Uniting to make a difference: A guide to community organizing

In times of uncertainty, injustice, and outrage at the local or national political landscape, you often hear calls to organize for change. But, what exactly does that mean?

Feeling helpless is understandable when individuals and communities struggle with systems and leadership that threaten their livelihood, rights, and quality of life. Community organizing is a way for everyday citizens to confront decision makers and those in power. It’s a way to advocate for policies and infrastructure, and identify and elevate leaders who will support them. It’s a way to participate meaningfully in democracy.

Community organizing is at the heart of grassroots movements. Grassroots campaigns and organizations like the Sunrise Movement, Black Lives Matter, and Everytown for Gun Safety have had profound impacts on society, raising awareness, and dismantling harmful, unjust systems. 

Learn about community organizing, how to do it, and examples of transformational movements to create the change your community needs.

What is community organizing?

Community organizing is when groups of people in a neighborhood, city, or region come together in collective action to address shared issues and achieve common goals within their community.

Often those goals are to change or create policies, gain or strengthen rights for marginalized groups, improve resources, and elect leaders who advocate for their vision and values.

There are different types and approaches to organizing, including in-person and digital methods. Common tactics include door to door canvassing, writing letters to legislators and members of the community, phonebanking, textbanking, and public demonstrations.

Examples of community causes to organize around include tenant and housing rights, healthcare access, providing renewable energy for climate protection and lowering energy bills, and public education resources, to name a few.

Based on a study of 12 community movements from nine different countries, organizing causes among these groups fell into three categories: 

• Absence of quality public services and equal access to land and natural resources, and government neglect of local needs — disproportionately affecting certain groups, like lower-income, minority, and female members of the community.
• Large companies, especially in the mining, agribusiness, and real estate industries, moving into local communities and using up land and resources.
• Lasting effects from colonization, capitalism, and systemic racism, including food scarcity, unemployment, low wages, and discrimination.

The study found the common link of each community movement was a shared desire to reclaim control over local spaces at a time when public spaces are increasingly privatized, restricted, and monitored.

Now, let’s look at how to successfully plan and implement organizing efforts.

Successful grassroots organizing strategies

The essential steps of community organizing include identifying a cause and a goal, gaining support, providing the necessary resources and training for everyone involved, and making an action plan. The following are the best practices in detail.

Identify your cause

First, you need a strong understanding of the problems impacting your community that need to be solved. That starts by engaging with the members of your community and being an active member yourself. 

Talk to your neighbors, small business owners, workers, families, and others where you live. Find out what they’re struggling with and what they want to see changed. Some ways you can do this is by: 

• Attending city council meetings to hear about top local issues and proposed solutions
• Becoming a member of your neighborhood association and attending meetings
• Joining, observing, and interacting with local online groups and forums
• Keeping up with local news media organizations and reporting
• Participating in community-based organizations that focus on social justice and serving the needs of the local community

For example, you may have a general idea about an area of concern, like environmental problems in your community. By listening to people, asking questions, researching, and observing, you find out residents are struggling with high energy bills, asthma and other health problems, and repercussions from extreme weather conditions.

Once you know what these specific challenges are and how they affect people’s daily lives, it’s important to investigate the conditions and systems in place that are creating the problems. 

Using the same example, let’s say you research the root causes of the environmental impacts on your community. During that process, you’re able to identify the reliance on fossil fuels and the polluting gas plants in your area as the sources of expensive utilities and rising health issues.

Set your goals

Now that you know the main problems you want to address and what’s causing them, you can determine what initiatives and actions to focus on that will deliver the best results. This will drive the messaging and demands of your organizing campaign. Using your research and learnings from your conversations, you can identify your goals.

Continuing with the previous example, let’s say you reach a consensus among the community that transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable public energy is the main objective. This will result in lower energy costs, closing of harmful gas plants, and contribute to the larger fight against the climate crisis. It will also boost the economy with the creation of new green jobs.

Next, you can decide the main goals for your organizing efforts to win this outcome. In this case, that would be to get lawmakers to pass city or state legislation that mandates a transition to renewable energy over a designated time period, which would include closing polluting facilities. 

Build support with local groups and volunteers

Now that you have a clear message and direction for your campaign, you can start or continue to build the community that will drive it forward. Invite the people you’ve already connected with to join your movement. Tell your friends, neighbors, coworkers, and people you meet at different meetings and organizations about the cause.

In our current digital era, creating an online presence and hub for your campaign is crucial. Collect email addresses of people who want to be involved to distribute information and generate interest by sending email updates. You can also start a website, social media account or group, or set up a communication channel, like Slack. Another valuable tool for sharing your cause and building support is the Change.org petition platform. 

Using these tools, you can plan community building events, like meet and greets, informational and planning meetings, presentations, Q&As, and more.

Determine your organizational structure

To create and run a movement that drives real social change, you can’t do it alone. You need the help of other organizers and volunteers. Find the people among your supporters who want to invest their time and energy into planning and implementing the resources, process, and tasks needed to get the job done. 

Once you find these people, you can determine what your roles should be. For example, you might want to have someone who is in charge of communications, another person who handles training volunteers, and field organizers. These people will focus on these tasks and be the main points of contact for anyone who wants to help, needs information, or has questions about that particular area of the campaign. 

Whatever your leadership structure is decide how decisions will be made among you. Will you hold meetings with everyone to collectively decide on organizing approaches, ask everyone to vote, or leave the decision up to each person who’s managing a different part of the project?

Create and accumulate resources

To make sure your volunteers and supporters have what they need to take action, and for your campaign to be successful and run smoothly, you need resources. Resources include promotional and educational materials, equipment, knowledge, and money. Determine what all you need early on in your campaign to get you started and then you can replenish as needed. 

Think about any literature and handouts you need, like brochures, postcards, and flyers. What training resources do you need, like educational documents and people to teach volunteers about canvassing, phone banking, and how to talk about your cause? For in-person events, do you need to rent a space, have drinks and food, microphones and a sound system, etc.?

Make a budget and a plan for what you need, how much it costs, and who you need to make it happen. Decide how you’ll raise funds, which could be through donations, benefit parties and performances, and sales, for example. 

Make an action plan

After you establish your goals that will bring the change needed in your community, you can plan what actions to take to win those desired outcomes. Plan the logistics for each action, recruit supporters through outreach, and provide the appropriate training and resources. 

Another important part of the process is to debrief after every action to share learnings, collect data from each attempt, and use that feedback to plan future actions and refine your approach. 

These are some primary ways organizers can mobilize to raise awareness about their cause and create change:

Canvassing 

Canvassing is the practice of knocking on the doors of residents in the community to have face to face conversations about your cause. It’s commonly used to campaign for political candidates and increase voter turnout. This is an old-school, yet effective tactic. 

A research study by the California Immigrant Policy Center found that 8% of voters who canvassers spoke with changed their mind on a range of immigration policies. They note that number is significantly higher than the margin which determines election outcomes.

The essential tools you need to canvas include:

• A map of the addresses your team will be covering, and an individual walk list for each canvasser or group of canvassers. Map lists can be more general, like by neighborhood, or include the residents of registered voters obtained through public databases. 
• A script or key talking points for canvassers to follow that communicates what you’re asking members of the community to do and why, like to vote for a specific candidate or proposition, join as a campaign volunteer, or make a donation.
• A tally sheet to record the results of each location on your list, like if the person wasn’t home, if they answered and you spoke to them, and if they expressed interest or support. This can be done with pen and paper or digitally using an app like MiniVan. 
• Campaign literature like an informational flyer or postcard that you can give to residents or leave at their door. It’s illegal to put campaign literature in mailboxes.
• General supplies like pens, clipboards, charged smartphones with the necessary digital apps installed, comfortable shoes and clothing, and water.

Make sure you have a meeting place for before, during, and after each canvas to prepare before the canvas starts and to debrief and drop off materials to field organizers after. 

Phone and text banking

Making calls and sending text messages to community members and voters is another direct interaction tactic. Similar to canvassing, it requires creating a list of people to contact, a team from your campaign to make the calls or texts, a script for them to follow, and a way to track the results of each call.

This is a flexible, remote way to do outreach and can be completed in two hour shifts per volunteer, for example. Beyond calling members of the community, you can also use phone banking to mobilize volunteers to call their elected representatives to advocate for policies and legislation.

Letter writing

Organizing a designated time for your supporters to gather and write letters is the analog version of texting and calling, which can also add a personal touch. With this approach, you can use campaign postcards to write to residents and voters, or write letters to your representatives asking for them to take action.

Public protests and demonstrations

Organizing protests — like rallies, marches, sit-ins or walkouts — is a powerful way to bring attention to your cause. It’s important to plan the logistics of your protest, know your rights, ensure everyone understands the message and objective, and attract participants so you have a strong presence. 

Read our guide to organizing a peaceful protest for a successful experience.

Examples of community organizers and their work

Community organizing is an inspiring and hopeful way to be an engaged citizen and actually make a difference — because it works. The following are just a few examples of community organizers who have successfully raised awareness and met their goals.

U.S. and global Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights

In 2016, sexual assault survivor Amanda Nguyen and her Change.org petition supporters were successful in urging Congress to pass the Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights. The bill secured national protections for survivors. Among them include the right to the preservation of a rape kit for 20 years or the maximum statute of limitations, and to receive notification before the destruction of the kit.

Later, Nguyen and her organization, Rise, along with the support of her Change.org community, took their organizing efforts to the next level: the United Nations. The UN adopted their resolution to extend survivor rights globally.

The Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California 

In 2016, this non-profit (NPH) canvassed to raise support for a large investment in affordable housing in the Bay Area. By reaching voters in key areas that lived in NPH member-managed properties, they helped to increase voter turnout to support the initiative.

Movement to prevent the Keystone XL Pipeline

In 2011, the Tar Sands Action from 350.org organized a massive two-week sit-in at the White House to pressure President Obama into rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline. This marked the start of a multiyear campaign involving large protests, including the Cowboy and Indian Alliance and the People’s Climate March. Sustained pressure led Obama to deny the pipeline permit in 2015. Further legal, public, and political opposition halted the project until President Biden finalized it in 2021. 

Use petitions as a community organizing tool

Amanda Nguyen used the Change.org platform to share her cause, mobilize supporters to take action, and update everyone on the progress of her massively successful survivor advocacy. 

Follow her example and create a petition as a tool to grow your grassroots movement and provide a hub to share critical updates and actions.