Organizing and reorganizing: how the structure of a youth organizing initiative cultivates collective resilience

Community organizing initiatives aim to influence changes in policies and systems to promote community well-being. The path from organizing to systemic changes, however, often involves setbacks and defeats along the way. Groups that persevere must continuously reflect and reorganize. This qualitative study examines the collective resilience of young people involved in a community organizing initiative that had recently experienced a setback. Through analyses of interviews with young leaders, we sought a developmental and contextual understanding of collective resilience. We found that the multilevel structure of the organizing initiative created smaller settings with roles for young people to play in hyper-local systems change processes. These smaller-scale experiences enabled them to build the capacities, relationships, and shared perspectives that underpin the collective resilience of the initiative. These insights have implications for community organizing practice and other efforts to promote civic engagement, voluntarism, and leadership development in democracies.