Effective community organisations

A recent review of the literature about ‘strengthening communities’ by Ryan and Burke (2005) recognises that community organisations play a critical role in strengthening communities. They do this by enabling those who are vulnerable in some way to participate more fully in their community.

Building effective community organisations involves paying attention to both the tasks of the group and the relationships involved in the functioning of the group itself. ‘Task’ functions include setting directions, agreeing on priorities, accessing resources, and conducting activities. The development and maintenance of the group itself involves people being valued, trusting each other, collaborating, and accommodating differing opinions and styles.

Things you can do to support the effectiveness of your organisation include:

• Develop an atmosphere of open communication and acceptance of difference views
• Consider rotating committee positions
• Have ‘bring a friend’ events
• Limit the term of office bearers
• Have mentoring arrangements and procedures for succession
• Offer training and development
• Create opportunities for people to take on new roles
• Encourage long term leaders to ‘groom’ successors
• Celebrate successes, large and small
• Reaffirm the mission of the group
• Have team building exercises

Extra resources

• Ryan, R. and Burke, S. (2005) Literature Review — LCSA: Strengthening Communities Project. Elton Consulting.
• The Community Door website is a 'one-stop shop' for information, tools and resources to support community-based organisations in Queensland. It is an initiative of the Queensland Government Strengthening NGOs project.
• The New Zealand ‘Community Resource Kit — How to Guides’ include resources for setting up and running community organisations and projects. They introduce the different types of plan and includes planning tools and templates.
• Case studies of four of the successful applicants to the Building Rural Links program can be found in the Bush e-Telegraph. The Building Rural Links initiative aims to help community organisations develop strong partnerships, and is a key component of the Blueprint for the Bush.