Ten Steps to Organise a Community Project

Are you visiting this post for inspiration and guidance for your own community group or project? Are you inspired by an issue or looking to create an interest group around permaculture? Here are ten steps to get you started.

Click Here to Read More About Community Organizations

The Ten Steps to Organize a Community Project

To begin you need to have something to organize around. This might be a service or a goal. For example organizing a community permaculture group or fighting to save your local public transportation from oblivion. Luckily, many issues are not just national but also global and so a bit of research can turn up national or international organization with active networks and a working model to follow, just make sure they are grassroots.
Next you must get out there. Meet other people with the same interests. You will likely find an already established network of people or even better, an already established community group. This could be at a town meeting, an online forum, your child's school, or anyplace where there might be action around your interest.
If no such thing exists, go simple and create a virtual space on Facebook or other forum. All you really need to start a functioning group is three people or so.
You then begin by creating, in order of priority, goals. You should have an ultimate long term goal as well as smaller intermediate goals to achieve your objective.
Now you put the work in! find a place to meet, start seedlings or create an informative leaflet about your bus system and go on the streets. A table on the sidewalk or at a farmers market is a perfect place to start.
Keep your routine up! sometimes it takes people a few weeks between hearing about your meetings and showing up. You must have meetings every week or fortnight even if they are small and short and even if they are still only online. In my experience once a month is not often enough, members forget its going on. Its no good to ditch a meeting just because you think no one new will be there. If a new member does show up, but there is no meeting there, than you have lost a member and their networks.
Alternatively, if you are swamped with new members make sure your organization keeps to its agenda. It is easy for an organization to get hijacked or pulled into five different directions when it grows too quickly. There is nothing wrong with organizations maintaining their original intention even if it means losing a few members.
How you are going to fund raise is the next challenge. If your group can organize a moneyless operation perfect, that is always a goal of mine. If not, membership dues or fundraising events need to be planned. Remember Autonomy is key, do not become dependent on outside organizations giving regular contributions, especially if they are government, businesses or political organizations.
As the members begin to come your goals and methods need to be reassessed to include the wishes and opinions of new members. If new members aren't joining then keep on going, it can take a while, sometimes years. Just make sure you are as active as you can be without burning yourselves out.
Remember to be Democratic! Organizations often split over important differences in either their goals or methods. Even if they have separated they can still work together on issues they agree about without losing their integrity. I consider it a growing pain. If your organization has one or two splits, it means you have matured to refined your goals or strategy. And remember grassroots organizing is democratic and doing things democratically with a decent majority agreeing can amount to a lot of debating and deliberation and consequently a lot of time talking when you might prefer action. Ah well! that's just how it goes, Ive never seen a way around it, it may try your patience but that just the democratic process at work.

I hope this helps! please leave a comment if you have any suggestions, tips of your own or links to good grassroots organizations.

Links to Great Community Projects:

Website and online network: Free Cycle
The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 5,035 groups with 8,917,299 members around the world. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

Wikipedia: Give-away shops, swap shops, freeshops, or free stores
The free store is a form of constructive direct action that provides a shopping alternative to a monetary framework, allowing people to exchange goods and services outside of a money-based economy.

Website: Transition Valley Aotearoa NZ
This website is a small aspect of the work which is going on all over the country, as people begin to understand the importance of acting now to mitigate the effects of some of the most direct impacts of peak oil and climate change.

Wikipedia: Critical Mass Movement
Critical Mass is a cycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world.

Resources:

Website: Did You Say Free Shop? Otago Daily Times News Article
Website: Free Trade Flourishes. Otago Daily Times News Article
Website: Adventurous rat stows away in Donation Otago Daily Times News Article
Facebook Page: Free Shop Dunedin
Website: BBC Arguments against Charity
Website: Dunedin Volunteers Start DIY Bike Workshop. Otago Daily Times News Article
Facebook Page: The Crooked Spoke Bike Workshop

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