ethics news & views: What makes community work? A hands-on, grassroots approach

September 01, 2001

What makes community work? A hands-on, grassroots approach

At the beginning of their short book on community-building characteristics, Wilder Research Center associates Paul Mattesich and Barbara Monsey explain the limitations of their study. It only utilizes information already “written and available,” which means that communities without accompanying research studies are not included. Further, their study focuses not on all communities, but solely on those “based on residence and social or psychological attachment” (neighborhoods, urban blocks, etc.).

Such “limitations” prove undeniably advantageous for the authors’ work. Whereas many community building studies attempt to cover vast quantities of material, Community Building keeps its focus simple: “What leads to successful community building? What distinguishes efforts that succeed from those that fail?” It keeps its findings simple, too. The authors divide their workbook-like book into three main sections: a listing of 28 community success factors with examples and accompanying questions, an appendix of definitions and methodological explanations, and an extensive list of community building resources and bibliographical material.

Simple does not mean simplistic, however. To obtain their 28 success factors, the authors started with 525 written research evaluations of community building projects – all the literature they could get their hands on at the time – and distilled from these studies a list of criteria for their own investigation. Their final results are both substantive and practical: we learn eight characteristics of successful communities, fifteen characteristics of successful community building processes, and five characteristics of successful community building organizers. Further, we find checklists of questions at the end of each section aimed at helping budding community leaders evaluate their own endeavors.

Take the following example. The fourth characteristic of a successful community building process is the development of communal self-understanding: “Successful efforts are more likely to occur when the process includes developing a group identity, clarifying priorities, and agreeing on how to achieve goals” (p. 32). After elaborating this claim, the authors offer four questions for community builders’ self- and group-assessments:

"Do community members agree on important aspects of their identity? Who they represent? What geographical area they represent? What their purpose is?
Do community members have a clear understanding of priorities?
Does a fair process exist for making decisions?
Do group members know what steps need to occur to accomplish tasks and ultimately to reach goals?” (p. 33)

Some academicians or sociological scholars might still complain, of course, that Community Building lacks sufficient theoretical clout. Such an objection misses the aim of the book: the authors hope to make abstract and difficult-to-obtain research information available to practitioners, or to nonacademic professionals who lack the time for extended theoretical investigations.

Community builders need hands-on information, grounded in substantive research but readily applicable to concrete issues. In Community Building, the Wilder Foundation has provided just such a resource. One can only hope that additional volumes addressing other kinds of community processes – professional communities, self-help communities, religious communities, and so forth – might appear in the near future.

Community Building: What Makes It Work
By Paul Mattesich, Barbara Monsey, with assistance from Corinna Roy. Minnesota, 112pp. $20.

[ Posted by Stacia Brown at September 1, 2001 04:47 PM |