When
the chairman of Section III of the Conference sent out a call in October, 1938,
to the fifteen elected members of the Section, to meet for preliminary work on
the 1939 Conference program, a reply was received from one of the members which
read in part as follows:
"In reviewing the program suggestions, I am convinced that there is a real need for evaluating the processes and objectives of community organization, much as the caseworkers have done before us and the group workers are now doing. Would we dare, as a Committee, to undertake a study of the concept and its implications to the Conference? It might be possible to form discussion groups in different parts of the country to work on the project simultaneously between now and the 1939 Conference."
This suggestion met with a favorable response and the Section chairman was authorized to name a steering committee to put it into effect. The committee instigated the formation of discussion groups in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and Pittsburgh. These groups held frequent meetings throughout the winter and spring of 1938-1939, coming together finally for a clearance of their findings in an all-day session on the opening day of the Conference (Sunday, June 18, 1939) at Buffalo. At the conclusion of that session, a drafting committee of three—Robert P. Lane, Mary Clarke Burnett and Arthur Dunham—took the six memoranda, together with the minutes of the discussion on them, and prepared the following report, which was presented to the Conference at the concluding session of Section III on June 24, 1939.
When representatives of the six discussion groups met in Buffalo on June 18, they found themselves in agreement on the following points:
1. That the term community organization is used to refer to a process, and, as is often the case in other professions, to refer also to a field. This double usage is a familiar phenomenon. Thus we refer to the practice of medicine as a process, and to the field of medicine; to the teaching process, and to the field of teaching; to the practice of law, which is a process, and to the legal field; and so forth.
2. That the process of organizing a community, or some parts of it, goes on outside, as well as inside, the general area of social work. Whatever more careful analysis may disclose this process to consist of, there seems little doubt that it is practiced, for different purposes, by such bodies as chambers of commerce, churches and federations of churches, and political parties—to name only three groups outside of social work to which it may be ascribed. It is the social welfare nature of its objectives when carried on within the area of social work, as well as its general content and setting, that distinguish the community organization work with which we are concerned, from that, for example, at which Mr. James A. Parley is so expert.
3. That within the area of social work the process of community organization is carried on by some organizations as a primary function —that is, by organizations established for the express purpose of carrying it on; and by other organizations as a secondary function—that is, by organizations established for the express purpose of carrying on some other process of social work, which find, however, that their primary function is advanced if they engage also in community organization. Obvious examples are a council of social agencies, whose primary function is that of community organization; and a family agency, whose staff and especially whose executive often engage in community organization in order to promote the more effective performance of their primary function of casework, or even to promote the advancement of the total social welfare program in the community.
The process is also carried on between such levels—that is, between the federal and state governments, or between state and local governments; or between national or state voluntary organizations and local voluntary organizations. Examples of this inter-level process are the working agreements between the United States Employment Service and State Employment Services; and the provisions under which State Departments of Welfare reimburse local departments for relief expenditures and set personnel and other standards to which local units of government must conform.
5. That organizations whose primary function is the practice of community organization do not, as a rule, offer help directly to clients. Their work lies rather with functional agencies and interested groups of non-clients; but the aim and justification of the community organization process is improvement in the coverage and quality of service to clients which the community is enabled to provide.
There has been no agreement as yet by the six study groups on a formal definition of community organization. Three of the groups submitted tentative definitions, which are given below; some of the other groups included definitions suggested by individual members.
One group proposed the following definition:
Community organization is the process of dealing with individuals or groups who are or may become concerned with social welfare services or objectives, for the purpose of influencing the volume of such services, improving their quality or distribution, or furthering the attainment of such objectives.
Another group suggested this:
In the social welfare field, community organization may be described as the art and process of discovering social welfare needs and of creating, coordinating and systematizing instrumentalities through which group resources and talents may be directed toward the realization of group ideals and the development of the potentialities of group members. Research, interpretation, conference, education, group organization, and social action are the principal tools used in the process.
A third group offered the following:
Community organization is a type of social work concerned with efforts to direct social resources effectively toward the specific or total welfare needs of any geographical area. Its performance may involve such activities as fact finding, co-ordination, improving standards, interpretation, developing welfare programs, changing patterns of social work, and promoting social legislation.
Clearly, if our limited experience is any indication, the nature of the community organization process, though meagerly treated in professional literature, still enjoys a generous measure of common understanding, and should prove to be susceptible of analysis and statement.
If this is the central and primary aim of community organization, there are also several secondary objectives. These secondary objectives are purposes which community organization seeks to accomplish as a means to the realization of its general aim. We suggest the following six secondary objectives:
1. To secure and maintain an adequate factual basis for sound planning and action.
2. To initiate, develop, and modify welfare programs and services, in the interest of attaining a better adjustment between resources and needs.
3. To improve standards of social work and to increase the effectiveness of individual agencies.
4. To improve and facilitate interrelationships, and to promote coordination, between organizations, groups, and individuals concerned with social welfare programs and services.
5. To develop a better public understanding of welfare problems and needs, and social work objectives, programs and methods.
6. To develop public support of, and public participation in, social welfare activities. Financial support includes income from tax funds, voluntary contributions, and other sources.
We should like to note, parenthetically, that five of these six objectives are substantially the same as the five objectives for a council of social agencies set forth by W. Frank Persons in 1925, in his pamphlet, The Welfare Council of New York City. Mr. Persons' analysis has stood the test of time to a remarkable extent and appears to have a high degree of validity as applied to this current analysis of the broad process of community organization.
We suggest that among the methods of community organization are those listed below. This list is merely illustrative; it is not intended as a complete catalogue of the methods in this field, nor have we been at pains to make the several methods listed mutually exclusive. Where convenient, we have suggested how a general method is transformed into an activity in a concrete situation.
1. Continuous central recording is a method used in the community organization process. Using this method, a given council of social agencies may carry on, as an activity, the collection and publication of financial and service data pertaining to the work of its member agencies.
2. Planning, particularly planning by or in behalf of two or more agencies, is a second method used in community organization. Planning an anti-syphilis campaign by a group of agencies is an activity of those agencies which illustrates the use of the planning method.
3. A third method used is that of making special studies and surveys. The carrying out of a study of recreational needs and resources, in a given city, by a national agency, is an illustrative activity.
4. Joint budgeting—that is, planning applied to finances—is a fourth method used. When a chest and council set up and operate a budgeting program they are carrying on a joint activity by using this method.
5. Methods concerned with education, interpretation, and public relations—including use of newspaper publicity, annual reports, other printed literature, public speaking, radio, exhibits, and so on— are used in the community organization process. When the Welfare Federation of Cleveland publishes an educational book regarding social work for school children, this is an activity arising from the application of one of these methods.
6. Planning and execution of joint financial campaigns as a method of community organization is a common phenomenon.
7. The method of organization is used by a council of social agencies when it creates a child welfare division; or by a state conference of social work when it sets up a committee on welfare legislation; or by a national agency when it establishes a field service; or jointly by a state and county welfare department when the state department's field representative assists the county welfare board in recruiting and training its staff.
8. Interagency consultation, through field service or otherwise, is a common method. This occasionally takes on an authoritarian note, as when one of the activities of a State Welfare Department is the licensing of a private child-caring agency.
9. Development and use of group discussion, the conference process and committees, is a method with which we are all too painfully acquainted to require illustration.
10. Promotion of voluntary agreements through negotiation. Two children's institutions may, but all too frequently do not, avail themselves of this method to carry out the activity of a merger.
11. Operation of joint services. This is a common method, resulting in such a definite activity as operation of a social service exchange.
12. Promotion of legislation, often referred to by the term "social action." So many concrete activities flow from use of this method that illustration is uncalled for except perhaps to say that they include educational and legislative campaigns, promotion of pressure group activities, and the advancing of a cause through personal contacts with officials, political leaders, and other persons and groups.
It may be observed that while social action is usually thought of in reference to legislation, it need not be confined to that area. For example, social action methods may be directed toward a public administrative official, or toward persons not holding public office but able to influence important social policies.
Two comments should be made in regard to this illustrative list of methods of community organization. In the first place, there is an obvious difficulty in deciding how large or how small an area to regard as a single method. For example, shall we speak of social work surveys as a method; or shall we regard as separate methods planning and organizing the survey, carrying on the field work and gathering the data, interpreting the data and writing the report, and so on? Likewise, is "planning and executing a joint financial campaign" a single method; or is it a collection of methods, including planning the campaign, determining quotas, organizing the soliciting force, soliciting the prospects, planning and managing campaign luncheons, and so on?
This problem is raised for further study; we have no answer to it at present. It is obvious that most of the general methods listed above are made up of more specific methods. The careful study and analysis of this hierarchy of methods is urgently needed; but the search must be pursued with some sense of the potential absurdity of relentlessly tracking down methods by successively narrowing the circle until the characteristics of a professional method are lost in a haze of trivialities of individual behavior patterns.
In connection with this further examination of methods, it should be possible to give a somewhat precise meaning to the term "technique" as applied to community organization, and to define the relation of "technique" to "method."
Our second comment is an expression of our recognition that certain common methods are employed in community organization and in the internal administration of social agencies: for example, planning, organization, group discussion. How extensive or how important this common area of methods is, cannot be determined until there are available systematic and fairly comprehensive descriptions of the methods used in both these fields.
The Committee would make clear, however, that while it recognizes the existence of common methods in community organization and administration, it does not regard these two fields as identical. Community organization is a process and a field of social work which we are inclined to regard as comparable with casework and group work; administration is a function of all social agencies, whether they are concerned primarily with casework, group work, or community organization. Administration is, of course, a function of other types of organizations: government departments, armies, churches, schools, business concerns, and so on. It may be correct to say that the job of a particular social agency executive includes activities of both community organization and administration; but this does not mean that the fields of community organization and administration are the same, or that either of these fields is a part of the other. They are separate areas, but certain methods are common to both.
The foregoing analysis of some of the characteristics of community organization is tentative and partial; but we believe it will serve to summarize our present thinking and to provide a starting point for the next stage in exploring the process of community organization…
It will be noted that so far in this report we have used the expression "community organization" without comment as to whether or not we found it a wholly satisfactory descriptive label for the process and field whose content and limitations we are trying to determine. In the opinion of a number of the groups it is not wholly satisfactory. We are aware that it has gained wide currency and is regarded by many, perhaps by most, social workers as well established and acceptable. We are familiar with the admonition, "Remove not the ancient landmark." In these circumstances it is obviously desirable that the term be continued in general usage unless analysis of the process gradually brings recognition that the term is inadequate, and unless a more accurate and equally convenient term gradually gains acceptance. We definitely are not here proposing adoption of a substitute term. We think it worth while, however, to indicate some of the reasons for the dissatisfaction many of our members felt with the expression community organization, and to mention some of the alternative terms suggested. The reasons for dissatisfaction may be summarized as follows:
The word "community" presented difficulties. To many of us it inevitably suggests only local activities. Further, when coupled with organization," it seems to suggest that some entire "community" is being "organized." We have indicated our agreement that, first of all, we were seeking to identify a process, and our further agreement that this process is practiced on local, state and federal levels, and between such levels. Many of us were therefore persuaded that we should seek also for a term that would clearly refer to the process alone, without including a word that introduced a confusing and perhaps misleading geographical limitation. This, it was urged, has been done in connection with the casework process and the group work process.
Some of our members thought the absence of the word "social," or any other word identifying the process with the field of social work, was unfortunate, especially as the process is practiced outside the social work field. Here again, we were reminded, the full expressions "social casework" and "social group work" serve as admirable examples.
Substitute terms that were suggested included the following: social planning; social welfare planning; social engineering; social community work; community work; community organization work; community organization for social work; welfare organization work; intergroup work; social organization work; social welfare organization. Most of these terms were examined critically and finally rejected by the very persons who suggested them. . . .
We desire to repeat that selection of a label for the process we are examining did not seem to us a matter of the first importance. For that matter, neither did agreement on a formal definition of the process. Perhaps because so many of us are tainted with scholasticism, we could not forego a measure of hairsplitting and logic chopping in the course of our discussions; but we never deserted our basic conviction that the essential task confronting those concerned with community organization is to know what they are doing and trying to do. If agreement is reached on this central point, agreement on lesser points—of which the name of the process is an example—should not prove difficult….
The experience of our discussion groups justifies, we believe, two generalizations that are obvious when stated, but that seem to us as important as they are obvious.
First: Despite a scanty amount of close, intensive, joint examination of the community organization process, despite a meager literature, despite a dearth of teaching materials, despite the absence of published job analyses, despite a relatively uncriticized nomenclature—despite all these lacks, there is considerable agreement on the nature, content, and limitations of the process itself. Our understanding of some portion of this agreement has been presented above. A continuation of the sort of work we have tried to do, we are satisfied, will reveal still further areas of agreement.
Second: Such a continuation we believe is desirable and important. We favor this not merely that further areas of agreement may be revealed and become widely known, but rather that professional understanding of the entire process of community organization may be sharpened, deepened, and widened. Specifically, we think the following aspects of the process should receive critical examination:
1. What are the objectives of community organization? How should they be formulated? How can they be more widely understood, approved, and supported?
2. What activities are carried on as part of this process? In what kind of communities or geographical areas—or in what circumstances —are such activities most successful?
3. By what methods are these activities carried on? How can these methods be made more effective?
5. What qualifications are now looked for in persons engaged in community organization? What qualifications should be looked for? What training will best develop these qualifications?
6. How can adequate records of the community organization process be prepared and made available? Can workers in the field be induced to experiment in keeping them? Such records, be it noted, should reveal methods rather than merely report results.
7. How can we evaluate the objectives, the activities, the methods, and the principles of community organization? Evaluation, of course, should be made in the light of the best professional practice.
As a means of insuring the further examination of these problems, we unite in recommending that the officers of Section III of the National Conference take steps to set up a suitably representative committee for the ensuing year, charged with the duty of carrying on the work on which we have made a modest, but to us a highly pleasurable, beginning.
Harper, E. P. and Dunham, A. (eds.) (1959) Community Organization in Action. Basic literature and critical comments, New York: Association Press.
To cite this article: First published as 'Robert P. Lane, "Report of Groups Studying the Community Organization Process," Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1940, pp. 456-473. Available in the informal education archives: http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/lane_community_organization.htm
This piece has been reproduced here on the understanding that it is not
subject to any copyright restrictions, and that it is, and will remain, in the
public domain.
First placed in the archives: August 2002.
