Who Do Community Groups Represent?
All around us there are organizations and institutions that claim to be working on our behalf.
So how do we tell who’s actually on our side and who isn’t? Who’s working for us and who might actually be hurting us?
With certain special interest groups it can seem fairly simple. It’s widely accepted that first and foremost a labor union is out for its leaders and members. The Chamber of Commerce is out for the larger business interests, while politicians are chiefly trying to benefit themselves, their funders, and powerful constituent groups.
Corporations, naturally, care most about their CEOs, shareholders, and most of all their profits. We would be rightfully skeptical if the Chamber of Commerce claimed they supported a law chiefly because it would benefit workers, or if Obama said he was reducing the power of the office of the President.
The generic community group, on the other hand, is a lot harder to pin down. This is because they claim to be working on behalf of everyone in a geographic area while they promote the idea that they are above politics, special interest groups, or being bought by money.
This doesn’t seem to match up too well with reality. Community groups are on the front lines of important political decisions that determine the overall quality of life in an area, determine economic winners and losers, and empower or silence particular segments of the population. In many cases they are promoting development strategies that will clearly benefit one group of people and harm another.
Information is power. So when I meet someone who claims their organization works on behalf of an entire geographic area, I’ve got some serious questions I need answered.
Does the organization receive major donations from individuals, corporations, unions, non-profit institutions, or government?
How are these funders benefiting from the organization’s work?
Does the organization depend on major donors to continue paying staff?
Does the organization usually, regularly, or ever take positions against the interests of major donors?
What parts of the community are likely to lose out if the organization’s strategies for economic, political, or social change are successful? How explicitly does the organization express these trade-offs to the community?
How seriously does the organization accept negative feedback about its work? Does the organization seek to punish, silence, or otherwise impede its critics?
What is their long term vision for the neighborhood? Are their policies likely to further this vision? What will things look like in 50 years if they succeed?
Can the organization point to any substantial internal criticisms or dialogues about its work?
The answers are likely to tell a person more about an organization’s motivations and limitations than can be found reading their mission statement, press releases, or attending public gatherings.
If we’re serious about creating healthy communities, these are important questions. No neighborhood is so small or uniform in perspective that one organization can represent everyone. And we can’t have honest debates if we aren’t starting out from an understanding of who an organization is advocating on behalf of.
We have the best chance of moving forward collectively when people are able to represent themselves whenever possible and otherwise make informed decisions on what groups are best representing their varied interests.
