COMMUNITY COALITIONS AND GRASS-ROOTS POLICIES OF EMPOWERMENT

Foundations and government agencies use community coalitions increasin gly as instruments of social policy and program implementation. The ra tionales and hopes for community coalitions abound with terms such as grassroots, representation, development, and empowerment. This article examines the range and relationship of the conceptual meanings of the se terms to explain their consequences on community coalition building . It arranges their differences in conceptual patterns and suggests th at community coalitions have their greatest chance of success when the ir member groups share the same forms of representation and participat ion and pursue similar forms of empowerment and change. This discussio n clarifies the different policy and program purposes that different c ommunity coalitions may serve. Thus, the article explains the difficul ties with broad coalitions and may assist to make some community coali tion building easier and to make all community coalitions more effecti ve.