Power and the organized community. The basics of participatory democracy.

Initiated by the Autonómia Foundation, we gave a training today with Bálint Vojtonovszki for young Roma and non-Roma who want to apply for the European Union's Youth In Action funds. Our aim was to help participants gain new skills so that they can more effectively reach out to people living in their settlement, involve them in the project preparation process and have more people take a role in the implementation of the project.

Participants increased their knowledge in:
- techniques to increase group cohesion
- community needs surveys: listening tours and one-to-ones
- organizing skills and building the organization
- a good leader and their responsibilities
- facilitation techniques, role of a moderator, how to cope with tension in group discussions, putting together the agenda
- involving new people in group work and recruit members
- power

TRAINING AGENDA

9.00-9.25: INTRODUCTION

9.25-9.35: COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES. We lay down the principles we want to use when we communicate in the group, thus we learn a technique to moderate a group discussion.

9.35-10.10: IDEAL SETTLEMENT - STRUGGLE FOR POWER
We use the communication principles in the group work, and in an activity we create a situation when community members cannot realize their urban development ideas due to external influence.

10.10-10.25: ORGANIZED COMMUNITY I.
We collect ideas about how a community can become stronger and more effective in representing their interest towards decision-makers.

10.25-10.45: BREAK

10.45-11.15: ORGANIZED COMMUNITY II.
Techniques to involve new people. Introducing the listening tour. We collect ideas how we can identify community issues, involve new members and build the organization.

11.15-11.35: ONE-TO-ONE
Practicing one-to-ones as part of the listening tour.

11.35-12.00: FIRST GROUP MEETING I.
What is a good meeting like? What is the role of the moderator? How can participants contribute to a successful meeting? How do you facilitate a meeting?

12.00-13.00: LUNCH BREAK

13.00-14.15: FIRST GROUP MEETING II.
Preparing the meeting. Elaborating the recruitment plan and the agenda of the meeting.

14.15-14.45: POWER
What is power? Scale line.

14.45-15.00: CLOSE

Thanks to Marci Gosztonyi for brainstorming about the training concept.

Read it in Hungarian.

Our young democracy

Hungary is a young democracy. It will be a healthy and real democracy when more and more social classes and groups will be able to influence and participate in the decision-making processes. In order for this to happen, people usually excluded from decision-making should be able to formulate their demands, get to the table of the decision-makers through community power, and challenge social inequality through democratic means. With a united voice and good tactics, they can achieve real representation. How can we use community organizing to enhance real democracy in Hungary? What is power? Is community organizing only confrontation? This interview with me on a Hungarian community radio station Civil Radio tells us more about these topics.

Civil Rádió: Demokrácia MOST! 2013. január 30., Part 1 (in Hungarian)
Civil Rádió: Demokrácia MOST! 2013. január 30., Part 2 (in Hungarian)

This post is the third in a series where I collect what I like in community organizing in the U.S. "Democracy is not an end but the best means toward achieving these values [equality, justice, freedom, peace, a deep concern for the preciousness of human life, and all those rights and values propounded by Judeo-Christianity and the democratic political tradition]." (Saul Alinsky) Like: community organizing is the catalyst of democracy.

Read it in Hungarian.

The best way to learn is while doing something - American pragmatism in practice

Source: equark.sk

Like: The American pragmatist, fundamentally optimistic and supportive attitude. Usually, Americans go beyond the critical assessment of ideas and instead, they urge you to realize your conceptions. In order for this, they focus on why an idea can work when they talk to you. This post may seem to be an intercultural detour but these thoughts still organically belong to community organizing: our ability to achieve social change is determined by the atmosphere of the society where we are active.

I would, of course, carefully make generalizations about the American culture. Although my experiences are based on a relatively broad range of impressions (I visited many states, spent almost a year in the U.S., met a lot of people of different social statuses), I essentially lived in a bubble: I have mostly met socially conscious, progressive-minded people and in fact, I got to know the world of the democratic middle class. And of course, I was a stranger, and people in the U.S. usually like to be nice and understanding towards strangers, and to show their better side. And a stranger also tends to make generalizations based on particular things. And of course, I can't often decide to what extent my cultural impressions reveal more about myself than the American culture, and to what extent these notions are distorted by my personality.

Comments like this, therefore, are necessarily subjective, but together with this, they carry valuable interpretations about how pragmatism and entrepreneurial spirit, both are so much of a characteristic of the American attitude, take shape in practice in the U.S.

During most of my time, I had the impression that Americans are so supportive to new ideas: when  they share a plan with one another, let it be immature or thoroughly thought through, they mostly give supportive feedback to one another: this is great! go ahead! Apart from what they really think about the feasibility of the conception (whether the other possesses the skills, the network, the comrades, the financial background to be able to realize their goals), at this point these are not subject to assessment. What is appreciated is that you decided that you WANT TO DO something. And this determination is always welcome, the enthusiasm should not be smothered. Any social action can become important, because you never know what others may draw inspiration from. Therefore, in their feedback, they concentrate on the positive side: why something can work out well, not only why not.

This does not end up in empty, superficial optimism: it only means that critical remarks come a little bit later. It is in particular true when you do not know each other well: in this case they don't feel that they would be entitled to do anything else but conveying positive energies. They don't show dissatisfaction, instead, they are happy that there is a new person who wants to do something. They will not disappoint you even if what you have done is not super-perfect because it can develop on the way. Critical feedback comes when there is something more concrete to be analyzed. Or after they get to know you better.

On top of this enthusiastic and positive attitude, so much of a characteristic of the Americans, they are so expert in energizing. In demonstrations, trainings, community events, they usually manage to create such a good and energizing atmosphere: I often had the impression that there is a public agreement that they gather together to create an explosion of cheerfulness. They give themselves over to enjoy the moment, and even if they are only viewers, they become active participants of the event. The American audience is very interactive: they reply, shout, cheer, boo. It often happens that the animator loudly asks questions so that the group can give the same or similar answers, e.g., are you feeling good? or why did you come here? The simultaneous loud replies help build group cohesion. At first sight, this is, of course, culturally alien for an introverted Central European, but if you accept that this is the rule of the game, and you give yourself over to it, you can learn a lot. I found it an honest and useful community attitude.

In Hungary, I often feel that people tend to recognize why things don't work - including the intellectual elite. We have a very good sense of critique to recognize why things can fail, which is very useful so that we don't delude ourselves and we see the pitfalls, but at the same time, many people often forget to observe with the same intensity what the chances are to avoid those pitfalls. So, instead of turning their good critical observations into more conscious and more precise action, they get stuck in the negative aspects and they come to the conclusion that it is not worth starting anything. The spirit of doing is often smothered by the sense of critique paired up with skepticism, which otherwise, paired up with some entrepreneurial spirit, optimism, pragmatism and in-the-middle-of-the process analysis, could otherwise be very fruitful.

Read it in Hungarian.

Can homeless folks and service providers join in their struggle?

Springfield, Lobby Day, Nov 29 2011. Source: FB

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) was established in 1980 by service providers and charities - it was not initiated by homeless folks. The coalition mobilizes service providers or neighborhood organizations (institutional community organizing) and homeless people. Can the two parties equally assert themselves in different campaigns through this community organizing strategy?


CCH sets its campaign agenda based on research and by canvassing the residents of shelters for the homeless. The organization organizes active listening tours in service providing institutions and the community organizers talk to hundreds of homeless folks. They want to know what the most pressing issues are for their constituency. (Who are you and what have you gone through? What do you think about it? What makes you angry?) Or they ask the opinion of homeless folks on a concrete campaign.

In CCH every new community organizer starts with a listening tour, and in the first month they conduct a one-on-one with at least 50 homeless or formerly homeless people. The people interviewed, however, are not involved in the actual decision-making process, but the campaign goals are set by the staff of the organization.

Personal relationships with homeless folks are very important for CCH community organizers. The one-on-one is an important tool to build trust and to find out to what extent the group is organized and what skills its members have which they could use for the benefit of the whole group. The community organizers try to figure out who can be involved in specific tasks in an action, and determine who are real leaders, those members who are able to represent the interest of the broader community.

The community organizers hold regular events in shelters and they agitate homeless people to accumulate power and get involved in running actions to make the decision-makers accountable. And the leaders tell their own story in different places, take part in talks with decision-makers or less often give interviews to the media. CCH does not stress, however, urging the leaders to establish autonomous chapters (or cells) in their shelters, which can set their own agenda or decide about new campaigns.

Furthermore, CCH does not represent homeless people against service providers. The organization goes no further than mediating between the social worker or the institution and the homeless person. The community organizing strategy of CCH focuses more on issues which both parties have a self-interest in and can line up joint support (e.g., to increase state budget support to service providers or to increase housing benefits), rather than building the movement of homeless people. As a result, the organization does not put particular effort into strengthening cooperation and communication between different groups of different shelters and establish a strong network of organized cells. In addition, CCH in most cases works with people living in shelters or who are affiliated with a service provider. It does not organize people living on the streets and it does not directly represent their interests.

This does not mean that homeless people do not take part in the decision-making processes of the organization. In bigger thematic campaigns, such as the decriminalization of prostitutes and the reentry of former felons, persons who were affected by these issues sit on the campaign planning committees along with representatives of civil society organizations. And homeless or formerly homeless folks sit on the board of the organization or are employed as staff members.

CCH works in most campaigns in different coalitions, therefore service providers are their important allies. Just like in the case of homeless people, community organizers lay great stress on finding out their self-interest. They want to see and feel what kind of cooperation can be in the interest of these institutions and what would make them join the particular campaign. One-on-ones are therefore crucial with the representatives of the institutions, too. (During their listening tour, new community organizers also interview almost 50 shelter representatives besides the 50 homeless or formerly homeless people.) CCH sometimes ally with organizations who have less experience in doing advocacy and campaigning. In this case, they understand and start at the level where partners are the most comfortable and they gradually raise the stakes. Building trust is a process in institutional organizing, too: you have to know who is in the organization, who is worth negotiating with, who is capable of what and what they are ready to do.

Read it in Hungarian.

Mobilizing along self-interest

Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky organized communities for instance in the slums of Chicago between the 1930s and the 1970s. He worked with teenage gangs, low-income immigrant groups from Europe, excluded African-American communities and racist whites. He was passionate about organizing groups cheated by people in power. He enjoyed seeing how they gain back their human dignity, start to organize themselves, and realize they can have influence on the "big" political and business interests.

For most people, the functioning of a democratic state can be pretty complicated and incomprehensible. Decisions follow decisions, each having a huge impact on our lives, but many people can put up with the assumption that they are not in the position to influence how things work. Or their everyday struggle to make ends meet supersedes any other efforts. Legislators often seem to be distant, they listen only to those who are close to the fire. Due to the uneven distribution of power, communities with less capacity to advocate for themselves can easily become marginalized, which makes them subject to fraud, exploitation or oppression. One of the main tasks of a democratic state therefore would be to create space in the decision-making process for those social groups who need more effort to articulate their demands. In most cases, however, this happens only after putting pressure on the legislators.

But why would those who struggle for survival or assume they have no influence on how things work start to organize themselves? Alinsky says because it is their self-interest. So he traced those concrete, immediate and winnable issues which embittered the lives of most members of the neighborhood. And he wanted to track down those locals who can be allies in building a neighborhood organization. Because if the members of the community realize that together they have the power to influence the decisions on their lives, they will feel less marginalized.

For this Alinsky and his organizers needed to know the neighborhood like the palm of their hand. They started with data analysis: before the field work, they wanted to draw a preliminary profile of the neighborhood. They combed through census data, reports by local planning commissions, and public statistics, then they made an inventory of all the public institutions, associations, sport clubs, social agencies and  local businesses, etc. They carried out research on the history of the neighborhood and its people. They mapped power relations and the network of relationships. They started organizing only then. Obviously, by that point, they had several hypotheses of what the most crucial issues could be for the neighborhood, but they put these in brackets. They wanted to hear from the members what makes them angry. Alinsky's organizers built on people's self-interest.

After the research, they divided the neighborhood into smaller units and started canvassing. They conducted hundreds of interviews, with residents, shopkeepers, leaders of local civil society organizations, church leaders, or people active in other fields of public life. They took thorough notes on the behavior and social habits of the people. They visited new contacts other people mentioned. They used qualitative and quantitative research methods used in sociology and anthropology such as participatory observation, unstructured, semi-structured and in-depth interviews, statistical analyses, etc. At the end of the day they recorded voice reports on their conclusions. They wanted to draw a profile of the fears, sorrows, hopes and skills of people living in the neighborhood.

Area canvassing usually takes one or two months of intensive work. Within this period the community organizers get in touch with the whole neighborhood. Canvassing can happen through many different ways. Organizers can contact those who seemed interesting during the research phase, and they will suggest new contacts to talk to (this is the snowball method applied in sociology and anthropology). Organizers may have acquaintances from earlier and start tracing those networks. New opportunities can also come the their way through sheer coincidence.

Many organizations apply the more direct door knocking. Student volunteers or community organizers visit the members of the neighborhood in their homes, they knock on each and every door to try to identify the crucial issues for the community and make them open to cooperation. Building relations can be very tiring and may hold out little hope in the beginning. But there are communication techniques which make dismantling the walls easier. (For example: "What made you angry recently? "I don't know, leave me alone." "Your neighbor, Mary said that trash is not picked up. Is this a problem for you? What do you think should be done?)

Building trust is a process which starts from zero. Therefore in the beginning, rejection and suspicion are part of canvassing. One of Alinsky's most quoted story is how he infiltrated into one of Al Capone's mobs in Chicago. (At this point yet he worked as a young criminologist, not as a community organizer.) Through long weeks he hung around the headquarters of the mobsters, the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, and he was always dismissed by them. Then one night at the neighboring table, one of the professional assassins of Capone, Big Ed said: "Hey, you guys, did I ever tell you about the time I picked up that redhead in Detroit ?" The others moaned in chorus. "Oh, no... Do we have to hear that one again?" Big Ed got disappointed when Alinsky poked him and said: "Mr. Stash. I’d love to hear that story." The gangster's face lit up. "You would, kid? Here, pull up a chair."

Through these initial contacts and talks we can draw a profile of the concerns, skills and visions of the people living in the neighborhood. And through these methods, we can form more personal relations with those who seem reliable and pursue group interests. Through longer, personal conversations we can identify the concrete, immediate and winnable issues, in which many people have a self-interest and which can help mobilize the neighborhood. And we can identify those people who can lead on issues and become leaders. And we can determine the forces and resources which keep a community together, and which we can build on to organize the first neighborhood assembly.

(Source: Sanford D. Horwitt: Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky - His Life and Legacy. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1989; Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky - a candid conversation with the feisty radical organizer. Vol. 19. no. 3. - March, 1972; Saul D Alinsky: Rules for Radicals - A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. Random House, New York, 1971)

Read it in Hungarian.