Strategies for Citizen Participation and Empowerment in Non-profit, Community-Based Organizations

In community development, there is a consensus that citizen participation, empowerment, and linking community residents and clients of organizations to the political system are important goals. There is also a great deal of empirical evidence that verifies the effectiveness of empowerment in communitybased organizations. However, little of this literature explicates the actual activities that are required to implement this approach. This paper examines strategies that can be used by non-profit, communitybased organizations to encourage participation in organizational and political decision-making. A conceptual model is described that links citizen participation with specific outcomes associated with empowerment-enhancing activities in community-based organizations.