The problem: troubled communities

America 's low-income communities are, by and large, very troubled places. The problems are well-known: unemployment, inadequate housing, failing schools, poor physical and mental health, crime - the list often appears to be endless. Most people agree that "something should be done," and that whatever has been done hasn't worked, at least not in a significant way. There have been many single-issue success stories, but very few cases of truly transformed communities. So, if what has been tried hasn't worked, then what should be done?

Two approaches to community change

To answer this question, it helps to first understand what's already been tried. There are two dominant approaches to community change; each has its good points, but from our perspective both are fundamentally flawed. The first approach has predominated through the last five decades. Its goals are improvements in categorical service delivery in areas such as health care, education, and employment. The primary makers of change are government or nonprofit service providers, and the strategy of choice is to create more and better service delivery programs. We call this approach "service based" because service providers are the change agents. Service provider based efforts can provide substantial benefits to low-income communities. But they do little to develop the ability of their "clients" to set their own goals, cooperate with their peers to realize their goals, and develop their own capacity in the process.

A second approach to change in low-income communities has become increasingly popular in recent years, partly in reaction to the actual and perceived failures of the first approach. In this approach, the goal is economic growth; the primary makers of change are markets; and the strategy of choice is to eliminate or privatize service programs and provide incentives for the growth of business. We call this approach "market based," because markets are the change agents. Like service based change efforts, market-based efforts can provide substantial benefits to low-income communities. But like service based programs, they do little to develop self-determination and mutual support in those communities.

There has been tremendous debate between the advocates of these two approaches. While each has clear benefits, both leave out something that is so important that neither approach can succeed.

A third approach: team based community change

What both approaches omit is the self-organizing capacity of poor people themselves. That very ability is the center of our philosophy of community change. In our approach, the goal is self-determination for the communities; the primary makers of change are the residents of those communities, working together in teams; and the strategy of choice is for poor people to develop their capacity to help themselves and each other. We call it "team based community change," because it's based on teams of residents changing their own communities instead of relying on service providers or markets. Service providers and markets still play important roles, but they are secondary.

Our approach is very similar in spirit to what Kretzman and McKnight call "assets based community development." Like the activists that they studied and wrote about, we see poor communities as collections of assets instead of deficits. We share a lot of their philosophy, we consider ourselves part of the same overall movement as the community change makers they document in their book, and in some ways what we are doing could be seen as an extension of their work. But whereas Kretzman and McKnight have developed methods for mapping a community's assets, our approach goes "from assets to action"––organizing residents into teams that can set, and accomplish, their own goals for community change.

The goal: self-determination

Self-determination is the primary goal of our approach. By "self-determination” we mean that poor people define their own problems and opportunities, and set their own goals. It also means that they are the chief "doers" in any change process, that they design and implement the process, and that they are in control of the resources they need. Other goals, such as making improvements in housing, health care, education, and employment are secondary.

This focus on self-determination requires a fundamental change in relationships between poor people and outside "helpers". Over time, there should be less dependency by community residents on outside helpers, and more ability to make effective use of outside help. Help should be solicited by the community, to support the residents’ pursuit of their own self-defined goals. While the quality and "rightness" of the help are important, it is more important that the help responds to a need that the residents are experiencing rather than to an externally imposed agenda.

The change agents: teams of community members

The change agents in our approach are not service providers, and not markets. They are community residents, organized into what we call Support Action Teams to help each other achieve their individual and collective goals. The community members set their own goals, they help each other achieve their goals, they control the process, and they control the money and other resources that they need.

At TEAMS we have already seen Support Action Teams achieve substantial successes, of a kind that the usual service based and market based approaches rarely if ever achieve. We are now planning to take this work to the next level––expanding the number of teams and organizing them into a network for mutual assistance, resource sharing, and collective action.

The strategy: human capacity development

If the goal is self-determination, and the primary agents of change are teams of community members, then the strategy of choice is human capacity development––that is, capacity development for individuals and their social networks, rather than for organizations. Organizations still matter, and organizational capacity development still matters, but human capacity development is primary.

Human capacity development is the process through which people develop their capability to "be all they can be," in cooperation with others. It is a never-ending, evolutionary process of cooperative learning that is self-directed and based on meaningful action in the world. This process is not so much about increasing "what you have," as it is about expanding "what you can do." For example, economic capacity development is not primarily about acquiring more money, or even about getting jobs and building financial assets. These things are the outcomes of economic capacity development. The capacity development process is about building peoples’ ongoing ability to acquire or create jobs and financial assets, the ability to manage them, and the ability to make effective and ethical use of the money they generate.

Why is human capacity development so important? If a person or group solves one particular problem without developing capacity, it will be difficult to sustain the solution, and no easier to solve the next problem. On the other hand, if they develop their general capacity, even if they fail to solve the immediate problem, they'll be in a much better position to tackle the next issue that confronts them. It's that old distinction between giving someone a fish and teaching them how to fish.

There are four core elements to our approach to developing human capacity:

• Peer support to build the basis for ongoing connection and teamwork
• Goal setting skills and mutual accountability
• A process of learning through action and continual assessment
• Direct access to resources not limited by categorical funding streams

In our experience, it is useful to allow program design to shift to fit changing circumstances in a community, but it is essential that these elements be incorporated into a successful program. If a group is strong in all four areas, they will have an excellent chance of succeeding in whatever they undertake.

Conclusion

In closing, we would like to emphasize three key points:

• Residents of low-income communities, organized into teams and networks, are the change agents for their communities
• Community change is primarily about building the capacity of residents to work together to identify and achieve their own goals
• The way to build that resident capacity is through a cooperative learning process based in action.