In order to work effectively in a culturally and ethnically diverse community, a community builder needs to understand how people are already connected, how information moves, where people seek support, and who has influence or responsibility in different settings.
It is not uncommon to hear someone say, “We were not able to engage that community because they are not organized. They have no leaders.”
That conclusion may reflect the observer’s expectations more than the community’s reality. Many communities have formal and informal networks, trusted relationships, institutions, organizations, businesses, cultural groups, faith communities, family networks, online spaces, and other ways of sharing information and providing support. These structures may not look like the organizations or leadership models that outsiders expect.
Understanding those relationships can help community builders identify appropriate partners, recognize existing strengths, avoid duplicating work that is already happening, and create more meaningful opportunities for participation.
What do we mean by social organization? Social organization refers to the relationships, networks, groups, institutions, and patterns of interaction through which people stay connected, share information and resources, make decisions, provide support, and participate in community life.
Within these networks, different people may exercise leadership. Leadership can be formal or informal. A leader may hold an elected or appointed position, coordinate a community organization, organize around a specific issue, provide cultural or religious guidance, connect people with resources, mentor young people, operate a business, or simply be someone others trust and turn to.
No single leader should automatically be assumed to represent an entire racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, linguistic, disability, or other community. Different people may have influence around different issues, and communities may contain substantial differences in experience, politics, class, religion, generation, migration history, geography, and other areas.
In this section, you will learn how to recognize different forms of social organization and leadership and how to build respectful relationships with the people and organizations already active in a community.
Take a moment and think about a community or group you know well.
Where do people go for information or help? What organizations, institutions, businesses, informal networks, or relationships connect people? Who is trusted around different issues?
Now consider a community you know less well.
What assumptions might you be making about how that community is organized? What would you need to learn directly from its members?
How do culture and other factors affect the social organization of a community?
Culture can influence how people understand family, community responsibility, leadership, religion, communication, mutual aid, education, work, decision-making, and other parts of social life.
But culture is only one influence. Social organization may also be shaped by:
- History
- Migration and settlement patterns
- Racism, discrimination, and exclusion
- Economic conditions
- Geography
- Language
- Religion and spirituality
- Age and generation
- Disability
- Housing patterns
- Schools and educational institutions
- Employment and occupational networks
- Technology and social media
- Public policy and institutions
- Relationships with a place of origin or other communities
Cultural knowledge can provide useful context, but it should not be used as a shortcut for predicting how a particular person or community will behave.
Communities change over time. Younger and older generations may participate differently. New organizations may form while others become less important. Migration, economic change, technology, political events, neighborhood change, and new relationships can all reshape social networks and leadership.
Family and kinship networks
Family and extended-family relationships can be important sources of support in many communities. Relatives may help one another find housing, employment, childcare, transportation, financial assistance, health care, or other resources.
The importance and structure of family networks vary widely. Do not assume that a person's racial, ethnic, or national background tells you who they consider family, who makes decisions, or who holds authority.
Instead, ask how people describe their own support networks and relationships.
Mutual-aid, hometown, and regional associations
Some communities have organizations based on a shared hometown, region, language, profession, migration experience, cultural background, or other connection.
For example, some Chinese American communities have historically included regional or hometown associations sometimes known as huiguan. These organizations have served a variety of social, cultural, business, charitable, and community functions.
Similar hometown, regional, mutual-aid, and cultural associations exist in many communities throughout the world.
Their importance varies from place to place. Before assuming that a particular association is influential, ask residents what role it currently plays and who participates in it.
Faith communities
Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, and other faith communities can provide spiritual support as well as social connection, education, mutual aid, advocacy, cultural activities, food assistance, youth programs, and other services.
Historically, Black churches in the United States have played important roles in civil-rights organizing, mutual aid, education, political participation, and community leadership. Faith institutions have also played important roles in many immigrant, refugee, Indigenous, rural, and other communities.
At the same time, not everyone participates in a faith community, and the political or social role of a religious institution can vary greatly.
Do not assume that the most visible religious leader is automatically the primary leader for every issue.
Cultural, recreational, and social networks
Sports leagues, arts organizations, cultural associations, dance groups, community gardens, parent groups, neighborhood events, social clubs, and other activities may connect people who do not participate in formal civic organizations.
Soccer, basketball, cricket, baseball, dance, music, and many other activities can create social networks in particular communities. Rather than assuming that one activity is especially important because of ethnicity or nationality, observe what residents actually participate in and ask which activities matter locally.
Savings, business, and economic networks
Informal and formal financial networks can also support community life.
Rotating savings and credit groups exist in many parts of the world and may be known by different names, such as susu, tanda, hui, or other locally used terms.
Businesses may also serve as important gathering places and information networks. Grocery stores, restaurants, barber shops, salons, markets, professional associations, and other businesses may connect residents and help circulate information.
These institutions should be approached as potential partners rather than simply as places to gain access to a particular population.
Schools, language programs, and cultural education
Schools, parent organizations, after-school programs, language schools, colleges, libraries, and other educational institutions may play important roles in community networks.
Some communities establish language or cultural-education programs to help children and adults maintain or develop language skills, cultural knowledge, or relationships across generations.
These organizations can be valuable partners when the issue is relevant to their participants, but participation should be based on mutual goals rather than treating educational programs as convenient places to recruit people.
Digital and online networks
Community organization increasingly occurs through text messaging, social media, messaging applications, neighborhood groups, email lists, online forums, livestreams, and other digital platforms.
Some highly influential community members may have no formal title or physical organization but may connect large networks of people through digital communication.
At the same time, do not rely entirely on digital outreach. Internet access, platform use, disability access, language, privacy concerns, and technology preferences vary.
How do culture and other factors affect community leadership?
Communities rarely have only one kind of leader.
Leadership may include:
- Elected or appointed leaders
- Neighborhood and resident leaders
- Faith leaders
- Business owners and professional leaders
- Organizers and advocates
- Youth leaders
- Older adults with longstanding community relationships
- Cultural leaders, artists, and tradition-bearers
- Educators
- Health and human-service professionals
- Leaders of tenant, parent, worker, disability, immigrant, or other community organizations
- Informal connectors who regularly help others find information or resources
- People with lived experience of the issue being addressed
A person may be influential around one issue but not another. A respected pastor may be an important partner on housing or youth concerns in one community but may have little role in business development or disability advocacy. A business owner may have strong economic relationships but limited influence among young people. A youth organizer may have stronger connections with young residents than a formal neighborhood association does.
Leadership is therefore best understood as a network rather than a single hierarchy.
Ask:
- Who do residents trust on this particular issue?
- Who has direct experience with the issue?
- Who already organizes or communicates with people affected?
- Who has formal decision-making authority?
- Who has relationships across different parts of the community?
- Whose perspectives are often missing from formal leadership?
- Are there younger, less visible, or informal leaders who should also be included?
How can you learn about the social organization and leadership of a community?
Begin with humility and curiosity.
Do not assume that the same organization, institution, or type of leader plays the same role in every community.
Be open about what you do and do not know. You might say:
“I want to make sure we understand how people in this community are already connected and what organizations or relationships are important. I don't want to assume that I know who speaks for everyone. Who do you think we should talk with, and what should we understand before moving forward?”
Asking people to share their knowledge does not mean expecting them to provide extensive unpaid cultural education. If someone is contributing significant time, expertise, facilitation, interpretation, or consultation, consider appropriate compensation.
Look for both formal and informal networks.
Formal organizations may include neighborhood associations, schools, businesses, nonprofits, faith communities, professional associations, advocacy organizations, mutual-aid groups, libraries, cultural organizations, and public agencies.
Informal networks may exist among neighbors, parents, workers, caregivers, young people, tenants, recreation groups, extended families, online communities, or other relationships.
Ask several people rather than relying on one community contact.
Different people may identify different leaders and organizations. That difference can provide useful information about the diversity within the community.
Questions might include:
- Where do people go when they need information or help?
- What organizations or institutions do people trust?
- Where do people gather?
- Who organizes community activities?
- Who communicates with different generations or neighborhoods?
- Who has influence on this particular issue?
- Who may not participate in the most visible organizations?
- What previous community-building efforts have occurred?
- What worked and what created problems?
Identify gathering places and communication networks
Residents may connect through community centers, libraries, cultural events, neighborhood meetings, markets, schools, sports leagues, faith communities, restaurants, businesses, parks, online groups, or other spaces.
Participate in public gatherings when participation is welcomed. Introduce yourself and explain why you are there rather than observing people as though they are subjects of research.
Ask organizers how people learned about the event and what communication channels they use.
Community newspapers, radio, podcasts, newsletters, websites, social media, bulletin boards, and other local communication can also help identify organizations and issues.
Include networks that formal leadership may overlook
Parent and caregiver networks, tenant groups, youth organizations, disability communities, worker networks, mutual-aid groups, neighborhood volunteers, and other informal relationships may contain leaders who are not visible through traditional civic structures.
Do not assume that women should be approached primarily through grocery stores, schools, salons, or caregiving roles. Ask where people already gather and organize rather than assigning networks according to gender.
Work with established leaders without treating them as gatekeepers
Established community leaders can provide history, relationships, knowledge, and credibility. Their involvement may be extremely valuable.
At the same time, no leader should have to give outsiders “permission” to speak with every other member of the community, and no single leader should be treated as the sole representative of the group.
Engage established leadership while also creating direct opportunities for residents, younger leaders, people with different political perspectives, and others whose voices may be less visible.
Some leadership structures may reflect unequal access based on gender, class, race, caste, disability, age, immigration status, or other factors.
Respecting a community does not require ignoring inequity. At the same time, outside community builders should avoid arriving with the assumption that they understand a community's internal relationships better than its members do.
Listen to people affected by the inequity, support their leadership, and examine how your own process can avoid reinforcing exclusion.
Involve young people without making them responsible for adult language access
Young people may have valuable knowledge about schools, social networks, recreation, digital communication, neighborhood life, and relationships across generations.
They should be included as community participants and leaders when appropriate.
However, children and adolescents should not routinely be expected to interpret sensitive information for parents or other adults simply because they are bilingual.
Use qualified interpreters when interpretation is needed, particularly for health care, legal matters, education decisions, public services, conflict, or other sensitive situations.
Connect with organizations that already work with the community
Local, regional, and national organizations may provide useful relationships, research, advocacy, technical assistance, or community connections.
Depending on the issue, relevant partners may include civil-rights organizations, immigrant and refugee organizations, Tribal organizations, disability organizations, cultural associations, professional associations, worker organizations, legal-service organizations, faith communities, or others.
The most useful organization may not be the largest or most nationally recognized one. Local organizations may have deeper knowledge of current relationships and concerns.
Connect through programs when the partnership is relevant to participants
English-language learning programs, citizenship programs, workforce programs, libraries, schools, health organizations, cultural programs, and other services may connect with many residents.
Do not treat service programs simply as convenient recruitment sites. Work with the organization and its participants to determine whether the community-building effort is relevant, whether outreach is appropriate, and how people want to participate.
Learn from culturally significant neighborhoods without treating them as field sites
Places such as Chinatowns, Little Indias, Koreatowns, historic Black neighborhoods, immigrant business districts, Tribal communities, and other culturally significant areas may include businesses, cultural institutions, community organizations, places of worship, public art, community media, and other important resources.
Visit public spaces respectfully, support local institutions, and build relationships with people and organizations rather than simply walking through the area looking for people who can provide access to the community.
What challenges should you be aware of, and how can they be addressed?
Different people may identify different leaders.
A community contact may believe that they are the most appropriate person to represent the community or may have strong opinions about other leaders.
Listen without immediately choosing sides. Explain that you are learning about the community and want to hear from multiple people before deciding how participation will be structured.
Avoid sharing private comments that one person has made about another.
People may have questions about who you represent.
Be transparent about your organization, funding, goals, authority, and what decisions have already been made.
Ask about previous community-building efforts. Who initiated them? What happened? Were commitments fulfilled? Did residents have meaningful influence? Were some communities excluded?
An advisory group or planning group with people from different parts of the community may help guide the effort, but it should not become a substitute for broader participation.
You will not know everything about every community.
Cultural humility is more useful than pretending to be an expert.
Be willing to say that you do not know something, conduct your own research, ask respectful questions, and listen when people explain how they understand their community.
Do not place the full responsibility for your education on community members.
Being part of the community does not mean you understand every member of it.
A community builder may share a racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, language, disability, or other identity with some participants.
Shared identity can provide useful experience, language skills, relationships, or familiarity, but it does not make someone representative of everyone in the community.
Differences in age, class, gender, politics, migration history, neighborhood, religion, profession, disability, generation, or other experiences may still matter.
Diverse community-building teams can bring together different relationships and forms of knowledge, but demographic diversity alone does not guarantee credibility or fairness. Team members also need strong facilitation skills, accountability, cultural humility, and clear roles.
Communities contain disagreement and internal diversity.
Political disagreement, competition for resources, class differences, regional identities, religion, organizational history, personal conflict, or other factors may produce different factions or perspectives within a community.
Do not treat disagreement within a racial or ethnic community as evidence that the community is disorganized.
Reach out broadly, understand the source of disagreement, and avoid creating a process that unintentionally gives one faction authority over everyone else.
Community leaders and organizations may identify needs for additional support.
Some organizations may want assistance with leadership development, fundraising, facilitation, technology, evaluation, coalition building, language access, communications, or other skills.
Ask what support would be useful rather than assuming that local leaders need to be “trained” by outsiders.
Support may involve connecting organizations with funding, technical assistance, peer organizations, consultants, public agencies, universities, or other resources.
Whenever possible, strengthen existing community capacity rather than creating unnecessary dependence on outside organizations.
In Summary
Communities are rarely “unorganized.” People usually have formal and informal relationships through which they share information, provide support, solve problems, maintain culture, and exercise leadership.
Those networks may include families, neighborhood groups, mutual-aid organizations, businesses, schools, cultural associations, sports and recreation groups, faith communities, online networks, advocacy organizations, and many other forms of connection.
Culture can influence social organization and leadership, but cultural identity does not determine how an individual or community will behave. History, migration, discrimination, economics, geography, institutions, generation, technology, and other factors also shape community relationships.
Strong community builders therefore avoid using cultural profiles as formulas. They ask residents how the community is organized, identify several sources of leadership, understand differences within communities, and examine who may be missing from formal decision-making.
Established leaders can be important partners, but no single leader or organization should automatically be treated as the voice of an entire racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, linguistic, disability, or other community.
Relationship-building requires transparency, humility, time, language and disability access, respect for community knowledge, and follow-through on commitments.
The goal is not to learn the “correct” leader or organizing style for every cultural group. It is to understand how people in a particular community are actually connected, recognize the assets and leadership already present, and create opportunities for those people and organizations to shape the work that affects them.