Social Change Organization

The mid-level collaborative social change organization is ideally situated to be highly effective in promoting positive social change for the common good. Some perspectives suggest that creative new ideas for a social change organization come primarily from first-hand personal engagement at the local level and percolate upward. Other perspectives suggest that the only long-lasting positive social change organization takes place when mega-institutions forge practical compromises that are promoted by large national-level constituencies.

The new book, Journeys into Justice, takes a mid-level perspective and explores ten religious collaborative social change organization bodies that have effectively related to both local primary groups and to large institutional structures. The ten case histories document the work of these nonprofit creative organizations in dealing effectively with the challenges of living wage legislation, juvenile justice, immigration, farm worker unionization, affordable rental housing, environmental justice, family empowerment, and funding basic social services.

Religious collaboratives are models of the unique qualities of a mid-level social change organization. These social change organization groups arise from the widespread desire to meet basic human needs. A social change organization is empowered by deeply held religious values of love-compassion-justice. They are able to bring diverse groups of organizations together into a new organization of organizations that can substantially increase the pool of human and financial resources. They build up trust and human bonding. They focus on specific goals and build capacity for long-term effective action for social change organization.

One case history in the book, The Living Wage Campaign, tells the story of how city, state, and national level collaborative organizations promoting enactment of new legislation to increase the minimum wage melded together. Together they became a primary force in securing passage of the new federal minimum wage law in 2007, and similar minimum wage increases in sixteen states and many cities across the U.S. This is a powerful model of effective social change organization acting for the common good.

Want to read more about developing a model for an effective social change organization? Get your copy of Journeys into Justice today!