Fire Up Your Community … and Stay Committed

Creating a community for change calls for organisation, having a plan for keeping action going, having common goals and some pure grit. We are stronger together. We can do it!

Steps for organising for change and action in your community

1. Think through your ideas and ask yourself why you feel strongly about the problems or issues you’re dealing with and why they motivate you to do the work for change. Might your efforts be better off linked to other existing initiatives or are there good enough reasons to start a fresh community movement. 

2. Frame your ideas in a way that has broad appeal to more people in your community.

3. Identify like-minded active citizens in your community who can work together to become a core group of organisers. Look to committed people who have strengths that will bolster your aims as a group. It could be people who have strong organising or admin skills or someone who has good networks with council, the police or local business, for instance or someone with a track record of community activism. 

4. Meet in person to discuss your key aims; a strategy for next steps; and how best to engage your broader community. Find a “tone” for the community group by expressing the kind of approach and style of engagement the core group feels best reflects how they want to work towards building an organised, active community and the types of challenges it wants to focus on. 

5. Be aware of personal dynamics, personal political agendas and agree upfront to keep focused on shared objectives. A clear mission statement can be useful. 

6. Do your homework. Find out about bylaws and local regulations that may apply to the kind of formation you want to establish, and/or the key issues your community group wants to tackle.

7. Use channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, your ward councillors and other established community groups (like community policing forums or residents associations) to promote your new group. The communications to your broader community should include details of one or two of the core members and an invitation to a future public meeting and/or ways to join a WhatsApp group or Facebook page.

8. Hold your first public meeting with all your core members present. Choose a friendly venue like someone’s garden, a community hall or a local park. Keep the tone social, perhaps with something like “bring a snack to share” request but be focused on what you want to achieve. Have an attendance register and remember to ask for contact details from everyone. Have a clear agenda, a focus on your “what-nexts” and commit to an upcoming actionable event that people can organise around. This keeps the interest and momentum going. Give tasks to volunteers and agree on a timeframe for feedback. Use the social part of the in-person gathering to allow people to be relaxed and get to know one another. 

9. Communicate key updates with your WhatsApp members and keep them encouraged and included. 

10. Use social media to your advantage – build and design good websites, if possible. Post relevant and interesting content regularly. Practise taking good photographs and writing good captions and story updates for your posts.

11. Use the media – build relationships with journalists, bloggers, interest groups and others to enhance the profile of your community group and the projects that you are working on. You can outline achievements of your group but keep the message strong about long-term challenges you are tackling and why continued action matters.   

12.  Keep going. You can move mountains!