ABSTRACT
The practice of community organizing can change quickly. Practitioners react-sometimes instantly-when they perceive that some aspect of what they do could produce better results if modified. When people are not being persuaded, the appeal is altered. If no one is showing up, new points of contact are tried. If a program officer can be convinced, a different approach is tried. Good practitioners are masters of trial and error and experimentation. Their decisions are based on personal experience with the health problem, knowledge of the community in question, memory of previous social change initiatives, and advice from practitioner-colleagues. Occasionally, codified book knowledge from their formal training plays a part in determining strategies; more often, it does not (Dearing et al., 1996). For them, knowledge resides in the community. Community organizers are social change artists. The state of good practice is the state of the art.
