At the Center for Participatory Change, we have spent some time trying to clarify for ourselves (and for others) what it is we do. We have tried to lay out, clearly and concretely, our model for supporting grassroots efforts across Western North Carolina – an approach that we call participatory change.
This effort to clarify our work led to a draft of an academic paper – “Participatory Change: An Integrative Approach to Community Practice” – which we plan to submit for publication. We also presented our model to around 70 community building practitioners in June at the 2001 National Community Building Network conference in South Florida.
Participatory change is a way of working with grassroots groups that combines community organizing (e.g., the approaches of Saul Alinsky, Cesar Chavez, and Si Kahn); popular education (e.g., the approaches of Paulo Freire and the Highlander Research and Education Center); and international participatory development (e.g., Participatory Rural Appraisal).
It is an approach to grassroots work that has 10 steps:
1. Research. This refers to the process where we learn everything we can about the community in which we will be working. We use two major research methods: community immersion, and talking with community leaders.
2. Outreach. This is the process of holding one-on-one meetings with grassroots leaders about the community’s needs, assets, and goals. Crucial to this outreach process is listening – fully, deeply, and actively. At this point, we have no predetermined set of issues or solutions – so we can listen openly.
3. Forming an Idea. Through one-on-one conversations, an idea for a community improvement project emerges. CPC staff may have ideas of our own, and we will share those ideas as part of the conversation. Yet from the start, all decisions and choices are made by local people.
4. Forming a Vision. In the first meetings of a group (five to ten people), we use participatory exercises and methods to help the group clarify its vision and goals. By setting these, the group charts its future direction. From this point, group members begin working together on concrete tasks.
5. Project Definition and Planning. Here we have three activities: (1) defining and planning a community improvement project, (2) making connections with people or groups that can support that project, and (3) conducting a feasibility study to make sure the project is doable.
6. Project Implementation. Getting to work involves a spiral of action, learning, and planning. Action: the group works together to accomplish a concrete part of their project plan. Learning: group members stop and reflect to learn from the experience of accomplishing that task. Planning: the group plans the next phase of the project. This is followed by a return to further action, learning, and planning.
7. Defining Organizational Structure. This is a process where the group looks at several ways of structuring themselves (ranging from a loose community association to a formal nonprofit organization), then selects a structure that makes sense to group members and seems sustainable, given the group’s vision and goals.
8. Organizational Capacity Building. The goal here is to facilitate the development of sustainable grassroots organizations which are accountable and responsive to community members and their priorities. To help groups build sustainable organizations, we focus on two areas: organizational capacity building and leadership development.
9. Grantmaking. Through our Western North Carolina Self Development Fund, CPC provides small grants ($500 to $5,000) for new grassroots groups or new projects. Grassroots groups often need a small investment to begin their work, yet there are few foundations that provide this sort of small (yet high-risk) investment in fledgling grassroots groups.
10. Building a Grassroots Network. CPC hosts an annual grassroots gathering, where groups from across Western North Carolina come together to learn from each other; support each other; and develop a common vision for strengthening democratic participation and influencing systems change at a regional level.
Dick Cuoto, an Appalachian sociologist, recently wrote a book called “Making Democracy Work Better.” Cuoto’s idea is that democracy works better when there are grassroots groups that provide an alternative, non-governmental space to address a community’s common good. Such groups provide an alternative structure through which everyday people can participate in the decisions that affect their lives, create relationships and shared meaning within and beyond the groups’ borders, and work independently to provide goods and services that improve a community’s well-being.
From this perspective, the work of participatory change can be viewed as a way to make democracy work better. Participatory change is all about forming and building sustainable grassroots groups – groups that can struggle over the long haul to build a healthier society from the ground up. For us at CPC, this is what makes our work so exciting – it provides the chance to see what democracy really is, and what it can potentially be.
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