Community residents are the best judge of what they need in their immediate surroundings to promote good health. ACORN and other organizing groups recognize this expertise and are leveraging it to make tremendous contributions towards improving the health of communities across the nation. ACORN fights for healthy communities by promoting factors like improved land use, public transportation, housing quality, walkability, safety, access to parks, bikeability, food retail options, and environmental protection. Broad civic participation is essential so citizens can weigh in on policies that will address these factors and impact their health.

For example, ACORN is pushing the City of Los Angeles to ensure that new development projects reduce existing health disparities in low-income communities. To make sure that new residential development improves the health of the community, ACORN and partnering organizations have sought to assess community needs, health conditions of residents, and place based factors that affect health. In a recent project, ACORN asked over 300 residents to complete surveys in either English or Spanish at community meetings, schools, or faith based institutions, and by going door to door.  ACORN used the community survey as a tool for organizational outreach and recruitment, to ensure that new development meets the needs of current residents, to set priorities for further research and policy, to raise awareness about health disparities, and to get a gauge of what is going on the ground.

Without efforts such as these, community voices often are left unheard, which is why organizing groups such as ACORN are vital to the movement for building healthy communities.

In the last week or so, we’ve heard a lot about community organizing – with many poignant comments ranging from the role of community organizers historically to the connection between “the difficult work done by community organizers and the pragmatic work of coalition-building done by elected officials.”  I’d like to add a digital perspective to the conversation. Organizing on the web is shaping the American political environment: influencing how people advocate for issues, support political candidates and engage their neighbors – near and far – in the political and policymaking process.

People everywhere, armed with laptops, cellphones, iPhones, Blackberrys and the like, are augmenting the efforts of organizers on the ground, broadening the dissemination of information, and pushing for policy change in really profound and impactful ways.

Care2.com is just one of many sites where online organizing is all abuzz. There’s an activist toolkit - join/start a group, start a petition, write a blog (nice) - to promote your cause; create a poll to gauge what issues people are most concerned about; or browse food & recipes, health & wellness, and healthy home (organizers are just ordinary folks who want to do good and live healthy, afterall).

This site is just one example. What are some other examples of everyday people using the power of technology for social change?