Alternative Organizational 10.1177/0899764004266200
McCarthy,
RepertoiresWalker
Alternative Organizational Repertoires of Poor
People’s Social Movement Organizations
John D. McCarthy
Edward T. Walker
Pennsylvania State University
This article contrasts the organizational structure, goals, and tactics of congregationbased organizations (CBOs) with individual membership organizations (IMOs) that
represent alternative organizational repertoires for groups aiming to empower poor communities in the United States. Organizational records of 86 CBOs and 125 IMOs are
evaluated. It was found that CBOs mobilize substantially more community members and
are more likely to devote their efforts toward leadership development and organization
building. On the other hand, IMOs are far more likely to employ aggressive social change
tactics, whereas CBOs focus more on consensus issues. Finally, IMOs employ a far more
diverse array of grassroots funding strategies. The generalizability of these findings is
discussed.
Keywords: community organizing; repertoires; social movements; faith-based
organizations
Advocates of social change must turn private problems into public issues and
at the same time develop convincing arguments about how collective action
may succeed in addressing those issues to effectively mobilize masses of citizens (Gamson, 1990). As well, they must develop collective vehicles that can
effectively frame public issues and directly mobilize diverse constituencies.
Activist entrepreneurs who seek to create such collective efforts must choose
among a limited range of culturally available organizational repertoires
(Gamson, 1990; Tilly, 1995). In what follows, we explore the consequences of
such a choice between two quite different organizational templates that aim to
empower poor people in local communities across the United States. The two
Note: We thank Debbie Perkins-Jones and Louis Crishock for their extensive contributions to the
project of assembling and analyzing the data that serve as the bases of the present analyses. Jim
Castelli was a valued collaborator on the project until his untimely death.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Supplement to vol. 33, no. 3, September 2004 97S-119S
DOI: 10.1177/0899764004266200
© 2004 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action
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templates are congregation-based organizations (CBOs) and individual membership organizations (IMOs). We argue that the choice of one or the other of
these organizational repertoires has direct consequences upon the goals and
tactics chosen by the groups.
Past research has focused primarily upon the CBO template. As a result,
arguments made by its advocates, as well as its critics, have not been amenable
to empirical assessment. We aim, in what follows, to generate a test of some of
these claims. Our results are of particular importance, because trends in the
choice of repertoires for local poor people’s groups in the ensuing decades has
direct implications for the extent and adequacy of representation of poor citizens in local and national policy debates in the United States.
ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF LOCAL
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING GROUP STRUCTURE
It has been estimated that 6,000 community organizations are working to
organize and empower people in poor communities in the United States
(Delgado, 1994). These groups take a number of distinct forms including (a)
those that enroll poor community residents as individual members constituting their primary constituency, like those groups that make up the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) network as well as
the groups loosely affiliated with the Third World Organizing Center
(TWOC);1 (b) groups that typically consist of issue-based coalitions of local
organizations; and (c) groups primarily made up of congregations. Although
many IMOs and issue-based coalitions may receive support from and even
include local religious groups in their coalitions, congregation-based groups
are defined by their primary use of local congregations as building blocks for
creating organizational structures. Also, both congregation-based groups and
coalitions are composed of primarily organizational members. We will focus
here upon a contrast between two standard organizational repertoires of
poor-empowerment groups—one that is composed primarily of individuals
as members and one that is composed primarily of congregations as members.
We have relatively few solid censuses of local advocacy groups that would
allow us to describe their demography. Common images of advocacy groups
typically misrepresent the wide range of organizational membership types,
assuming that most groups enroll individual members (see Lofland, 1996).
Edwards and Foley (2003), in their analysis of national peace movement
groups, for instance, showed that more than 35% of them are composed primarily of organizational members. Among the full sample of community
empowerment groups that we gathered, approximately 50% are composed
primarily of organizational members. Whether a group chooses to enroll individual or organizational members, or some combination, has consequences
for its subsequent operations that shape its goals and tactics.
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An extensive literature has accumulated recently describing in great detail
the CBO form of advocacy groups. Both advocates and critics of the form have
debated its advantages and disadvantages. Much less has been written, however, about the advantages and disadvantages of the IMO type even though
most assume this form to be the typical model of the local advocacy group
(Oliver & Furman, 1989; Oliver & Marwell, 1992). In what follows, we will
describe the two types, ponder their comparative strengths and weaknesses,
and then examine some evidence that allows a systematic comparison of the
two.
Individual membership advocacy groups. In spite of the great attention paid
recently to advocacy organizations without any members (Putnam, 2000;
Skocpol, 1999), many groups continue to depend heavily upon individual
members for support. There is no standard meaning of membership across
groups like these, however, and it may for some groups consist of little more
than being listed on a membership roster and/or paying some small amount
in annual dues.2 In part, this contributes to what we will argue is the greater
degree of heterogeneity within this organizational type: We will show that
IMOs display great diversity in internal structure, standard operating
procedures, and issue focus.
Some IMOs included in our comparisons are affiliates of national umbrella
groups such as ACORN, 9 to 5, and the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES). ACORN has been building IMOs in some of the
poorest urban communities in the United States for more than 3 decades
(Delgado, 1986). Organizing working poor women has been the goal of 9 to 5,
which has developed chapters in many cities across the United States. ACES
has enrolled women seeking help in gaining child support from ex-spouses in
hundreds of local chapters across the United States.
Other IMOs we examine are independent ones such as the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee (FLOC), the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates
(AIWA), and the Virginian Black Lung Association. FLOC is a farm labor
group based in Toledo, Ohio, that has had great success in organizing workers
in cucumbers and tomatoes (Barger & Resa, 1994). AIWA has built an organization mobilizing Asian immigrant women who work in sweatshops in the
San Francisco bay area. And, Virginia Black Lung has continued to mobilize
coal miners to fight for health benefits. Most of these local groups have less
than 2,500 individual members, and none have more than 6,000 members.
IMOs face two difficult problems that must be solved for them to remain
viable. First, they must give constant attention to membership recruitment
and retention, and second, they must attend to the task of building a stable
flow of resources to support the organization, some of which comes from the
financial support of those members. Groups that depend upon individual
members must first recruit and then retain them. Membership retention
remains a difficult problem for such groups. Rothenberg’s (1992) study of
Common Cause illustrates the problem showing the very high rate of
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turnover of membership that requires that organization to continue to invest
great resources in replenishing its membership annually. Advocacy organizations with limited resources must devote a greater proportion of them to these
tasks. The great difficulties experienced by the Massachusetts Welfare Rights
Organizations (Bailis, 1974) in retaining members who were welfare recipients, even during its period of greatest vitality, illustrates the special difficulties of retention for advocacy groups aiming to enroll poor and low-income
members.
Many local advocacy groups depend upon volunteer leadership mitigating
the need for resources to support paid staff. Lofland (1993), for instance,
showed for the 1980s U.S. peace movement that volunteers led most local
groups. Edwards and Foley (2003) showed for a sample of these same peace
movement groups that very few of the local ones retained paid staff. But local
groups that choose to compensate some of their leader/activists must normally seek resources beyond those provided by individual members to do so.
The twin difficulties of building an organization based upon membership
dues and the necessity of seeking outside support beyond the membership are
exacerbated for groups that seek to organize disadvantaged populations.3
Individual members cannot afford to provide much financial support, and the
broader communities within which they work are also less endowed with
resources. As a consequence, basic organizational maintenance is an ongoing
problem for many IMOs.
CBOs. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) leaders developed the CBO
template after the death of the organization’s long-time leader and notorious
community organizer, Saul Alinsky. There are now at least 60 IAF groups in
U.S. communities with several more in formation (Warren, 2001). Some of
IAF’s best-known and most successful groups include Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) in San Antonio, Texas (Rogers, 1990); Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) in Maryland (Greider,
1992); and South Bronx Churches in the South Bronx, New York (Rooney,
1995). We know most about the groups that make up the IAF network and,
hence, the details of the IAF model, because there has been so much effort
devoted to describing it. In addition, there are several other networks of local
groups that mirror the IAF model including the Gamaliel Foundation, based
in Chicago; the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO), based in
Oakland; and Direct Action and Research Training (DART), based in Florida.
Each of these networks includes organizations in states beyond their home
base, and together they include at least 75 to 80 more CBOs (McCarthy &
Castelli, 1995; Speer & Hughey, 1995; Warren & Wood, 2001). Although we
have more limited secondary accounts of them compared with the IAF groups
(but see Hart, 2001; Wood, 1997), it appears that the basic outlines of organization building, organizational structure, financing, leadership training, and
relational organizing are quite similar across the groups.4
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The CBO formula for organization building. The several CBO networks enter
communities in a largely similar fashion looking for ecumenical support from
a number of congregational leaders before they will commit an organizer to a
community. The support includes enough financial resources, from dues
assessed from congregational membership, to hire a lead organizer and provide the rudiments of an umbrella organization linking together the participating congregations. An organizing committee is formed, and the lead organizer meets with pastors and lay leaders from participating congregations,
typically in one-on-ones—short meetings aimed at sizing up the leadership
potential of and creating bonds with leaders. In this way, a cadre of leaders is
formed out of the congregations to take part in leadership training. These
leaders, in turn, carry on one-on-ones aimed at identifying additional leaders
who can also be exposed to leadership training. The organizing strategy thus
depends on building upon the preexisting relationships between congregational members. It is driven by the desire to identify and train local leaders in
relational skills and to have them build ever-widening circles of relationships.
Eventually, leaders work to build relationships with outside allies, community leaders, power brokers, and ordinary citizens outside of their own group.
Rooney (1995), summarizing what he learned studying the creation of the
South Bronx Churches, called this process “organizing relationally” and
observed that a CBO “is built piece by piece, person by person. Therein lies its
strength” (p. 226). This process is tremendously labor intensive and time consuming, and, not unusually, years can be spent in creating the thick relations of
trust and respect among members from the constituent congregations that
ultimately allow these organizations to act collectively.
The IAF refers to its groups as broad based, by which they mean that groups
should be established, to the extent possible, upon as wide a diversity of race,
ethnicity, age, geography, group identification, and denomination as possible,
and the other CBO networks similarly strive to be broad based in this sense.
The consequence of building groups upon a broad base is that the substantive
focus of their collective action consists only of issues that all elements of the
broad base can endorse. This necessarily restricts the likelihood that certain
kinds of issues will become the focus of their change efforts—ones that divide
rather than unite the membership.6 Consequently, the CBO leaders all speak,
with one concept or another, of organizing for power rather than by issue.
Nevertheless, these organizations uniformly seek to empower poor and disadvantaged communities and to do so in such a way as to avoid the racial and
ethnic divisions that plagued earlier community organizing efforts. The religious basis of congregation-based organizing contributes to this goal, but
organizers’ insistence on broad-based organizing is intended to keep these
efforts on track (see Warren, 2001).
CBOs incorporate leaders into all phases of organizational decision making
and encourage broad and revolving participation in top leadership positions.
With great variation across the network and between communities within the
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network, CBOs create extensive committee structures that give leaders experience in calling and running meetings and carrying out collective tasks.
Groups typically hold more or less regular conventions of all constituent congregations to ratify decisions, issue directions, and decide upon projects that
will be pursued as well as to celebrate group solidarity. Sometimes, for the
more mature groups, these gatherings also include accountability sessions
where community politicians, such as mayors and city council members, are
publicly asked to pledge support for clearly defined group positions on local
issues. Sessions such as these are also held at the congregation level, and they
usually involve many leaders who are responsible for having helped to
develop the group’s position on the issue and are expected to articulate those
positions in such a fashion that the group may hold the local politician
responsible for what they might do in the future.
Especially germane to the contrast with IMOs, CBOs develop stable flows
of financial resources through annual dues paid by member congregations.
Although such dues are typically modest in amount for each congregation, a
CBO with several dozen congregational members is able to create a dependable source of financial resources upon which an organization can be constructed. Groups that recruit congregations as members confront the same
problem of retention that faces IMOs but with congregational rather than individual members as building blocks. As a consequence, the groups are constrained by these many interorganizational relationships.
The strategy draws criticism, however, from other advocates of change
including some who view individual-membership, poor-empowerment
groups as superior on several grounds. First is the claim that CBOs do not
organize the poorest of the poor thereby neglecting to empower the most
needy community members (Delgado, 1994). This seems to be an unavoidable
consequence of building local organizations on a base of congregations, few of
which are likely to be composed of the poorest of the poor. Second is a concern
with the narrowness as well as the localized focus of the issues upon which
CBOs can achieve consensus. Some argue that their local issue focus makes it
difficult for CBOs to articulate and mobilize around analyses of issues that
locate solutions to community problems in more systemic causes (Miller,
1987). Third, some argue that building CBOs on a congregational base merely
reinforces the traditional hierarchical structures of religious organizations
(Robinson & Hanna, 1994).
Summary of differences. In the following comparisons between CBOs and
IMOs, we are guided by some general expectations about how they should
differ from one another based upon the preceding discussion. In particular,
we expect that the two types of organizations will differ with respect to (a)
choice of tactics, (b) issue focus, (c) class composition, (d) sources and uses of
financial resources, and (e) the degree of homogeneity within type.
First, although both of these kinds of poor-empowerment groups are sometimes likely to take up issues in relatively confrontational ways, we expect
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IMOs to be more likely to do so. Similarly, although organizations of both
types also tend to avoid highly divisive issues (e.g., abortion, capital punishment, etc.), we expect IMOs to be more willing to take on issues that are potentially divisive.
But what is it about CBOs that makes them more likely to pursue issues that
find more widespread support in communities with more consensus-building
tactics? Such patterns are partially the result of their philosophy of organizing
and partially the result of the structural form they employ, we believe. CBOs
aim to organize across a broad base. In practice, this means inclusion across a
diverse set of community cleavages including race, ethnicity, age, geography,
and congregation of origin. Enrolling community participants through the
congregations in which they worship is well suited to such a strategy, because
congregations tend to be heterogeneous with respect to social class if not ethnic background (Schwadel, 2003). CBOs typically enroll a mix of congregations that together represent diverse ethnic constituencies, however. The consequence of building an organizational structure in this manner is that CBOs
include broad cross-sections of citizens in the communities they represent.
This, in concert with their philosophical approach, creates constraints on the
kinds of issues they can pursue thereby leading them to seek those around
which broad consensus among member congregants can be mobilized.7 As
well, although CBOs must still address the diverse interests of their constituency, they also must balance social and political engagement with core practices of religious worship. Wood (2002) referred to this as the “buffering of the
sacred core”; the religious and social commitments of participant congregations are related but kept autonomous to protect religious commitments from
being “swallowed up in the political demands of organizing” (p. 72). IMOs do
not have such demands and are therefore free to engage in a broader array of
issues and choose among a wider range of tactics.
Although IMOs are also focused on organizing the largest number of constituents, their more diverse organizing philosophies tend to stress organizing
around issues rather than letting issues emerge from consensus processes
among those who have already been mobilized. Recruiting members who
come to the group with a strong position on the issues for which a group is
struggling leads to high internal consensus on those issues (McCarthy, 1987).
Many IMOs, as well, begin with a commitment to direct action tactics. This is
evident, for instance, in the organizing philosophy of ACORN, one of the largest national coalitions of local IMOs:
To build a mass community organization that has as its primary principle the development of sufficient organizational power to achieve its
individual members’ interests, its local objectives, and in connection
with other groups, its state interests. The organization must be permanent with multi-issued concerns achieved through multi-tacticed [sic]
direct action [italics added], and membership participating in policy,
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financing, and achievement of group goals and community improvements. (as quoted in Russell, 1990, pp. 30-31)
We also expect CBOs to differ from IMOs in terms of their social class composition. Following Delgado (1994), there are indications that CBOs are not as
capable of organizing the poorest of the poor. This results from the fact that
congregations are seldom composed of the most highly impoverished individuals and families, because they tend to be economically heterogeneous
(Schwadel, 2003). As with most kinds of voluntary organizational forms,
when middle-income members are included, their interests tend to receive
great weight.
Fourth, we expect differences between the two types of organizations both
in terms of their sources as well as their uses of financial resources. As mentioned earlier, IMOs are less likely to possess the stable sources of funding that
CBOs enjoy. This state of affairs forces them to focus much more time and
effort on recruiting and retaining members as well as seeking new and diverse
sources of funding. We expect these differences in the mobilization of financial
resources to have consequences for organizations’ choices of tactical methods
and issues as well as their viability as an organization. We cannot with the data
at hand, however, address the issue of differential organizational viability.8
Finally, we expect to find greater homogeneity in structure, goals, and tactics among the CBO groups as well as between the several separate networks
of them in contrast to our sample of IMOs. IMOs, unlike their congregationbased counterparts, do not have a well-institutionalized and clearly specified
template readily available to them for organizing poor communities. As a consequence, the IMOs draw upon far more diverse sources in creating their organizations and mapping out their goals and the methods for achieving them.
Variations on this institutional repertoire are widely available in the practice
of existing organizations, and a common approach among those starting up
new groups is to examine existing models, being guided in their choice, to
some extent, by their institutional legitimacy (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Scott,
2001).9 In addition, CBOs all confront similar problems stemming from their
common dependence upon a coalition of preexisting congregations. As a consequence of these several factors, the CBOs should exhibit far more similarity
in structure, goals, and tactics than the IMOs.
The choice of organizational form for grassroots, poor-empowerment organizations is an especially significant one in that these groups are among the
few who represent the poor in local, state, and national politics.10 The differences in goals and tactics between these two organizational forms raise questions that are of concern to scholars of community organizing, its practitioners, and those concerned with the decline of local community involvement in
the United States. These questions include (a) which organizational form can
be expected to mobilize the poor in greater numbers and (b) which
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organizational form is more effective in doing so? We return to these questions
in our conclusion.
DATA SOURCE
The evidence used to assess our several theoretical expectations about differences between congregation-based and individual-membership, poorempowerment organizations was drawn from the files of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). CCHD was formed in the late 1960s
by the U.S. Catholic Bishops to serve as their mechanism for attacking the
structural sources of poverty. But rather than supporting services to the poor
(which was the traditional role of U.S. Catholic Social Services), CCHD was
conceived as an agency that would instead provide support for groups that
seek to empower the poor through community organizing. For more than 30
years, CCHD has made annual grants to a diverse set of local community
organizing projects, many of which, as we will show, are congregation-based
ones.11
The data set we will describe here is based upon groups that received support from CCHD in 1991, 1992, and 1993. During these years, more than 600
groups applied for funds annually, and in each annual funding cycle, approximately 200 groups received grants that ranged between $35,000 and $50,000.
Many of the groups that receive support from CCHD did so for several consecutive years. All groups funded in 1991 were included in the sample, and each
group that was newly funded in either 1992 or 1993 was added to the sample.
This procedure netted a total of 322 groups that were funded in at least one of
the study years. Of these groups, 86 were congregation-based ones, and 125
were composed of individual members. These 211 groups provide the basis
for the comparisons that follow.
To gather data on the organizations funded by CCHD, the senior author
and colleagues combed the application and report records for each organization. More than 400 fields of information were included in each record. The
data were collected using a coding scheme that enabled research assistants to
directly enter a significant amount of information from the forms (e.g., organizational budget categories, membership numbers, and the like).12 The more
easily quantifiable information contained in the records for each organization
was directly entered by the research assistants.13 This included information
about IRS tax status, membership composition, group age, geographical
location, and more.
CCHD was then one of the few large sources of grant support for community organizers seeking to empower poor communities in the United States.
As a result, it is likely that a large proportion of viable local social movement
organizations in this arena considered submitting applications to CCHD at
some time in their history. A comparison of groups that were funded with
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those that were not funded in the 1988 to 1989 funding cycle showed very few
differences between them in size, structure, or substantive focus (McCarthy &
Shields, 1990). Of course, the local groups that are capable of making a formal
application to CCHD (which includes a request for support of paid staff) are
likely to be ones that are already among the stronger ones.
MEASUREMENT OF KEY CONCEPTS
Economic/racial/ethnic composition. General information was collected on
each organization’s board of directors, organizational staff, and organizational membership.14
Tactical methods. There were 34 goal accomplishment methods coded as
15
well as a residual “other” category. The usage of each method was coded as a
1 or 0, either present or absent. The methods were grouped under 10 headings:
(a) leadership development, (b) membership development/training, (c) staff/
board development, (d) public relations, (e) fundraising, (f) outreach, (g)
direct action, (h) reflection, (i) constituency/members’ services, and (j) other.
Issues/substantive goals. There were 22 specific issues that we believe captured the substantive focus of all of the organizations. The first 10 issues that
appeared in the file materials were coded. Issues were coded as 1 or 0, present
or absent. The average number of issues that were the focus of a group was
approximately four.
Grassroots fundraising source. All grassroots fundraising sources and
amounts, which were listed by each organization for the previous fiscal year,
16
were included. These sources included a number of various fundraising
activities including (a) activities (e.g., raffles, dinners, runs, rummage sales,
events, dances, and shows), (b) membership dues (from congregations or
members), (c) unspecified donations, (d) donations from individuals, (e)
donations from charity campaigns (e.g., United Way, community foundations), (f) donations from institutions (e.g., corporations, foundations), (g)
direct mail, (h) telemarketing, (i) support books or advertising sales,17 (j) product sales, (k) fees for professional services, and (l) other sources.
Membership type. The entire sample of groups was divided into five types by
their membership structure: (a) congregation based, (b) mixed organizations
including congregations and other institutions, (c) coalitions of organizations,
(d) mixed organizations including coalitions and IMOs, and (e) IMOs. In this
analysis, we only include organizations for which membership is one of the
pure types: congregation based or individual membership.
Network affiliation. Information was also collected about the network affiliation for all of the groups, which allowed us to distinguish between networks
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within organizational types. Below we compare the IAF-affiliated CBOs with
all other groups of this type, and the ACORN-affiliated IMOs with all other
groups of this type.
RESULTS
We first compare the membership of CBOs with the membership of IMOs.
Table 1 disaggregates the total reported membership of the two samples of
organizations by their racial/ethnic and poverty composition. First, one can
easily see that, on average, CBOs are much larger than IMOs. In our sample,
CBOs are on average almost 12 times larger than IMOs. This difference is
directly the result of the contrasting structures of the two types of organizations. CBOs typically enumerate their memberships by counting all members
of constituent congregations. Our evidence is based upon each organization’s
self-reported membership broken down by racial and ethnic category.18
Next, we note that IMOs have only a slightly smaller proportion of poor
members than CBOs, and the difference is not statistically significant. This
finding provides little support for Delgado’s (1994) claim that CBOs, by virtue
of recruiting members through existing congregations, are, as a result, less
involved in organizing the poorest of the poor. As well, because the CBOs are
so much larger on average, they mobilize substantially more poor people than
do the IMOs—11,389 per group versus 932, respectively.
As well, the CBOs, based on these membership reports, have a somewhat
larger proportion of their memberships composed of people of color—more
than 69% compared with the IMOs that report about 56% of their membership.
Thus, although both types of organizations show a typical membership that is
predominantly composed of people of color, CBOs include a significantly
greater proportion. Again, because the CBOs are so much larger, they, on average, mobilize substantially more people of color per group than do the IMOs.
Table 2 compares the membership of boards of directors of CBOs with those
of IMOs along the same dimensions we used for individual membership.
First, we note that CBOs have somewhat larger boards than IMOs. The substantially larger CBO boards may reflect the pressures they face for comprehensive representation from constituent congregations.
Similar to the patterns for membership, there are small differences in representation on the boards of members who are poor; here IMOs show greater
proportions of poor board members. As well, the boards of IMOs have a bit
greater representation of people of color. However, the differences in this case
are quite modest; for both types of groups, the majority of board members are
people of color.
Table 3 compares the frequency with which each of a wide range of tactical
methods is employed by CBOs and IMOs.19 First, we compare the six most
commonly employed methods for each type of advocacy group. These are
bolded in each column. Consistent with the claims of those who advocate the
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Table 1.
Organization Membership
Congregation Based
Individual Membership
Average
Average
Average
Average
t Test of
a
Membership Membership % Membership Membership % Differences
Poverty members
Asian members
Black members
White members
Hispanic members
Native American
members
Other racial/ethnic
members
Total Anglo members
Total ethnic members
Total members
n
11,388.83
734.96
6,435.69
6,825.37
7,778.63
51.71
3.34
29.22
30.99
35.32
931.85
54.94
545.93
814.46
261.96
50.68
2.99
29.69
44.30
14.25
0.290
0.231
–0.123
–3.592***
5.780***
128.87
0.59
123.13
6.70
–3.525***
120.98
6,825.37
15,199.13
22,024.50
54
0.55
30.99
69.01
100.00
38.23
814.46
1,024.18
1,838.64
95
2.08
44.30
55.70
100.00
–1.432
–3.592***
3.592***
5.770***
Note: The percentages in the six racial/ethnic categories total to 100%; poverty and ethnic members are not included in this 100%. Cases are excluded that did not report membership or that reported poverty membership greater than 100% of their total membership.
a. All t test figures in this column test the difference in proportions between the two groups with
the exception of the total membership t test, which compares the mean number of members for
each group.
***p < .001.
CBO template, leadership identification and leadership training are among
the most common methods employed by these groups. Nevertheless, leadership training is among the six most common activities of the IMOs. As well,
recruiting and training members occupy more than half of the IMOs, whereas
many CBOs devote effort to recruiting new group members. Although a
majority of both kinds of groups devote effort to organizational development,
more of the CBOs in our sample devote broader effort to organizational maintenance issues (e.g., planning and research).
Second, we compare the frequency with which the two types of groups utilize each of the methods. A logistic regression analysis approach is employed
in which the dependent variable is whether a group used each method and the
independent variable is whether the organization was congregation based
(predictor) or individual membership (reference category). Thus, odds less
than 1 indicate that the CBO is more likely to utilize this method, whereas
odds greater than 1 indicate that the IMO is more likely to utilize this method.
These odds are displayed in the third column of Table 3 only when the regression coefficient is statistically significant. We have bolded a subset of these
odds ratios highlighting some methods that are of special theoretical note. Significant odds ratios admit of straightforward interpretation. So CBOs are 3.45
times more likely to engage in leadership identification than IMOs, and IMOs
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Table 2.
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Board(s) of Directors
Congregation Based
Individual Membership
Average
Average
Average
Average
t Test of
a
Membership Membership % Membership Membership % Differences
Poverty members
Asian members
Black members
White members
Hispanic members
Native American
members
Other racial/ethnic
members
Total Anglo members
Total ethnic members
Total members
n
10.08
0.09
7.63
9.95
3.64
47.05
0.41
35.61
46.47
16.99
7.68
0.33
3.69
5.88
1.77
58.56
2.52
28.18
44.86
13.51
–4.434***
–2.233*
2.298*
0.481
1.172
0.08
0.35
0.59
4.52
–3.784***
0.04
9.95
11.46
21.41
80
0.18
46.47
53.53
100.00
0.84
5.88
7.23
13.11
118
6.40
44.86
55.14
100.00
–7.911***
0.481
–0.481
4.220***
Note: The percentages in the six racial/ethnic categories total to 100%; poverty and ethnic members are not included in this 100%. Cases are excluded that did not report membership or that reported poverty membership greater than 100% of their total membership.
a. All t test figures in this column test the difference in proportions between the two groups with
the exception of the total membership t test, which compares the mean number of board members
for each group.
*p < .05. ***p < .001.
are 6.56 times more likely to engage in recruiting individual members than are
CBOs.
CBOs are substantially more likely to identify (3.45 times), train (3.27
times), and convene meetings of leaders (3.70 times) than are IMOs. This pattern strongly supports the claims of the advocates of the CBO form that one of
its key strengths is the cultivation of local community leadership. The CBOs
are also more likely to employ a number of methods that may serve to instill
civic skills among participants. These include meetings and conventions, creating committees, and conducting personal dialogues to identify and recruit
leaders (one-on-ones). The usage of both leadership-building techniques and
relational organizing are essential to the CBO style of organizing, and this is
reflected in the fact that the aforementioned tactical methods are significantly
more likely to be employed by CBOs than IMOs.
Whereas CBOs are more focused on building leadership and organizing
relationally, IMOs are substantially more likely to utilize direct action techniques to accomplish their goals. These include protesting (more than twice as
likely), conducting direct negotiations (2.59 times more likely), litigating, lobbying, advocating, and monitoring performance. This reflects the confrontational approach that typified the Alinsky-style organizations prior to the
realignment of the IAF (Reitzes & Reitzes, 1987).
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McCarthy, Walker
Table 3.
Tactical Methods—Descriptives and Logistic Regression
Leadership identification
Leadership training
Leadership meetings
Grassroots individual recruiting
Group membership recruiting
Membership training/development
Meetings/conventions
Create committees
Committee meetings
One-on-ones
Hire staff
Staff training and development
Board training and development
Public relations
Fundraising
Network with allies
Network with bystanders
Educate
Create alliances
Community meetings
Meet with public officials
Protest
Direct negotiations
Litigate
Lobby
Public accountability sessions
Monitoring performance
Plan
Research
Organizational development
Use technical assistance
Facilitate housing loans
Legal assistance
Advocate
Other
Mean number of methods employed
Percentage of groups using at least 4
of the top 6 methods for that type
Total n
Congregation
Based
Individual
Membership
Odds
β
(e )
63.95%
83.72%
34.88%
18.60%
62.79%
37.21%
36.05%
54.65%
37.21%
37.21%
22.09%
29.07%
10.47%
20.93%
59.30%
41.86%
20.93%
29.07%
32.56%
29.07%
34.88%
22.09%
23.26%
3.49%
13.95%
4.65%
11.63%
60.47%
68.60%
66.28%
41.86%
20.93%
1.16%
24.42%
15.12%
11.74
33.60%
61.60%
12.80%
60.00%
4.80%
52.00%
17.60%
35.20%
14.40%
20.80%
20.00%
24.00%
11.20%
46.40%
44.80%
51.20%
27.20%
55.20%
24.00%
29.60%
39.20%
36.80%
44.00%
15.20%
48.00%
4.80%
20.80%
41.60%
42.40%
63.20%
17.60%
48.00%
8.00%
47.20%
10.40%
11.34
0.29****
0.31***
0.27****
6.56****
0.03****
1.83*
0.38***
0.45***
0.28****
0.44***
—
—
—
3.27***
0.58**
—
—
3.01****
—
—
—
2.05**
2.59***
4.96**
5.69****
—
2.00*
0.47***
0.34****
—
0.30****
3.49****
7.39*
2.77***
—
0.694
63.95%
86
49.60%
125
2.087**
Note: Nonsignificant results omitted.
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
Table 4 compares the two organizational types by their primary issue focus.
First, note that the two clusters of groups do not differ significantly upon the
number of issues they choose to make a primary focus. The mean number of
issues each kind of group pursues is not substantially different. We also find
Alternative Organizational Repertoires
Table 4.
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Issues/Substantive Goals—Descriptives and Logistic Regression
Health care
Workers’ rights
Farm/rural
Environment/toxics/land use
Community issues and services
Crime/drugs/police
Education reform/local autonomy
Housing/homelessness/lending
Jobs/training/unemployment
Public officials/accountability
Voter registration/participation
Tax progressivity/equity
Economic development
Racial/ethnic
Tribal rights
Immigration/migrants
Social justice/social change
Social services: child care/elderly
Women’s issues
Public services: trash/utilities
Poverty/welfare
Other
Mean number of issues
Percentage of groups involved in at
least 3 of the top 5 issues for that type
Total n
Congregation
Based
Individual
Membership
Odds
β
(e )
15.11%
2.33%
4.65%
6.98%
38.37%
41.86%
50.00%
55.81%
27.91%
5.81%
31.40%
0.00%
20.93%
18.60%
1.16%
0.00%
17.44%
19.77%
2.33%
15.12%
23.26%
4.65%
4.03
28.80%
22.40%
13.60%
16.80%
21.60%
11.20%
17.60%
41.60%
12.80%
6.40%
36.80%
3.20%
14.40%
18.40%
4.80%
6.40%
15.20%
20.80%
6.40%
20.00%
18.40%
7.20%
3.65
2.27**
12.12***
3.23**
2.69**
0.44***
0.18****
0.21****
0.56**
0.38***
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1.49
40.70%
86
13.60%
125
4.40****
Note: Nonsignificant results omitted.
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
that on 13 of the 22 issues there are no significant differences between the
CBOs and IMOs. In large part, then, the two organizational types are quite
similar to one another in terms of substantive organizational goals.
However, there are some notable differences. We have bolded the top five
issues that are the focus of each organizational type to facilitate these comparisons. We have grouped the issues on which the types differ in the top two panels of Table 4. As in Table 3, we present the results of logistic regressions with
issue as the dependent variable and organizational type as the predictor
(IMOs being the reference category). IMOs are more than 12 times as likely to
be involved in campaigns for workers’ rights, more than twice as likely to be
involved in health care, and more likely to be involved in both farm/rural concerns and issues of environmental justice and land use than are CBOs. CBOs,
on the other hand, are more likely to take on questions of community issues
and services (2.27 times as likely), crime/drugs and concerns about the police
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McCarthy, Walker
Table 5.
Types and Amounts of Grassroots Funding
Congregation Based
Average Fund Average
Amount ($)
%
Activities
Membership dues
Unspecified donations
Donations from individuals
Donations from
charity campaigns
Donations from institutions
Direct mail
Telemarketing/canvassing
Support books/ad sales
Product sales
Fees for professional services
Other
Total grassroots funding
n
Individual Membership
Average Fund
Amount ($)
Average
%
t Test of
a
Differences
2,757.23
12,349.81
457.85
638.48
9.83
52.61
4.16
2.35
2,224.15
8,035.75
5,130.88
1,015.80
16.21
24.84
16.24
5.14
–1.70*
4.27****
–3.54****
–1.29
0.00
4,109.85
7.46
74.63
3,219.22
16.27
189.70
1,579.54
25,400.04
67
0.00
11.27
0.16
0.12
8.52
0.37
2.14
8.48
100.00
122.20
977.63
654.02
7,296.49
1,139.29
2,030.26
1,813.06
1,961.35
32,400.89
99
0.53
4.26
5.97
6.62
3.80
3.93
3.55
8.90
100.00
–1.38
1.94*
–3.14***
–3.41***
1.47
–2.53**
–0.78
–0.15
–1.10
Note: Cases are excluded that did not report using any grassroots funding.
a. All t test figures in this column test the difference in proportions between the two groups with
the exception of the total grassroots funding figure, which tests the difference in average funds.
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
(5.56 times as likely), education reform, housing/homelessness and lending
policies, and jobs/training and unemployment.
The concerns of CBOs, judging by the issues they choose to pursue, appear
to follow directly from their concern with building power within communities
by focusing upon issues that have widespread appeal across social cleavages.
These are the public concerns of the community, which develop through organizing on the basis of the diverse interests of their constituency.
Each of the groups in our sample employs at least one paid staff member,
and hence, each group must devote effort to mobilizing financial resources.
The IMOs, on average, operate with slightly larger annual budgets ($165,000
compared to $110,000).20 Groups of both types are heavily dependent upon
institutional sources such as foundations and religious groups for financial
support, but we focus here upon grassroots sources of support. Both types of
groups are highly dependent upon grassroots funding sources, as about 21%
of the annual income for CBOs derived from this source and about 23% of the
income for IMOs. Table 5 shows the average funding amounts and their proportions for CBOs and IMOs.21 This pattern of findings shows that, on average, IMOs raise more money from grassroots sources, but the difference in the
proportion those resources make up of their annual budgets is quite modest.
On average, groups of both types display impressive financial yields from
grassroots fundraising.
Alternative Organizational Repertoires
113S
There are a few salient differences in grassroots funding sources between
the two organizational types. First, CBOs collect a much higher proportion of
their grassroots funding from membership dues than IMOs. Of course, this is
primarily the result of the stable institutional source of their membership dues
from allied congregations. More than 50% of the grassroots funding of CBOs
comes from this source. The much smaller percentage of grassroots financial
support deriving from membership dues for the IMOs reflects the lack of
resources of their poor individual members.
Another significant difference is that IMOs derive a larger proportion of
their grassroots funding from activities (e.g., raffles, bake sales, events,
dances, etc.) than do CBOs. Third, IMOs are much more likely to use direct
mail and telemarketing, both of which CBOs rarely use. Finally, CBOs are
about twice as likely to use support/ad books by raising on average an
impressive $3,219 per group with these books.
Finally, we carried out a series of analyses to assess our expectations about
the relative degree of homogeneity in terms of structure, tactics, and goals
within the two samples of groups. The results (not shown) suggest that, for the
most part, there is less variability among the CBOs than there is among the
IMOs.22 This is the case for budget size as well as staff size, suggesting greater
structural similarity among CBOs than among IMOs. Especially notable is
that this is also true for tactics and goals. This can be seen for methods in Table
3 where the average percentage of CBOs that adopt at least four of the six most
popular methods used by CBOs is 63.95% compared to a similar percentage of
49.60% for the IMOs. An even more dramatic pattern holds for issue choice as
seen in Table 4: About 41% of CBOs are involved with at least three of the top
five issues for their organizational type compared to only approximately 14%
of IMO groups who do the same.
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
Despite the outcome of the debate about the advantages and disadvantages
of the two organizational repertoires that we have addressed here, both types
of groups in our sample demonstrate remarkable success in mobilizing poor
and minority citizens and engaging them in collective action. Both kinds of
groups are highly likely to make leadership training one of their important
activities. CBOs are more likely to focus attention upon leadership development and organization building, whereas IMOs are far more likely to employ
the range of social change tactics for which the original Alinsky-style groups
were widely known.
The more reliable financial support that CBOs receive from constituent congregations appears to relieve them, to some extent, from the pressure to pursue other forms of grassroots funding. It is plausible to suggest that this, in
turn, allows these organizations to devote effort to other kinds of tasks, especially leadership development and organization building ones. On the other
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McCarthy, Walker
hand, the heavy reliance of IMOs on grassroots activities for raising financial
support can be expected to help generate the byproduct of wide connections
within local communities. As well, there are some very strong differences
between the two types of groups in the issues they choose to pursue, consistent with arguments that CBOs are less likely to pursue issues that are more
controversial within communities.
Our analyses have provided a glimpse of the population of local social
movement organizations seeking to mobilize poor citizens in communities
across the United States. Groups of both types devote extensive effort to developing local leadership through the development of networks of relationships
thereby adding to the stock of social capital available to citizens of these communities for both collective action as well as individual opportunity (Warren,
Thompson, & Saegert, 2002). The CBO organizational template appears, as its
advocates suggest, to mobilize more poor people and to do so more efficiently.
Only because we have been able to also assemble evidence on IMOs for comparison are we able to draw such a conclusion. It is this formal comparison, in
our judgment, that is the major contribution of our effort here.
The fact that the CBO groups in our sample are substantially younger suggests that the rate of founding of groups of this type was higher than for IMOs
in the decade or so before our evidence was gathered. And there are indications that the pace of formation of CBOs has remained high in the meantime
(Warren, 2001; Warren & Wood, 2001). To the extent that such an inference is
correct, it is reasonable to suggest that the increasing popularity among community organizers of the CBO template has accelerated the mobilization of
poor citizens in U.S. communities.
Yet this presumed transformation of the shape of the population of local
poor people’s groups is likely to have consequences for the ways in which
these groups try to bring about social change. Recall that the IMOs in our sample were substantially more likely to have employed public protest to achieve
their aims—a tactic that is most effective because, according to some analysts,
it threatens to be disruptive (Piven & Cloward, 1979). To the extent that the
CBO template becomes the dominant one, our evidence suggests that the mix
of tactics that poor people’s groups employ will tend to become less
disruptive.
Let us reemphasize that paid organizers staff all of the groups we have analyzed here. As a result, the local advocacy organizations in our sample are not
typical of what are probably the far more common volunteer-led local groups
seeking to mobilize poor citizens. Although we cited evidence that the applicants that are successful in receiving CCHD funds are not substantially different from the larger body of unsuccessful applicants for those funds, it is likely
that only reasonably viable organizations will apply to CCHD for funding in
the first place. As a consequence of the restricted sample of organizations with
which we have worked in this analysis, we also have made it clear that our evidence cannot speak directly to the issue of the relative viability of the two
alternative repertoires.
Alternative Organizational Repertoires
115S
Samples of local groups seeking to mobilize poor people using the constituent elements of each repertoire, especially including those groups led by volunteers, would be required to adequately assess the issue of viability.23 Such a
design, as well, would allow an evaluation of the generalizability of our findings to volunteer-based advocacy groups. We believe that such a design is feasible, because there exists an appreciable number of community-level ecumenical coalitions staffed by volunteers, which depend upon congregations
as building blocks and focus on issues such as homelessness and minority
issues. These groups, then, could be compared with local, volunteer-based
IMOs.
We expect such a comparison would yield typical patterns of tactical and
issue choice quite similar to those we have seen for this sample of staff-led
groups with CBOs being more homogeneous when compared with IMOs.
This is because we believe that the comparison between CBOs and IMOs
reflects a more general contrast between types of local advocacy organizations
that should transcend the question of whether a group is led by paid staff or
volunteers. Many advocacy groups emerge out of preexisting groups. Such
groups are more homogeneous in that their members are already in interaction with one another, and the emergent group has the advantage of being able
to depend upon support from the group that spawned it (Freeman, 1979). Both
of these factors can be expected to narrow the choice of tactics as well as the
issue focus of such groups.
Volunteer-based ecumenical coalitions emerge out of existing congregational and intercongregational relations and, as a result, are rooted in congregational structures, whereas volunteer-led IMOs, lacking such institutional
embeddedness, necessarily must be more self-reliant. More likely to be lacking the structural continuity provided by participating congregations, we
would expect them to have greater difficulty, for instance, in managing leadership succession, securing public meeting facilities, gaining access to local officials, and garnering media attention. For all of these reasons, then, we expect
that volunteer-led CBOs would exhibit greater tactical and issue homogeneity
than similar IMOs. For the same reasons, we expect them to be more viable.
Notes
1. The National Organizers Alliance, based in Washington, D.C., works to knit the paid staff
of organizations of this type together into a national force.
2. Local advocacy groups typically are based upon a relatively small group of active members
and volunteers with a larger number of supporters linked to the group through mailing lists, dues
payments, and intermittent involvement (McCarthy & Wolfson, 1996). When groups need to demonstrate strength in numbers, they now and then mobilize these weaker members.
3. Jack Walker (1991) observed over a decade ago that no national individual membership
organizations (IMOs) existed devoted primarily to the problems of the poor in the United States.
4. The Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO) converted its existing groups
during the 1980s from membership based to congregation based under the inspiration of an
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McCarthy, Walker
organizer who had worked previously with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF; J. Bauman, personal communication, October 1994).
5. We provide only a brief sketch of the congregation-based organization (CBO) organizing
template here before we discuss the advantages that faith-based community organizations present to the communities in which they work. More extensive treatments can be found in Rogers
(1990), Warren (2001), Robinson and Hanna (1994), Rooney (1995), Speer and Hughey (1995), and
Reitzes and Reitzes (1987), among others.
6. This narrowing of the potential issue focus by CBOs is seen by some critics as a major limitation to the strategy (e.g., Delgado, 1994).
7. In a similar vein, Walzer (1979) noted that all broad-based community groups in general are
clearly reformist; the neighborhood alliances often take on a kind of “community uplift”
character. Self-help against crime, the defense of old residential areas, improvement of
local services, beautification; these are the goals, to which the organizers too must stand
committed. (p. 407)
8. As is obvious, we expect CBOs to be more viable than IMOs. Our sample of groups, however, includes only those groups of both kinds that have already demonstrated viability and are
also capable of successfully gaining financial support through the highly competitive process
associated with applying for a grant from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development
(CCHD). Given the high degree of organizational strength implied in this selection, our research
design does not allow an assessment of differential viability.
9. For instance, Geraldine Jensen (personal communication, December 1994) described this
process when she founded the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES). Scanning the environment for legitimate models, she narrowed the choice to a few and chose to model
the structure of the group upon that of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
10. Such a choice, of course, is constrained by the issues, concerns, and available institutions of
a community. Furthermore, it is also possible that such a choice is not made by community members but by professional organizers who select a community or region as ripe for activity.
11. Groups seeking CCHD grants for specific projects must make an elaborate proposal for
support, and groups that are successful in the competition must submit quarterly reports about
their activities as well as a final report at the end of the annual funding period. In the aggregate,
these five documents provide a detailed record of the activities and structure of the proposing
organization along with details about the specific project for which funding was sought. In addition, groups provide much additional material about themselves including founding documents,
press clippings about group activities, and details about group membership. The senior author
was provided full access to these files for purposes of creating a data record of a sample of groups
funded by CCHD. These records were then carefully examined to develop a systematic description of each organization that is used here to make comparisons among them.
12. Discursive information about the organizations required a secondary coding scheme. For
each coding scheme, the research team first developed a working definition of the general category of information to be coded (e.g., goal accomplishment methods). The team then sampled 40
group files from which four members of the research team would independently attempt to establish mutually exclusive dimensions within that category (e.g., goal accomplishment methods
such as hiring staff, direct action, etc.). Next, a comprehensive set of coding categories was developed. Following this, pairs of team members independently coded a large number of the same
files, comparing results with one another, and revising the coding categories as needed. The
revised scheme was then reviewed by a number of CCHD staff members and altered accordingly,
at which point the final coding scheme was established.
13. Following the establishment of the coding scheme, team members coded the material from
the records into an electronic file. These secondary codes were organized into the following categories: (a) grant source (e.g., foundation, government, religious), (b) specific grant source (e.g.,
Needmor foundation), (c) grassroots fundraising source (e.g., donations from charity, membership dues), (d) technical assistance type (e.g., organizational development, training of organizers),
(e) technical assistance provider (e.g., industrial areas foundation, government sources), (f)
Alternative Organizational Repertoires
117S
network name (e.g., IAF, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now [ACORN],
PICO), (g) issues (e.g., housing, crime, environmental concerns), (h) goal accomplishment
methods (e.g., protest, create alliances), and (i) issue focus.
14. This included the following information for the board, staff, and membership: total number, number in poverty, number Asian, number Black, number White, number Hispanic, number
Native American, and the number from other racial/ethnic groups.
15. To collect these, coders were instructed to look through the file materials for past, present,
or proposed usage of certain methods for goal accomplishment. The first 24 methods from the
complete list that appeared in the group file were coded. The average number of methods noted
per organization was approximately 11.
16. To determine percentages of each grassroots fundraising source, the total budget figures
were not used, as they did not often match the total amount of grassroots fundraising. With this in
mind, we decided to rather use the totals based on the amounts created using the sum of all grassroots fundraising sources reported.
17. Many of the groups publish a book each year describing its accomplishments, which the
organization distributes among group members and others in the community. Advertisements
are included from local supporters as a means of raising funds.
18. The total membership figures for the organization membership and board of directors
(Tables 1 and 2) were calculated by summing the member frequencies by ethnic category for each
organization. This summed figure we refer to as the corrected total membership as opposed to the
membership as reported by the organization. We found that groups tended to slightly overreport
their total membership. There were no significant differences between the corrected and reported
figures for board membership. For purposes of the present analysis, we present only the corrected
figures for organization and board membership. As a result of missing data, n sizes vary across
these analyses.
19. It should be noted that there is no difference between the two kinds of groups in how many
methods they claim to pursue; coders sought indication of effort in any one of the 35 methods categories, and the first 24 encountered were coded.
20. The IMOs are older, on average, than the CBOs, and age is positively related with the size of
the organizational budget. These differences, not shown in Table 5, are statistically significant.
21. The total grassroots funding figures reported by the organizations were often unreliable;
the sum of each individual source of grassroots funding often did not match the figure reported by
the organization. We therefore based the proportions on the sum of all reported sources rather
than the reported total grassroots funding figure.
22. In separate analyses, we compared the 30 IAF groups with the remaining 56 CBOs along
similar dimensions and found relatively little variation between them and those CBOs affiliated
with other networks.
23. As noted earlier, the difficulties of enumerating poor people’s social movement organizations led us to rely on samples of groups funded by CCHD.
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John D. McCarthy is professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University. His continuing research interests include social movements, the sociology of organizations, media processes, the dynamics of public protest, and the policing of protest.
Edward T. Walker is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University. His
research interests are sociological theory and social movements, with a particular emphasis on the
institutionalization of social activity.