Until fairly recently in the United Kingdom, the term ‘community organizing’,even within the third sector, was a relatively unfamiliar term. Although community organizing had been practised in the United Kingdom for almost twenty years, few outside of the third sector would have been familiar with the term or have known much about it. That changed from about 2008 onwards. First, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States – he had been a community organizer in his earlier career and the attention that comes with the presidential office meant that for a while at least the spotlight was focused on community organizing. Second, and linked to the Obama factor, David Cameron in the run up to the 2010 general election announced his intention, upon election, for community organizing to form a key part in the strategy to help build the Big Society. This all significantly raised the profile of an approach to working with communities, which from its origins in the United States had struggled initially during the 1990s to become established in the United Kingdom. From 2000 onwards, however, it began to take root and flourish, most notably through the work of London Citizens (for a critical perspective of the development of community organizing within a UK context and of the philosophy and principles underpinning an Alinskyan approach, see the article ‘Broad-based organizing in the UK: reasserting the centrality
of political activity in community development’ by Bunyan, 2010).