The Processes of Community Action - Report Example

The Processes of Community Action WHAT CAN ONE PERSON DO? There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. -- Thoreau, Walden Small amounts are attainable, Large amounts are confusing. Subtly arrange the outcome and nothing more; Do not useforce. -- Lao Tzu (Schwartz 135) Our human communities, from small towns to megalopoli, are in a constant state of change due to degradation of the environment, weathering and human habitation. The social community is an intimate part of the physical space within which we live, and the community was initially established to provide protection and services to its members. The villagers lived in one location for mutual protection and the sharing of resources. From these simple beginning we have evolved a very complex structure of governance and social services, and volunteer community action is a primary support of that structure. Basically it begins when somebody notices that something needs to be done or changed, and that person decides to do something about it. It can be as simple as organizing a few people to paint a wall or as complicated as setting up a permanent community service organization. Of course, the more complex the project, the more people will be required and the more difficult it will be to organize. In this paper we will examine the methodology and functioning of community action as it applies to North American culture, specifically the United States. The scope of this paper does not allow space to examine community action in other cultures, though there are most certainly many similarities. Other cultures and government systems also have many differences. What motivates individuals to become volunteers or even to lead community action is different for each person. However, the best motivation is a desire to make their environment a better place to live. What makes any town or city a good place to live? The answer is really simple: healthy happy inhabitants. So we want to eliminate anything which damages health or happiness. This means we want to eliminate crime, health hazards in all their forms, substance abuse, severe poverty, pollution of all sorts and urban blight. Governments try to work on all of these, but local volunteer action is necessary also, because government simply cannot and should not do it all. We must remember that the more we expect government to do, the less freedom we will have. Therefore, we should all support volunteer based community action. Some volunteers will say it is a desire to help others or to give something back to the community which supports them in many ways that motivates them to participate. However, these answers are really no different than the one in the previous paragraph, because it all boils down to making our communities better. People are also sometimes inhibited about participating in community action by shyness and embarrassment. However, few people reach the age of thirty without participating in some kind of volunteer action. Community action organizations grow out of local special interest groups, including religious and educational institutions, each with their own particular view of an ideal community. Some people volunteer as part of their network group activities, such as PTA, Lion’s Club, cultural groups, sports organizations, Chambers of Commerce, churches, temples and synagogues. Other people prefer to donate their time and expertise here and there as they see needs. The ideal volunteer is both a leader and a follower, capable of leading And willing to work as a member of a team. This person has time and talent to contribute, possesses a strong character and identifies with the needs and feeling of others. They respect other people at all levels and understand that circumstances can change our lives, and are often a matter of luck. Valuable volunteers are problem solvers and really care about the community and its members. Their sense of social responsibility, coupled with empathy and understanding make them a valuable part of any group. The limits of involvement in community action are governed by the people involved. Volunteers may do as little or as much as time and inclination permits. Every organization need leaders, people to do the ordinary work and specialists to supply things like writing, book-keeping, training and numerous other functions. Opportunities for involvement are everywhere. One merely has to notice a need and find a way to help fill it. Even a housebound senior citizen can help out by being a phone buddy to some other senior citizen who lives alone away from family and simply need to chat or to have someone check up on their welfare from time to time. Children can volunteer to visit people in rest homes or help out at the local animal shelter. Anyone can contribute time, goods or expertise to fund raising activities for community improvement. The list is nearly endless. Some Possibilities for Community Involvement 1. Local political groups need people to make phone calls to get out the vote, stuff envelopes or go door to door campaigning 2. Food banks and soup kitchens nee help cooking, serving, packaging, cleaning and find raising 3. Senior citizen residences need volunteers to visit those who get few visitors, read to people with poor eyesight, take people shopping or work with people on hobbies or cultural development 4. Schools need people to raise funds, help supervise activities, organize extra curricular activities and chaperone social occasions 5. Hospitals need help delivering books and magazines, helping entertain children, doing little errands for the bed bound patients etc. These are sometimes known as “candy-stripers” from their traditional uniforms 6. Fundraising and management of community groups requires people with all kinds of skills to help, from keeping books and managing membership lists to creating newsletters and delivering speeches. Everyone has some kind of skill to contribute. 7. Computer management is an area where many organizations need help. They often have many people who know little about computers using them. Somebody needs to maintain them and keep them running well. 8. Contributing to fundraising activities as needed is within the power of most people: bake cookies, man a bazaar table, take pictures, collect door to door, participate in fund raising sports if possible. These are only a few suggestions. Community action is limited only by our imaginations. The key to motivating others is having passion and restraint. When a leader truly believes in a cause, it energizes all who work with him or her. A positive attitude make people want to be around. A humble attitude and a generous spirit makes a person a magnet for other willing hands. To establish and keep momentum, one must demonstrate a “can do” attitude, be willing to pitch in wherever and however needed and have a genuine affinity for other people. When leading a project, planning is half the battle. A well organized plan with benchmarks and milestones gives the structure most workers need, and provides ways to track progress, so volunteers can see something happening. Brainstorming the plan and keeping people involved in its execution helps to maintain impetus and makes people feel useful and empowered. Recruitment of volunteers is different for every project, but there are certain commonalities. The first step after recognizing a need is to get the word out. Talking with friends and members of organizations to which the leader belongs or which will be impacted first can help generate interest. Meanwhile, construct a tentative plan of action. It depends upon several factors whether it is better to start with a core group of potential leaders or to call a meeting and ask for volunteers or elect a committee. All of these methods of organization are used in community actions groups. Generally some key factors which determine which methods will work best are: 1) are there any leadership groups in place which can start the action (generally the case in established organizations like religious groups and established community groups); 2) is there a large space readily available for a general meeting and 3) will this be a popular project? If there is already a leadership group in place it makes sense to talk with them first and get their help to develop the project. If there is no large space available for a general meeting then creating a small core group of leaders might be more easily done and useful. If the project will be popular, the general type meeting might be the best way to begin, but a cause which needs promotion will require an energetic core group to promote and launch it. Once the core group is chosen, it is necessary to brainstorm and map out a plan of action. All phases and necessary action should be identified and members of the core group should each take ownership of some portion or action. By doing this in a meeting, each member acknowledges responsibility to the group, which tends to help in getting people to follow through. Publicizing the accepted responsibilities of each core group member to the larger population will also help to motivate them, since they will receive positive reinforcement from the membership. Peer reinforcement is highly useful, especially with youthful volunteers. It is also sometimes easier to get young people to try new things and attempt things which are not guaranteed to succeed. The possibilities of some things not working should be discussed and alternatives devised to back up the plans, but older volunteers may be less apt to risk failure than young people. Adult volunteers have much more experience and often useful developed talents to offer, but their experience has often tempered enthusiasm with remembered reality checks. Senior volunteers are often extremely valuable for their experience and because they may have the time which students and working people lack. As a group, these different types of volunteers may have similarities in motivation. Almost every volunteer is motivate partly by a wish to make things better and a need to do good for the community, but other things also factor in. Youth often seek experience and they have energy to spare. They want to try new things and may be eager to take a leadership role. Adults have experience on which to draw and often know where they will fit best. They are usually motivated by generosity alone, because they really have less to gain, since they have jobs and, hopefully, peer recognition. Senior volunteers often are motivated by a simple need to be busy. Motivating people to take community action is sometimes as simple as pointing out a need, and sometimes a whole publicity campaign is needed to prove to people that something needs attention. In addition, successful projects to which the group can point will motivate people who might not volunteer otherwise, because they are secretly afraid of risking failure. It is important to develop the people skills of volunteers, as they will most likely be in direct contact with members of the community. The most important of these are communication skills and an ability to connect with people, empathize and earn their trust. People who have these skills developed can motivate groups to get things done. As leaders they will generate enthusiasm and their work groups will be lively and energetic. Technical skills are also often needed, especially with computers, cameras and fund-raising (which is a special skill in itself). Depending upon the project, special skills might be beeded which relate to the project. For example, if the project involves renovating an old building for a new community use, then the group needs people with contracting ability, renovation skills and the knowledge to deal with bureaucratic regulation. This is a major reason why planning is of utmost importance, before any action is taken. The core leadership needs to know what must be done, why it needs doing, who should do it, what is involved in doing it and what possible problems might develop. They should outline all contingencies and list the various skilled volunteers which will be needed to make things work. The biggest mistake made by community action groups is starting to quickly with insufficient planning. Just because it is a community project to improve the community in some way does not mean it will not meet with opposition and does not insure that people will be eager to participate. It is better to plan well than to have to keep dealing with unanticipated problems on the fly. Planning also includes trying to find the right fit for volunteers so that they are comfortable with their roles, can succeed in them and will actually benefit the project. If a volunteer does not like his or her role, it needs to be changed. If they are having trouble with making things work, perhaps getting them some help will work. It the fit is simply not right for their skills and personality, then they should be recruited into a different role. No volunteer should be taken out of a role which does not fit without first developing a better role for them. Volunteers are important and care should be taken with their feelings. It is better to say to someone, “Hey we really need you to fill this role,” than to say, “Gee this is not working.” People do not have to volunteer, so we need to make them feel as valuable as they really are. Cultural differences also need to be recognized. Leaders should always learn something about any culture with which they will work outside their own, so to know exactly what behavior will be expected, what actions are counterproductive and how best to work with the people. A really obvious example would be that one would never propose a pork or beef BBQ to raise funds with a group of people who do not eat beef or pork as a community. Outside volunteers will be very aware of their difference among people of a different culture. They need to enlist the members of that culture to guide their actions, which will make them partners and make it obvious that they believe in the intelligence of the people with whom they will cooperate and have respect for their cultural differences. With some projects, paid positions will need to be created for several reasons: these positions require much more time and certain skills, where it is simply more practical to pay someone than to try to fill the role with one or more volunteers. When permanent organizations are involved they usually have some permanent paid staff. Some skills, such as fundraising, require so much experience and time that it is simply better for the project to pay someone to do it. Any special skills may need to be contracted for also. Mixing paid workers with volunteers works well, because the volunteers appreciate the knowledge and skill of the paid help and the paid workers appreciate the time and energy of the volunteers. Many times a paid worker would do the job gratis if he or she could afford the time, and feels gratified to be paid for it. The challenges of mixing paid workes with volunteers usually center around role identity and power. Just because people are paid does not automatically give them power over others. Community action groups need to be organized, and so, need leaders. However, the nature of the work demands also that the group be highly democratic. Getting just the right mix of people is of prime importance to avoid problems with power struggles. In any community action group there will be people who are motivated by ego or the need for power, or even much less savory reasons. People who actually damage the group or project need to be controlled or excluded. Methods of dealing with these kinds of problems need to be developed from the beginning and a plan of action should be documents from the start. People who are simply motivated by a need to develop a personal or business network or some other less than altruistic reason can be tolerated as long as they are both productive and not disruptive. Sometimes this works quite well, as local tradespersons may volunteer much needed services or facilities in order to get free business promotion. While this is not exactly saintly, there is nothing wrong with it as long as it benefits the group and the project. Media campaigns are very valuable to promote a project and enlist volunteers. Most communities have some sort of free advertising on radio, TV and the Internet to help non-profit groups. Some newspapers will also cooperate by writing stories about the planned actions. Using the right mix depends on three factors: 1) what is available at what cost; 2) which media will reach the target audience and 3) which medium is best to promote the project. For example, television has distinct advantages in its visual nature and that it is widely viewed, so promoting a project which is highly visible or can be presented in that way works well on TV. However, radio has a very different audience. Many communities have special programs which target certain groups, like commuters, seniors, housewives and teenagers etc. Printed media, such as newspapers and posters reach a different audience and are localized to where they are distributed. They can be very language specific when that is useful too. The internet and text messaging is another method to promote a project, but care must be takes to drive the traffic to the site or target the useful groups properly. Describe how you would proceed to develop/implement a volunteer program, including organizational and economic issues, as well as recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers. If I were to develop a volunteer project I would begin by enlisting the help of interested parties. Then we would plan out the project, including recruitment and training of volunteers (which might also entail recruiting or hiring trainers), creating a budget, dealing with public or governmental agencies, publicity, fund raising, interfacing with other interested agencies and organizing the action. A detailed plan would include a timeline and milepost markers. All of this would be documented and core members would each acknowledge their accepted responsibilities (also documented). Since I work with managing people best, I would concentrate on facilitating the planning and actions and be rerady to fill in where needed. Training can usually be acquired by volunteering for some developed project or some community organizations and educational institutions offer this kind of training. The YMCA is one which comes to mind. I think the most important thing I have learned from this writing project is that community action is much more complex than I realized and that as one person I can make change. The biggest challenge was finding and reading materials which provided this information. Some helpful books are listed in the bibliography, and some which look good are these: 1. Settlements, Social Change, and Community Action: Good Neighbours by Ruth Gilchrist and Tony Jeffs 2. Community Action and Organizational Change: Image, Narrative, Identity by Brenton D. Faber 1968 Some of these would be in the school or local library. This list was obtained from Amazon with a search in “volunteerism”: The Doer of Good Becomes Good: A Primer on Volunteerism by Ronald W. Poplau (Paperback - Feb 28, 2004) Buy new:  $23.95   In Stock Used & new from $23.69 2. Make a Difference: Your Guide to Volunteering and Community Service by Arthur I. Blaustein (Paperback - April 1, 2002) Used & new from $0.01 Other Edition(s): Paperback 3. Megatrends and Volunteerism: Mapping the Future of Volunteer Programs by Sue Vineyard (Paperback - Jun 1993) Used & new from $2.69 4. Teens & Volunteerism (Gallup Youth Survey: Major Issues and Trends) by Hal Marcovitz (Library Binding - Feb 28, 2005) Buy new:  $22.95   In Stock Used & new from $0.75 5. Volunteerism (The Reference Shelf, V. 70, No. 4) by Frank McGuckin (Paperback - Aug 1998) Buy new:  $50.00   Usually ships in 3 to 5 weeks Used & new from $0.97 6. Seven Stages.(the cycle of volunteerism)(Brief Article): An article from: The Non-profit Times by Susan J. Ellis (Digital - Jan 1, 2001) - HTML Buy new:  $5.95   Available for download now 7. Volunteerism in Geriatric Settings (Monograph Published Simultaneously As Activities, Adaptation & Aging , Vol 20, No 1) by Vera R. Jackson (Hardcover - May 1996) Buy new:  $24.95   Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks Used & new from $22.46 8. Volunteerism: An emerging profession (American lecture series, publication no. 887. A publication in the Bannerstone Division of American lectures in social and rehabilitation psychology) by John G Cull (Unknown Binding - 1974) Used & new from $7.44 9. Volunteerism: The Directory of Organizations, Training, Programs and Publications by Harriet Clyde Kipps (Hardcover - May 1991) Used & new from $39.80 10. Passionate Volunteerism: The Importance of Volunteerism Today & How Government Nonprofits & Volunteers Can Make It a More Powerful Force by Jeanne H. Bradner (Paperback - Oct 1993) Used & new from $1.70 11. Crop Ferality and Volunteerism by Jonathan Gressel (Hardcover - April 12, 2005) Buy new:  $169.95 $151.26   In Stock Used & new from $124.96 12. Vision and volunteerism: Reviving volunteerism in Jamaica (Grace, Kennedy Foundation lecture) by Don Robotham (Unknown Binding - 1998) Used & new from $47.31 Works Cited Amazon.com 2006 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/102-8693647-4384938?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=volunteerismAdams Chau, Lynda Lee. The Professionals Guide to Fund Raising, Corporate Giving, and Philanthropy: People Give to People. New York: Quorum Books, 1988. Questia. 28 Sept. 2006 . Allahyari, Rebecca Anne. Visions of Charity: Volunteer Workers and Moral Community. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Questia. 28 Sept. 2006 . Freedman, Marc. Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America. New York: Public Affairs, 1999. Questia. 28 Sept. 2006 . . The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector. Ed. J. Steven Ott. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. Questia. 28 Sept. 2006 . Ruben, George. "Master Pact at Pratt & Whitney." Monthly Labor Review 115.3 (1992): 39+. Questia. 28 Sept. 2006 . Schwartz, David B. Who Cares? Rediscovering Community. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. Questia. 28 Sept. 2006 . Read More