Community organization for social welfare

Several years ago, when serving as chairman of Section III (Com munity Organization) of the National Conference of Social Work, I received a suggestion for a new approach to our year's work. George Rabinoff, then of New York and now in Chicago, proposed that our committee organize study groups in several cities, asking them to for mulate a definition of the concept "community organization." He pointed out that there appeared to be little agreement as to the implications of the term and that clarification was needed. The members of the program com mittee agreed. As a result, committees in six cities devoted considerable attention during the ensuing year to this assignment. Their reports were collated at the annual conference in 1939 and a written synthesis was effected.

All of the participants thought this experience had been provocative and that some clarification had resulted. There was agreement that the experiment should be continued. Thus was launched a co-operative analy sis which is still under way, though activity has necessarily been some what slowed down in recent years because of the added obligations im posed upon all members of the group by the war emergency. Considerable material has been circulated among the members of the study group and statements have been published that appear to indicate progress toward the objective originally envisaged.