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Organizing for Power and Empowerment offers perspectives on how to build powerful organizations that engage in community organizing work to create change. In particular, Chapter 8 focuses on a discussion of evaluation and its role within the organizing process.
The book lays out four key components of successful community organizing work:
§ Instrumental changes (to the external environment)
§ Developing leadership
§ Developing the organization's resources and capacities
§ Enhancing the public's awareness of the organization and its issues
After an in-depth analytic discussion of each of these components and their importance to successful organizing work, the book points to a theory of change created by the interrelation of these components (e.g. successful leadership development leads to the creation of environmental changes). It also discusses the importance of using on-going assessments to create moments of celebration of success during an organizing campaign. Given the long-term nature of organizing work and the forces (such as greater resources and power, and resistance to change) lined up against success, the authors note that identifying and celebrating incremental successes during the process can serve a key function of maintaining motivation and momentum.
The theoretical discussions of these components may help users identify which aspects of their organizing work they want to focus on for evaluation purposes. | 
