Running Campaigns
2. Understanding Power and Purpose
Recognising How Collective Strength Creates Change
To lead effectively, you need to understand both why you are organising and how power works in your community.
Power is often misunderstood. It is not control or authority. In community organising, power is the capacity to act together, the collective strength of people, relationships, and resources working in coordination to shape outcomes and create change.
The Community Organising Handbook includes a Power Mapping Worksheet and Purpose Statement Template to help your Association understand where influence lies and how to focus its effort for the greatest impact.
These tools guide campaign planning and strategic decision-making, ensuring that your Association’s actions are purposeful and aligned with its values.
Understanding and applying these tools ensures that your group uses its collective power effectively and with integrity.
1. Defining Power in Organising
Every community already holds power in its people and relationships, including social networks, local credibility, skills, and shared identity, that can be intentionally organised to create influence and action.
The organiser’s task is to identify these strengths and use them to plan strategic action.
Practice:
- Use the Power Mapping Worksheet in the Handbook to identify where decisions are made, who can influence them, and how your Association can engage effectively.
- Discuss how existing relationships, community networks, and supporters can be mobilised to advance your next campaign.
- Decide which alliances, partnerships, or outreach activities could strengthen your strategy before taking action.
Trainer’s Reflection:
When we complete a power map together, people often realise how much influence already exists in their networks.
They see that power is not something we wait to be given; it is something we can organise and direct.
Recognising this helps us plan more effectively and act with confidence.
2. Linking Power to Purpose
Power without direction can be wasted. Purpose gives meaning, boundaries, and focus to collective effort.
It answers three questions: Why are we acting? Who are we acting for? What are we trying to achieve?
The Community Organising Handbook includes a Purpose Statement Template that helps groups write a clear statement describing their reason for action.
This statement becomes the anchor for strategy, ensuring that every campaign, meeting, and decision serves the Association’s goals.
Practice:
- Write one sentence that defines your Association’s purpose using the template provided.
- Ask each member to draft their own version, then compare and combine them to find shared words and ideas.
- Discuss how your purpose can guide which campaigns or actions you take on next.
Trainer’s Reflection:
When we write our purpose statement together, the room always feels lighter.
People discover how much they already agree on, even when they use different words.
Once the purpose is written clearly, strategy and campaigns fall naturally into place.
3. Using Power Responsibly
With collective power comes shared responsibility.
The Community Organising Handbook outlines core Organising Principles that guide Associations in using collective capability deliberately and transparently, ensuring that influence remains aligned with shared purpose and values.
A healthy Association uses its power strategically and responsibly, ensuring that campaigns strengthen participation and serve the wider Heritage Australian community.
Practice:
- Review the Organising Principles in the Handbook and discuss what each one means in your local context.
- Identify ways your Association can apply these principles in meetings, campaigns, and communication.
- Keep your Purpose Statement visible in every meeting to remind members why power exists and who it serves.
Trainer’s Reflection:
When we remind ourselves that power is shared, not owned, discussions become calmer and decisions fairer.
The Organising Principles give us a reference point whenever tension rises or priorities shift.
They help us keep the work grounded in respect and purpose.
Summary
Understanding power and purpose gives your Association the ability to plan strategically and act with confidence.
By mapping influence, defining purpose, and applying shared principles, your group can focus its energy where it will have the greatest effect.
The Community Organising Handbook provides the tools to guide this process, turning collective capability into coordinated strategy and coordinated strategy into meaningful, values-based results.
This topic prepares you for the next stage: 3. Identifying Issues and Setting Goals, where you will learn how to turn shared concerns into achievable campaigns that create real outcomes for your community.