Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations

Creating a Frame for Understanding Local Organizations RAM CNAAN, CARL MILOFSKY, AND ALBERT HUNTER In this book, scholars from anumber of disciplines present work focused on communities, with particular attention to community organizations. A few scholars have emphasized the imp- tance of the need to map this intellectual territory (Calhoun, 1992). In some ways community study seems to be well trodden ground; there has been influential work on social capital, for example (Coleman, 1987,1988; Putnam, 1995; Foley and Edwards, 1997; Edwards and Foley, 1998). Yet the rich diversity of communities and community organizations has rarely been studied from a perspective that is both conceptual and descriptive. The growing sense that - studied local organizations constitute a massive yet little understood portion of the nonprofit cosmos has led Smith (1997a,b) to call them the "darkmatter of the nonprofit universe. " An - terdisciplinary attempt to make community a unit ofstudy has not been previously undertaken, and thus we feel that this Handbook makes a unique contribution to scholarly understanding ofboth communities and nonprofit organizations that operate at the community level. A community is a group of people connected by the physical or virtual location (to some extent we can speak of "places" on the World Wide Web, e. g. ) in which they dwell or congregate, organizations they form, and cultural values and symbols they share. Communities are affected, and in a sense defined by, forces that affect community members and their space.

This handbook takes voluntary associations as the starting point for making sense of communities. It offers a new perspective on voluntary organizations and gives an integrated, yet diverse, theoretical understanding of this important aspect of community life.

Although the way associations and the organization of local social life are intertwined is one of the oldest approaches to community study, the way citizens and residents come together informally to act and solve problems has rarely been a primary focus. Associations are central to important and developing areas of social theory and social action. This handbook takes voluntary associations as the starting point for making sense of communities. It offers a new perspective on voluntary organizations and gives an integrated, yet diverse, theoretical understanding of this important aspect of community life.

Contemporary Conceptions of Community.- Symbolism, Tradition, Ritual, and the Deep Structure of Communities.- Small Towns and Mass Society.- Small Nonprofits and Civil Society: Civic Engagement and Social Capital.- Community Elites and Power Structure.- The Political-Economic Gradient and the Organization of Urban Space.- Public and Private Space in Urban Areas: House, Neighborhood, and City.- The Development of Community Information Systems to Support Neighborhood Change.- Describing the Community in Thorough Detail.- Communities as "Big Small Groups": Culture and Social Capital.- Sense of Community and Community Building.- Friendship and Community Organization.- Self-Help Groups as Participatory Action.- Online Communities.- Alternative or Intentional? Towards a Definition of "Unusual" Communities.- Frayed Community: The Gated Community Movement.- Congregations and Communities.- Ethnicity and Race as Resource Mobilization in American Community Civic Life and Participation: Traditional and Emerging Concerns.- Sustaining Racially, Ethnically, and Economically Diverse Communities.- Community Responses to Disaster: Northern Ireland 1969 as a Case Study.- The Nature of Community Organizing: Social Capital and Community Leadership.- Avoid, Talk, or Fight: Alternative Cultural Strategies in the Battle Against Oligarchy in Collectivist-Democratic Organizations.- Grassroots Social Movements and the Shaping of History.- Action Research: Professional Researchers in the Community.- Leadership Styles and Leadership Change in Human and Community Service Organizations.- Including and Excluding Volunteers: Challenges of Managing Groups That Depend on Donated Talent.