Ideas

Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Community
There are few words tossed around as much as “community” without requiring further definition or exploration by community leaders, public officials, researchers and evaluators, and others. Yet, there isn’t any other idea more fundamental to the human experience. It is “in community” that we thrive, that the best and worst of us can be expressed, and that the greatest social changes have been made from the local through national levels.

Social scientists and authors like Robert Putnam have heralded the demise of community in America and the U.S. Surgeon General has issued a warning that isolation, loneliness, and lack of connection is a public health crisis for our country. Carol Graham’s (2023) research on the power of hope showed that people feel hopeful about the future when the community they belong to is doing well and when they experience the purpose of contributing to their community. john powell states that we are all deeply connected to each other, no matter how different we may appear, and we use these differences to deny our humanity, connectedness, and sense of belonging, in his keynote address about the mechanisms of othering.

This blog, the first of two, plants the seed for moving our organizational and social change strategies in the direction of community. We define community and lay out why it is so important to develop a sense of community, now more than ever. In the second, we will describe how that sense of community can be fostered and measured.

What Is Community?
Community is a feeling. It is often used interchangeably — and inaccurately — to describe a place (e.g., a church, a neighborhood, a school). That is not what we’re describing here. McMillan and Chavis (1986) presented the definition and theory of the sense of community, which is the basis for our work on equitable community and systems change at Community Science. This definition and theory have been cited and used extensively in the U.S. and globally to explore how connected people are in all different types of communities and the centrality of a sense of community to the human experience.

A sense of community develops when there is:

• Membership: People come together around shared values and common goals, and as such, are clear about who is and isn’t a member of their community. Membership provides a sense of belonging based on trust and security.
• Influence: People know that their voices count. There is individual and collective efficacy that comes through being together and asserting their voice.
• Fulfillment of needs: People’s common needs can be met by being together.
• Shared emotional connection: The feeling of connection is created through the sharing of important experiences or a sense of shared history even if people have never met.

Why Is Community More Important Than Ever Now?
Community is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. We each belong to a diverse array of communities, spanning those created through our families and neighborhoods to those created through our workplaces, nations, cultural groups, identities, and political and social affiliations. Yet, in the present moment, many of us often find ourselves yearning for a deepened sense of community and connection, especially amidst many of today’s challenges, including:

Increased division and polarization: There’s a noticeable rise in polarization and division among communities, fueled by various factors such as political differences, social inequities, and cultural clashes. Evidence suggests that political polarization in the United States has increased significantly in recent decades, more than in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany (Boxell et al., 2020; Pew Research Center, 2014). Applying a community framework allows us to understand the importance of the psychological boundaries that form in communities as to who is in and who is out as well as how permeable those boundaries are. This knowledge will allow us to create strategies to make boundaries more adaptable and membership more accessible

COVID-19 recovery and an epidemic of loneliness: COVID-19 has had profound health, economic, and social impacts. While some communities are on the path to recovery, others, especially those disproportionately affected by health and other disparities exacerbated by the pandemic, continue to struggle. The Surgeon General’s declaration of an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in the U.S. in 2023 (HHS, 2023) is a stark reminder of the enduring impacts. The Surgeon General and others have seen the movement toward remote workplaces and overuse of social media as fast-moving trends toward the growing sense of isolation and loneliness.

Ongoing social and environmental injustices. Deep-seated systemic racism and hate persists, affecting fair access to opportunities and resources in areas such as housing, education, employment, health, voting, and more. Also, climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and pollution continue to disproportionately pose significant threats to certain populations’ health and livelihoods and our planet’s overall well-being. These ongoing social and environmental injustices pose a threat to sense of community, as they are perpetuated or ignored by certain groups, and significantly affect others. Justice is a vital element of any community, ensuring that everyone in that group is enabled to thrive.

Backlash against DEI. We have witnessed a recent and growing backlash against DEI strategies. People who have been involved in DEI work have found the strategies to be inadequate for a variety of reasons and are seeking ways to improve the strategies. For instance, there isn’t enough emphasis on the “E” which means strategies fall short of creating fair access to resources and opportunities that enable people to reach their full potential. The establishment of DEI offices in local governments, foundations, nonprofits, and corporations also tends to perpetuate a top-down approach and relegates the integration of DEI practices to one person (maybe two) rather than distribute the responsibility and accountability across leadership and staff at all levels. The results of DEI strategies are perceived as a “zero-sum” game where one group reaps the benefits at the expense of another group. Some organizations have added “B” to DEIB for “belonging,” which asserts even more the importance of community in DEIB work.

Consequently, even though we have made progress toward more inclusive organizations and communities, we still get stuck after a certain amount of time because we encounter resistance and backlash that reflect the “us versus them” mentality. The notion of community and the “we” is either lost or doesn’t get enough attention in all of our strategies to create healthy, just, and stronger communities. We believe that a framework anchored in the innate human need for connection and thus, community, can help us move forward during these challenging times.

This blog lays out how a “sense of community” can be a useful and powerful guide for inclusive and equitable organizational and community change strategies. We share the understanding with Dr. King that it is through community that we will have equity and justice. Being in a beloved community means that we care for one another, and we want to be treated fairly by the other. Feeling that we are all part of the same community gives us that sense we are all in it together and can meet our common needs.

There is significant scientific research that supports how the development of a sense of community, and all the different ways it is portrayed in the social and health sciences (e.g., social cohesion, belonging, bridging, and bonding) has a profound impact on behavioral, physical, and social health as well as civic engagement, and many other factors essential to a healthy society. Community Science is working to document this research (see www.senseofcommunity.com).

What’s Next?
We have to bring “community” back into several practices, including community development and DEIB. We have seen throughout history that the development of a sense of community can bring out the best and the worst in people. The boundaries can be impermeable, or they can be developed to be inclusive. We have communities that have built themselves around a culture of inclusion and diversity. We also have those that gated themselves (literally) from outsiders. We will discuss in the subsequent blog how organizations and place-based communities can be developed and evolve so that they embrace greater inclusion of people and promote greater equity for all. What is most important for us to understand and embrace is a community-driven approach where we see “others” as part of our community and want them to be treated fairly. They are no longer “others,” only members of our communities. Our relationship with those in our community who have less is no longer one of charity, only one of caring and solidarity.

Sense of Community Webinar
Email subscribers, look for an invitation to join David Chavis, Kien Lee, and Marissa Salazar on April 23, 12 pm EST, for a presentation and discussion about our own journeys related to sense of community and the importance and assessment of sense of community. A second blog and webinar will follow about strength of community and how to strengthen community and evaluate the outcomes, including sense of community.

References

Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2024). Cross-country trends in affective polarization. Review of Economics and Statistics, 1-9.

Graham. C. (2023). The Power of Hope. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6-23.

Pew Research Center (2014, June 12). Political Polarization in the American Public. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/

United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. United States Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

About The Authors

David Chavis, PhD, Senior Fellow, specializes in building the capacity of communities to develop sustainable equitable systems change strategies to address complex social problems at the community, state, and national levels. David has published in practitioner and scientific journals on subjects of community capacity building systems, systems change evaluation methods, sense of community, and grassroots community organization.

Kien S. Lee, Ph.D., Vice President of Consulting, has expertise in research, evaluation, and other capacity building in the areas of equity, inclusion, and cultural competency, as they pertain to health disparities, immigrant integration, civic participation, leadership development, and community and systems change. Kien’s commitment to bridge science, practice, and social change led to her appointment to Governor Martin O’Malley’s Commission to study the impact of immigration on Maryland and receive the Distinguished Contributions to Practice in Community Psychology award.

Marissa Salazar, Ph.D., Associate, has extensive experience in using research and evaluation to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in organizations. She specializes in developing, implementing, and evaluating strategies to promote inclusion and racial equity and to build leadership capacity to advocate for antiracist policies and practices. She especially brings a wealth of knowledge in White allyship.