Pandemic-Era Organizing

Abstract

Community organizations that have historically depended upon in-person organizing methods faced particular challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. We studied a U.S.-based network of community organizations to examine how they did their organizing work during the pandemic. Based on data collection of public information about the organizations and semi-structured interviews with key leaders, we studied the methods of organizing and the organizations’ use of various tools, digital and otherwise, and asked leaders about how the experience of organizing during the pandemic might change their future approach to organizing. We found that these organizations were able to continue their work in part because they already had established relationships among leaders and were able to adapt their familiar organizing tools to the new situation, effectively engaging in “reorganizing” during the pandemic.