exercise of evaluatingwelfare needs and existing services in the areaand suggests a possible blue print for a more efficientdelivery of services, it is termed as social planning.It is concerned with social problems, for example,housing, education, health, childcare and so on. Itsaim is to affect a large population. The communityplanner works in that capacity with the governmentand is often identified with power structure of thecommunity. But basically he is interested in theneeds and attitudes of the community and helpthem plan their future.


3) Model C – Social Action

According to Friedlander, W.A. (1963) “Social Actionis an individual, group or community effort withinthe framework of the social work philosophy andpractice that aims to achieve social progress, tomodify social policies and to improve social legislationand health and welfare services”. Another modelof community organisation suggested by Rothmanis that of social action. According to him social actionis a strategy used by groups or sub communitiesor even national organisations that feel that theyhave inadequate power and resources to meet theirneeds. So they confront with the power structureusing conflict as a method to solve their issuesrelated to inequalities and deprivation.

In this type of community organisation the communityorganiser uses all means to apply pressure on thepower structure to give in to demands. The role oforganisers may differ depending on the issues theyget involved in. The role may be that of advocate,activist, agitator, broker or negotiator. It is a process.This organising process goes through different stage.So the role of the organiser will also change as perthe roles at the organiser is expected to play, dependingupon differing social situations.

This model was commonly used during the 1960’s.This has been used as a means to redress thesocial problems of the nation, redistribute the resourcesand power to the poor and powerless. Social actionas model has an important role in communityorganisation.


SocialPlanning

Problemsolving of substantivecommunityproblems

Substantiatesocial problemthat exits likeilliteracy, andunemployment

Factgathering, rationaldecisiomaking,enabling aneffectivecourse ofaction

Buildconsensus or induceconflict

Welfarecouncils, planningbodies

SocialAction

Shiftingpower andresources

Disadvantagedpopulation/society.Injustice andandinequality.

Organisepeople totake actionagainsttargets.

Induceconflictthrough directactionnegotiationconfrontation

Socialmovements

LocalityDevelopment

Self-help andcommonintegration

Society lacksviablerelationships andproblem solvingcapacity

Involvement ofbroad sections ofcommunity indetermining andsolving problems

Improvecommunityrelations amongdifferent groups inbringingconsensus

confrontation

Settlement house,consumerassociation,

DimensionofComparisonsGoal

Assumptions

Democratic

Strategy

Methods

Agencytypes

Agencies

Source: Rothman (1979)

A Comparative Statement of the Models Outlined byRothman (1979)


Approaches to Community Organisation

The History has witnessed diversity of efforts incommunity organisation and the emergence of newinitiatives in the field. Most often these communityorganising efforts are centered on identity communitiesand issue-specific communities. History gives us alist of different kinds of community organising methods.One such community organising method which thetwentieth century has witnessed is the growth ofneighbourhood organising.

Neighbourhood Organising

Neighbourhood organising is one form of communityorganising. This is nothing but an effort by thecommunity to solve the day to day problems andhelp those in need.

There are three kinds of approaches to neighbourhoodorganising.

� The social work approach

� Political activists approach

� Neighbourhood maintenance/Communitydevelopment approach

1) The Social Work Approach

In this approach, the society is viewed as a socialorganism and therefore the efforts are oriented towardsbuilding a sense of community. The communityorganiser whose role is of an “enabler or an advocate”helps the community to identify a problem in theneighbourhood and strives to obtain the needed socialresources by gathering the existing social servicesand by lobbying with those in power to meet the


needs of the neighbourhood. This method is moreconsensual and the neighbourhood is seen as acollective client. One example of this approach isthe social settlement movement in USA and waron poverty programme of the Johnson administrationin the 1960s.

2) The Political Activists Approach

Saul Alinsky, the Godfather of community organizationis the founder of this approach. He emerged as acommunity organiser in the 1930s. The basicphilosophy of this approach is based on his thinkingthat “the more the representatives of the organisation,the stronger the organisation.”

In this approach the community is seen as a politicalentity and not as a social organism. Here, theneighbourhood is viewed as a potential power basecapable of getting power. The role of the communityorganiser is to help the community understand theproblem in terms of power and necessary steps aretaken to mobilize the community. The problem ofthe neighbourhood is always identified as absenceof power and in the interest of gaining power forthe neighbourhood, the organisers are faced withconflicts with groups, interests and elitis. Sincemost of the community organisers come fromoutside the community, it has faced the problemsof equality of power relations and leadership in thecommunity.

Unlike the social work approach to communityorganisation this approach has the potential to createstable, democratic and effective organisations ofneighbourhood residents by seeing its role as “meetingpower with power”


3) Neighbourhood Maintenance/CommunityDevelopment Approach

This approach has emerged out of both the previousapproaches namely social work approach and politicalactivist within the same neighbourhood movements.It is seen in the form of civic associations. Thisassociation uses peer group pressure to provide servicesin the community. They use this strategy to pressurizethe officials to deliver services to the communitybut sometimes this approach takes the form of politicalactivists approach as they realize that their goalscan be only achieved through confrontations.

In this approach we see the characteristics of de-emphasis on dissent and confrontation and theseorganisations view themselves more as proactive anddevelopment minded.

Conclusion

In this chapter we have discussed the history ofcommunity organisation as the method of social work.We have seen how the early efforts of the socialreformers and activists to improve the living conditionsof deprived communities in the West graduallytransformed into a formal method of social work.The Indian experience is also discussed in detailwith emphasis on Mahatma Gandhi’s contributions.We have also seen that there are different approacheswithin community organisation that can be chosento deal with social problems. Rothman’s three modelsof community organisation namely locality development,social planning, and social action have been discussedin detail and their differences have been highlighted.


References

Arthur, Dunham (1958), Community Welfare Organisation,Principles and Practice, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., NewYork.

Dayal, Parameshwari (1986), Gandhian Approach toSocial Work, Gujrat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad.

Murray, Ross (1955), Community Organisation—Theoryand Principles, Harper Bros., New York.

Ronald, Lippitt, J Watson and B. Westly (1958), TheDynamics of Planned Change, A Comparative Study ofPrinciples and Technique, Harcourt, Brace and Co.,New York.

Steiner, Frederick Jesse (1958), Community Organisation,The New century Co. New York.

Siddiqui, H.Y (1997), Working with communities anintroduction to community work, Hira Publications, NewDelhi.

Walter A. Friendlander and Robert Z. (1982), Apte:Introduction to Social Welfare, Prentice-Hall India PrivateLimited.

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