“Whole Community Organizing” for the 21StCentury

Two elements constitute the core meaning of community—face-to-face social interactions and social relationships. The global era of the 21st century presents new challenges to the practice of community change that empowers a community. McKnight articulates a model of community practice, “whole community organizing” which addresses the core elements of community: social interactions and relationships. We believe this new approach to community change and empowerment answers the challenges of the 21st century. This article first reviews frequently-cited frameworks of approaches to community change and empowerment as well as the dilemmas and contradictions those interventions pose. We then briefly review asset-based community development from the “inside out” and present whole community organizing, weighing its strengths against dilemmas and contradictions of obsolete frameworks. Finally, we introduce empirical support from our own work that compares and analyzes communities' strategies to transform their social relationships, their economies, and their communities.