Community Power

Community power is the ability of communities most impacted by structural inequity to develop, sustain and grow an organized base of people who act together through democratic structures to set agendas, shift public discourse, influence who makes decisions and cultivate ongoing relationships of mutual accountability with decision-makers that change systems and advance health equity.

Source: Leading Locally: A Community Power Building Approach to Structural Change

Community Power Building

Community power building is the set of strategies used by communities most impacted by structural inequity to develop, sustain and grow an organized base of people who act together through democratic structures to set agendas, shift public discourse, influence who makes decisions and cultivate ongoing relationships of mutual accountability with decision-makers that change systems and advance health equity.

Community power building is particularly critical for underserved, underrepresented, and historically marginalized communities who have been excluded from decision-making on the policies and practices that impact their health and the health of their communities.

Source: Leading Locally: A Community Power Building Approach to Structural Change

Structural Change

Structural change is about the development, implementation, and protection of policies, practices, and systems changes to support a culture of health—a culture in which all people have equal opportunities to make healthy choices, whatever their circumstances. The structures can be rules and regulations, institutional policies and priorities, cultural norms and values—and disparities in power and influence.

Health Equity

Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care.

Source: What is Health Equity?

Social Determinants of Health

Commonly referred to as the social determinants of health, these are the “conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age” that influence health.

Such conditions include “economic stability, education, social and community context, health and health care, and neighborhood and built environment" Political and economic factors, power imbalances (for example, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and ableism), and systemic injustice also constitute the conditions that determine health inequity.

Sources:

World Health Organization, Social Determinants of Health
Healthy People 2020
Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity, the Root Causes of Health Inequity

Base Building

A diverse set of strategies and methods to support community members to: be in relationship with one another; invest in each other’s leadership; share a common identity shaped by similar experiences and an understanding of the root causes of their conditions; and to use their collective analysis to create solutions and strategize to achieve them.

Source: Leading Locally: A Community Power Building Approach to Structural Change

Community Power Building Organizations (CPBOs)

Organizations that may be identified by geography (local, state, regional, national), demography (e.g. youth, workers, multi-racial) or issue(s) (e.g. workers rights, environmental justice, multi-issue) who conduct a range of activities including base-building.

Other terms sometimes used to describe CBPOs include but are not limited to: grassroots organizing groups, social movement groups, movement-building organizations, community-based organizations, community organizing groups, base building groups.

Community Organizer

Community organizers, one type of staff person working at CPBOs, bring the most impacted communities together—through door knocking in neighborhoods and apartment buildings and through institutions like schools and churches—to learn and strategize about how to make, as multiple interviewees described, “material changes in their living conditions.”

While organizers across place and issue employ diverse ranges of tactics and strategies—from leadership development trainings to political education curricula to healing circles—it’s about bringing people together to help them make connections across their lived experiences and conditions.

Source: Leading Locally: A Community Power Building Approach to Structural Change