Building community power
What is Community Power?
Why do we prioritize community power building
Community power is explicitly connected to health equity. The root causes of health inequities are derived from deeply ingrained power relations within our society - including racism, sexism, ableism, and capitalism. These -isms underlie the systems, policies, and structures that translate into Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). SDOH are the social and environmental conditions that we experience on a daily basis; they include things like housing, community infrastructure, education, and much more. The presence or absence of SDOH in specific geographic areas is not accidental, but rather an intentional product of the inequitable systems that reinforce them. Using this framework, Praxis perceives the SDOH as indicators of equity.
Praxis’ work with community power-building partners consistently shows us that building power through supporting community organizing and base-building is foundational to begin to address the root causes of inequities and to improve health, equity, and racial justice outcomes. Efforts that solely target the immediate conditions instead of transforming underlying systems rooted in bias and injustice will have limited impact. Achieving long-term health, equity, and racial justice requires correcting power imbalances—building community power explicitly to center the communities most impacted by inequities to create sustainable, lasting infrastructure for change.
Those benefitting from our current structures are profoundly entrenched in our political and economic system. Industries’ power to keep the status quo, or to limit change to the margins, is immense. Examples of this are mass shootings and the firearm industry; climate change and the fossil fuel industry; housing crisis and banking and real estate; preventable chronic disease and the sugary drink and processed food industries. To transform the current systems that lock inequity in place, power must challenge power. A strategy that relies on health advocates taking good science to legislators in order to pass strong policies that improve people’s lives is no longer enough. Health and equity policy advocates must lean in and be more strategic in their partnerships to leverage power to challenge the status quo.
In this frame, for The Praxis Project, community power itself must be considered both a driver and an outcome to improve health, equity, and racial justice in our most marginalized spaces.
How Do Communities Build Power
“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.” [2]
Praxis’ Learning Circles support community power building among our base-building and organizing partners, particularly in the areas of strengthening community-building, increasing capacity, and raising critical consciousness. The following strategies are how Praxis’ base-building and grassroots partners build power in their communities. Click on each panel to learn more. [3]
How does Praxis support community power building efforts?
As an intermediary, Praxis helps achieve more efficient, effective relationships between the layers needed for systems transformation and change. We facilitate joint ownership in change-making, help to establish collective accountability, and sustain participation of impacted communities. Praxis supports community power building efforts throughout our initiatives including:
Centering Community - We work to develop shared solidarities by collaborating across sectors and supporting authentic engagement with community power building organizations, ensuring that impacted communities are centered in leadership, visioning, and practice. Explore our offerings at The Praxis Learning Center and our Learnings from the Front Line.
Learning Circles and Roots & Remedies – Praxis’ Learning Circles and Roots & Remedies support skills building, leadership development, and shared solidarities by creating spaces for organizers to come together, learn from each other, and engage in reflection and healing.
Fiscal Sponsorship – Praxis’ Movement Building Fiscal Sponsorship program supports resource sustainability so that organizers can do their work without having to handle all aspects of administration and operation of a 501c3. Praxis supports projects in their work of redefining systems while ensuring sustainability within existing funding structures.
Narrative Change and Community Centered Communications – Praxis communications amplifies power building work of community organizers and helps to raise critical consciousness through our content, including our Communities Building Power for Health Multimedia Case Studies, In Praxis Podcast, Social Media, newsletters, and more.
Broadly – Praxis practices healing justice principles and uses a community power lens to ground our work.
Note: Praxis does not claim to build community power through our work. We stand in solidarity with and are deeply committed to supporting community power building partners. Our relationship and trust with community power building partners is founded in authentic collaboration and co-creation; commitment to center community-led, sustainable solutions; continuous learning and commitment to transform our own structures and processes, and shifting our power and resources to community power building partners when possible.