Why is community organizing so important? Because social change takes place, and is more effective, when people work together in an organized way. This gives us the power we need to achieve the changes we want. There is more than one way to organize (see section on Strategies for Social Change). People choose the methods that make the most sense to them and seem most likely to achieve their goals.

Here are seven basic principles to follow in building a movement for social change:

1. Nonviolence - Preventing or minimizing violence against ourselves, each other, our communities, and the environment.
2. Social Transformation - Identifying and addressing the root causes of problems and creating solutions that truly make things better for all groups in society.
3. Organizing - Offering people the opportunity and support to work with others on the problems they face.
4. Economic Equality - Putting basic human needs first; insuring that all have enough before any get much more;
5. Direct Democracy - Giving people the power to control their own lives, and maximizing their access to the decision-making processes that affect them.
6. Social Equality - Promoting participation and leadership especially for those who have experienced discrimination in society.
7. Environmental Sustainability - Producing internally and promoting externally a cleaner and safer natural environment more in balance with nature.

Who can you organize?
They can be people like yourself, or people different from you who share and experience the same problems or issues. They can have the same identity (African-Americans, women, working class, working in the same place, adolescents) or the same self-interests. They can be individuals who are not part of any group, or members of one organization, or people from many different groups. In general, it is those who recognize and experience a problem and want to work toward a solution.

You Can Make a Difference

It's easy to feel discouraged, but organizing can be an empowering and rewarding experience.

In a true democracy, people would have a real voice in the decisions affecting their lives. Politics would be a dynamic, active, creative process in which people participated meaningfully. Governments and corporations would be directly accountable to the people they affect.

Unfortunately, many of us feel that we have no voice in governing our society and that a few powerful individuals and corporations have too much power and influence. We may be too busy to participate, we may lack information, or we may be discouraged. We may think that no one else feels the way we do. We worry about what other people will say if we act, or whether our prospects for "success" in our life will be threatened. Many of our cultures teach us that women should defer to men, that middle class and wealthy people know more than working class and lower income people, and that the people in charge are supposed to be white. We are encouraged to sit in front of the TV, to trust the "experts," and once every few years to vote for candidates who at best seem to be the lesser of two evils.

Despite all these obstacles, people do act. The changes that have most improved peoples' lives in this century were not gifts given to us by "experts," but the hard-won results of organizing by "ordinary" people. The 40-hour work week was not made by wealthy industrialists, but by union organizers sick of working 60 hour weeks for low wages; the vote -- and rights to property and abortion -- were not granted to women by men, but won by female activists over many decades of struggle. Similar victories have been won by people who are discriminated against because of their race or class, their physical abilities, their sexual orientation, or other factors.

Our history books often emphasize the "great men" who held positions of power and importance. In fact, history is made by all of us. Before civil rights activist Martin Luther King became known, there were countless Black leaders who stood against the oppression of the African-American community. The large-scale, glamorous victories stand on the shoulders of smaller victories, which we rarely hear about, and on the lessons of defeats learned by thousands of grassroots organizers.

When we act as individuals our actions may seem small and unimportant. But when we act collectively in our community - neighborhood, workplace, school, small town, county, state, bioregion, wherever our community exists - anything is possible.

Making the decision to participate in public life is no small thing. It demands commitment, sacrifice, and an openness to change. But the rewards are many: new skills, a sense of purpose, work that's enjoyable and meaningful, awareness of how our society operates, and a feeling of community that comes from working together with others for the vision of a better world.

As one organizer put it, "After I became an activist, I wasn't afraid of the world anymore."

Eight steps to organizing:

1. Identify the issue
2. Get background information on the issue
3. Define goals
4. Plan strategies
5. Get support
6. Take action
7. Assess results, and
8. Modify strategy and act again.