EMPOWERMENT PRAXIS IN COMMUNITY COALITIONS

Community coalitions address a wide variety of community problems, esp ousing a community development processes that promotes individual and collective self-determination. They offer a promising venue for the st udy of empowerment of individuals and organizations. This study utiliz es data from members of 35 community coalitions organized for the prev ention of alcohol and other drug problems to address the following que stions: What individual characteristics are related to the psychologic al empowerment of coalition members? What organizational characteristi cs are related to the collective empowering of members? What organizat ion characteristics are related to a coalition being organizationally empowered to succeed in achieving its objectives' At the individual le vel, psychological empowerment was most strongly related to individual s' participation levels, sense of community, and perceptions of a posi tive organizational climate. At the group level, the strongest predict ors of collective empowering (our operationalization of the empowering organization) were net benefits of participation, commitment, and pos itive organization climate. Psychological empowerment and positive org anizational climate were the two predictors of organizational effectiv eness (the empowered organization). Implications and limitations of th ese findings are discussed.