The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee stressed the need to improve sharing (Kai, Qiyu et al. 2022). As the “last mile” of urban social governance, urban communities bear the micro-level guarantee of social construction, governance, and services, and are an important part of the overall national governance layout. In recent years, party building has made remarkable achievements in leading community governance. However, with the rapid development of the social economy and the growing diversity and personalized needs of residents, community governance has become more complex, and risks and costs have continued to rise. The contradiction between limited resources and massive tasks has become a huge gap facing urban community governance (Ling, 2023). The key to breaking the deadlock in community governance lies in the acquisition and activation of governance resources. However, various constraints make it more difficult to obtain “administrative resources” vertically (Wang and Bai, 2024). Therefore, horizontally acquiring the “social resources” of social organizations is an important way to solve the dilemma of community development. The embedded governance model is a constructive new form of community governance (Liu & Zhang, 2020). The two-way embedding of social organizations and urban communities can realize the exchange of services, capabilities, information, and other resources between the two, achieving the effect of two-way empowerment. In the current context of community governance, what mechanisms do social organizations use to embed themselves in communities? How do social organizations make up for the lack of governance resources in communities? After being embedded in communities, how do social organizations integrate into the community governance system to improve governance capabilities and achieve community co-governance?
As an incremental element (Gao and Yang, 2018), social organizations have gradually become an indispensable part of the community governance system due to their role in building community publicness (Zheng, 2018), synergy among multiple entities (Chen & Huang, 2021), and service substitution. Scholars point out that social organizations are “embedded” ways to gain legitimacy and development space. At the same time, the government intervenes in establishing and supervising social organizations and “reverse embeds” them in social organizations to realize the flow of national resources within the system. Social organizations are “embedded” in communities and community residents, realizing “two-way embedding” at the subject level. Based on this, they carry out the triple embedding of “relationship-cognition-structure” in governance practice (Zhao, 2023), promote the reconstruction of the cooperative network of community multi-governance, realize the multiple embedding of their own “resources-emotions-capabilities”, achieve the purpose of interest coupling, joint action and emotional resonance (Xu and Shi, 2024), and ultimately realize resource sharing and two-way empowerment between social organizations and urban communities. Some scholars also believe that social organizations are facing the “paradoxical” dilemma of being. “Floating” social organizations find it difficult to effectively play the “social coordination” function in social governance, and the lack of trust makes it difficult for social organizations to establish visibility and intimacy with other subjects in the community (Zhang & Liu, 2022). The lack of funds has limited the organization’s autonomy and innovation, the trend toward bureaucratization is obvious, and institutional barriers have affected the organization’s resilience and cohesion.
In general, the existing research results summarize the action strategies of social organizations with “embedded governance” as the main line, and analyze the dilemma of social organizations participating in the localization practice of community governance, which lays a solid foundation for this study to understand the participation of social organizations in community governance in multiple “embedded” ways. However, the shortcomings of the above research are that, first, the involvement of social organizations in community governance is a dynamic development process, and the research with social organizations as the main body mostly stays in static theoretical explanations, and there are few theoretical studies based on process dimensions and practical levels. Secondly, most of the existing studies study the embedded relationship between the two subjects of government and community and social organizations separately and rarely combine the two embedded relationships to explore. Therefore, based on the embeddedness theory, this paper attempts to use the analytical framework of “embedded co-governance” from the perspective of co-governance to explore the innovative practices of social organizations in L community participating in community governance and propose optimization paths.
Embeddedness theory was proposed by Karl Polanyi, emphasizing the process of one thing entering another. Embeddedness refers to the entry of one force, structure, or system into another force, structure, or system. Embeddedness is an important way for social organizations to survive and develop in China. Embedded co-governance takes embeddedness theory as its perspective. Based on examining the two sets of embedded relationships between grassroots governments and social organizations and between social organizations and communities, it adopts three perspectives: policy embeddedness, structural embeddedness, and cognitive embeddedness, and adopts rigid embeddedness and flexible embeddedness to strengthen the connection between grassroots governments and social organizations, and between communities and social organizations. On this basis, focusing on the three dimensions of embeddedness, namely policy, structure, and cognition, it proposes action strategies to optimize the participation of social organizations in community governance, aiming to clarify the two embedded relationships, form a governance synergy of community collaborative co-governance, and thus effectively improve the effectiveness of social organizations in participating in community governance.
As a rigid embedding method, policy embedding refers to effectively integrating a series of policies, regulations, measures, etc. into all aspects of community governance to achieve effective guidance and regulation of community resource allocation, governance subject behavior, public interests, etc. It is an institutional guarantee for social organizations to participate in community governance. Policy embedding can clarify the positioning and goals of social organizations in community governance and ensure that their participation process is more directional and normative. First, through policy embedding, the direction, focus and expected results of governance can be clearly defined, and a clear action guide can be provided for community governance subjects to solve the problems of authority and legitimacy of social organizations. Second, through rules and regulations, the behavior of social organizations can be regulated and constrained to ensure that governance activities operate within the legal framework and prevent the occurrence of power abuse and corruption. Otherwise, the role, responsibilities, working methods, and procedures of social organizations in community governance will not be recognized and will be counterproductive. Policy embedding can also drive the embedding of social governance forces, such as corporate donations, social donations, fund projects, etc. Embedding these social governance resources can expand the service scope and influence of social organizations and lay the foundation for their further deepening development. In short, policy embedding is a comprehensive embedding method, the purpose of which is to allow non-public power organizations to actively or passively assume certain political responsibilities and become the carrier of national grassroots governance.
Structural embedding, as another rigid embedding method, refers to embedding a certain organization or system in the form of relatively independent organizational elements into another existing organization or institutional system, achieving structural coupling between the two and forming a new and more closely related structure. The structural embedding of social organizations here refers to: first, the personnel embedding of social workers. This includes both the establishment of the public-private relationship network of social workers and the development of party members within social organizations and the establishment of party organizations to achieve the community’s reverse embedding of social organizations, to ensure that social organizations do not act beyond the rules and coordinate the relationship between the multiple governance entities in the community; second, the cultivation of community self-organization. Social workers use their professional advantages to cultivate residents’ self-organization in the community, help improve the organizational system and system, and integrate scattered resources into the community governance system to enhance the sustainability and synergy of governance. Through structural embedding, effective integration and sharing of governance resources can be achieved, and policy guidance and financial support can be provided to the embedded objects to enhance their governance capabilities. In addition, structural embedding helps to build a closer organizational linkage mechanism. Party organizations or relevant governance institutions can form a cooperative relationship with the embedded objects for regular communication, information sharing, and coordinated operations to cope with governance difficulties and challenges jointly.
As a flexible embedding method, cognitive embedding refers to integrating specific cognitive frameworks, values, and ways of thinking into all aspects of governance. Cognitive embedding is the consolidation and expansion of policy embedding and structural embedding, and its purpose is to form the “greatest common divisor” of harmonious community governance. Cognitive embedding is manifested in the recognition of common value goals and the willingness of members within the organization to cooperate mutually. First, strengthen political identity. Strengthen the party building and ideological work of social organizations, actively integrate into the community political environment, implement a major event reporting system, ensure the correct orientation of actions, participate in multi-party governance actions, shape the value of collaborative governance, and form the concept of community governance community. Second, change traditional concepts. Social organizations must first “raise the flag” and “show their identity”. Under the guidance of the community party committee and neighborhood committee, they must gradually integrate into the community’s acquaintance society and guide residents to recognize, understand, and recognize that social organizations are part of community governance. Finally, adhere to the resident-oriented governance concept. Taking the diverse needs of community residents as the starting point of work, while meeting community needs and government expectations, social organizations can also gain social recognition and administrative support from residents, and achieve a win-win governance goal for all parties.
To examine the practice process of embedded co-governance and reveal its occurrence logic and operation mechanism, this paper takes the governance practice innovation of L Community in D City as the research object and analyzes its operational practice of introducing social organizations to participate in community governance and realizing community co-governance. In the context of the modernization of urban social governance, D City has given full play to the unique advantages of social organizations in building community consensus, linking governance resources, and promoting extensive participation of residents. It has successively issued several policy documents and laws and regulations to promote the modernization of community governance in the form of “social organizations participating in community governance”. As a key construction community of “social organization participation” in D City, L Community is a demonstration model for introducing social organizations to participate in community governance. The community belongs to T District of D City, covers an area of 0.28 square kilometers, has 5 municipal and district-level units and 5 resident groups in the jurisdiction, has 39 houses and 139 units, a permanent population of more than 14,000 people, a floating population of more than 7,600 people, and a high proportion of elderly people in the community. It is a typical old city community. In 2020, L Community was rated as a “social organization participation” grassroots governance demonstration community in S Province. In recent years, under the guidance of the ” Guiding Opinions on Party Building Leading the Innovation of Municipal Social Governance and Deepening the Participation of Social Organizations in Social Governance” issued by D City, L Community has further leveraged its policy advantages, optimized its governance structure, reshaped its governance concepts, and explored the path of community co-governance based on introducing three social organizations, namely Zhongai, Shanxing and Benshan, to forge a joint force for co-governance and form a 2.0 version of “social organization participation”. This practical exploration has achieved good governance results in solving problems such as scattered community resources, suspended residents’ needs, and low governance efficiency.
This case is representative, practical, and theoretically consistent. Since July 2023, the research team has visited the case community many times, using research methods such as observation and semi-structured interviews, focusing on the main practices and operating mechanisms of social organizations participating in innovative practices of community governance. The research team conducted more than ten interviews with the secretary of the Party Working Committee of Y Street, the secretary of L Community, the head of community volunteer services, the head of social organizations, and community residents. At the same time, relevant policy documents, work logs, reporting materials, media reports, etc. were collected and systematically summarized and analyzed, which provided an important supplement to this study.
Grassroots cooperative governance is a structure and process in which multiple subjects achieve joint action across organizational boundaries, including ” a series of coordination and promotion activities ” to maintain cooperative relationships or systems. The embedded co-governance practice of social organizations participating in community governance in L community of D city shows that the formation of community co-governance pattern presents three embedded stages in terms of time and logic. By revealing the governance environment, goals, subject relationships, and other dimensions of the three embedded stages, we can not only clarify the practical rationality of various policies and practices of the L community but also conduct theoretical abstraction and construction of the practice stories of L community, to dig deeper and understand the innovative mechanism of social organizations participating in community governance in L community.
Table 1 Characteristics of Embedded Co-Governance at Different Stages
By the relevant requirements of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, D City issued the “Notice of the Civil Affairs Bureau of D City on Vigorously Cultivating and Developing Community Social Organizations” in 2020, requiring the city to vigorously develop community social organizations according to local conditions and give play to their unique role in providing community services and expanding residents’ participation. Based on this, L Community registered the first social welfare organization in D City. In 2022, the term “social organization” was mentioned 59 times in the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Civil Affairs in D City ” issued by D City, providing a full range of policy guidance for social organizations to participate in community governance from multiple aspects. First, in terms of development goals, by 2025, the coverage rate of social organization incubation parks (bases) at the municipal and county levels will reach 100 %, and the implementation of the ” Double Hundred Project ” for incubation and cultivation of community social organizations will be promoted. Second, in terms of party-building leadership, social organization leaders and party organization secretaries are encouraged to ” enter in both directions ” and ” cross-appoint ” under laws and regulations, and community organization party organization coverage will be achieved through single construction, joint construction, and other methods. Third, in terms of organizational development, comprehensive planning is carried out from the aspects of policy and legal support, incubation park construction, practitioner training, and credit management. Subsequently, D City issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Social Organizations in D City”, which emphasized the construction of a positive, diverse, and integrated policy system to support the development of social organizations. At present, a four-level social organization incubation system of “city-county (city, district)-township (street)-village (community)” has been initially established. With the support of relevant policies, L Community has also formed a “six-level incubation system” for social organizations in the jurisdiction through the mobilization and guidance of the party branch and cultivated a large number of community self-organizations to participate in the governance of L Community.
Based on clarifying the development plan of social organizations and the orientation of party-building-led work, D City further promoted the formulation and implementation of executive policies. In terms of establishing a work pattern, the “Guiding Opinions on Further Promoting the In-depth Participation of Mass Organizations in D City in Social Governance” was issued to establish and improve a social work promotion mechanism led by the Party Committee, responsible for the government, promoted by mass organizations, coordinated by the society, and participated by the public. In terms of innovation in work mechanisms, D City issued the “Guiding Opinions on Party Building Leading the Innovation of Municipal Social Governance and Deepening the Participation of Social Organizations in Social Governance”, emphasizing the role of community party organizations in leading reforming, and innovating. In 2020, L Community successfully cooperated with the local S University to carry out school-community pairing and joint creation work; under the guidance of the “Opinions on Innovating the “Five-Community Linkage” Mechanism to Improve the Effectiveness of Community Governance”, the social organization work mechanism of L Community has gradually innovated from “three-society linkage” to “five-society linkage” and “micro-governance”. In the cultivation of social work talents, the L community has carried out in-depth social organization capacity building and social worker capacity improvement training courses, inviting professors from local S universities and business experts from social work organizations to teach courses such as “Basic Knowledge of Social Work” and “Social Work Practice” for nursing home caregivers, child supervisors, child directors, and community social workers, to enhance the service awareness and professional service skills of service personnel from various social organizations.
Various supervisory policies have established a full-process, all-round policy supervision system. In terms of organizational access, the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Civil Affairs in D City ” clearly requires newly registered social organizations to clarify the functions and responsibilities of the registration and management authorities, business supervisory units, and industry management departments. The Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau issued the ” Work Plan for the Credit Commitment System of Social Organizations in D City”, and the legal representative made prior commitments on party building, internal governance, and conditions for appointment. In terms of daily supervision, a comprehensive supervision system for the entire life cycle of social organizations has been established and improved. By the requirements of the “Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Groups”, the “Annual Inspection Measures for Social Groups” and the “Interim Measures for the Spot Check of Social Organizations”, daily supervision of community social organizations has been strengthened through annual inspections, annual reports, change registrations, spot checks, and audits, etc. Many social organizations in the L community have been rated as excellent in consecutive annual assessments. Regarding grade assessment, the Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau has formulated a special “Social Organization Grade Assessment Scoring Rules” for social service agencies, and classified managed, and cultivated relevant organizations based on the grade assessment results. Among them, the L Community Good Deeds Social Work Service Center was rated as a 3A social organization.
Social organizations are one of the important forces that change the production trajectory of community space (Xu, Tang & Zhang, 2024). Service bases are the spatial foundation for social organizations and other entities to carry out their work, and are also important venues for multiple entities to connect and interact. To further give play to the advantages of social organizations’ professional services, with the support of the street party committee, L Community carried out a people-friendly transformation of the community service base with the goal of “minimizing office space and maximizing service functions”, optimizing and integrating more than 500 square meters of public space. Various social organizations rely on a series of activity bases such as the renovated party and mass service center, cultural activity center, continuing education center, civilization practice station, integrity and morality lecture hall, women’s petition agency, integrity calligraphy and painting room, community police station, and spiritual station to carry out policy-supported, resident-demand, community-specific, and daily management service projects. The transformation of L Community space and the establishment of a co-governance space provides solid and powerful base support for the community autonomous organizations, hub organizations, cultural and sports organizations, and social work organizations to carry out diversified and professional work.
The diversification of residents and the refinement of their needs require the complexity of the types of social organizations and their functions. The elderly and children are the main components of the residents of the L community. Therefore, “loving the elderly” and “helping children” are the main needs of the L community to introduce social organizations. At the same time, because the community service personnel are limited, mobilizing and stimulating the enthusiasm of community residents to participate in community governance is also an important task of social organizations. Based on introducing the Zhongai Social Work Service Center to carry out the “helping children” work, L community closely focuses on the living needs of the elderly in the community and introduces the Good Deeds Service Center. At the same time, it connects with young volunteers from S universities to carry out special activities with the theme of “Youth Volunteerism Love in the Community” such as “Respecting and Helping the Elderly”, “Medical Care”, “Cultural and Sports Entertainment”, “Convenience and Benefits for the People”, etc. To serve the elderly and children in the area. The Party branch secretary of L Community said: ” Different social organizations certainly play different roles. The problem of “the old and the young” in our community is particularly prominent. How to carry out activities for them has always been a problem we have been thinking about. Introducing different types of social organizations to carry out activities suitable for them will do a better job than if we do it ourselves. Professional matters still need to be done by professionals.” In addition, based on establishing a community public welfare talent pool, L Community also introduced the Benshan Social Work Service Center under the supervision of the D City Civil Affairs Bureau to provide targeted training for community public welfare talents, carry out publicity of social work policies and regulations, provide social work professional services, promote the establishment of community social organizations, forge endogenous community strength, and enhance residents’ awareness and ability of self-governance.
Table 2 Contents of services provided by social organizations in the L community for the elderly and children
The improvement of community co-governance capacity also lies in the integration of existing governance resources in the community through resource activation, forming new governance forces embedded in the community governance system, thereby extending the governance chain and improving the governance network. The L Community Party Branch attaches great importance to nurturing organizational strength within the community. Based on giving full play to its advantages in political leadership, ideological leadership, and mass mobilization, it uses a standardized social self-organization cultivation system. With the help of the L Community Benshan Social Work Service Center, community self-organizations can only give back to the community and participate in social governance after going through six stages: demand investigation, recruitment application, field investigation, incubation and cultivation, development and maturity, and participation in governance. At present, three community social organizations have been incubated and cultivated in the L community, namely the community cultural and art troupe, the environmental protection propaganda team, and the safety emergency team to participate in community governance, forming a list of service projects, customizing demand-oriented special public welfare services for service objects, and guiding residents to participate in community public affairs.
Strengthen the leading role of community party organizations, jointly promote the development of community governance, and enhance the political cognition of collaborative governance. According to the spirit of the Guiding Opinions on Party Building Leading the Innovation of Municipal Social Governance and Deepening the Participation of Social Organizations in Social Governance in D City, the L Community Party Organization first strengthened the party building and ideological work of social organizations. According to the spirit of the document “Standards for the Construction of Party Branches of Two New Organizations in D City”, the “one standard” organization was implemented to achieve full coverage of the party organization and party work of L community social organizations to ensure effective community autonomy; a major event reporting system was implemented, and 12 major events involving ideological content, such as various reports held or hosted by social organizations, must be reported to the registration management authority and the community party organization. Secondly, reshape the value concept. Relying on the political appeal of “one branch and two committees”, the L Community Party Organization conveys the value rationality of “everyone fulfills their responsibilities and everyone enjoys”, guides the establishment of the community’s “co-construction, co-governance and sharing” values, ensures the correct direction of community social organizations in participating in community governance, and integrates the main functions of community social organizations with the party’s ruling goals. Finally, strengthen the management of social organizations. L Community actively explored the establishment of a social organization management office under the leadership of the community party committee, coordinated the social organizations in the jurisdiction, formulated corresponding funding management systems, and carried out real-time supervision of allocated funds to ensure that the actions of community social organizations were in line with the party’s policy orientation; carried out activities such as evaluation and commendation, demonstration creation, etc. to enhance the motivation of organization members to participate in community affairs, and implemented the social work service system construction project to ensure that community social organizations have a firm political direction while also having excellent professional service capabilities.
Social organizations, through cognitive re-embedding, focus on the mechanism of the role of community residents’ group cognition and group thinking in community public culture, sports, and daily management, embed the governance concept of modern co-governance into the original governance concept of the community, rely on various spiritual civilization creation activities, repeatedly encourage the community to advocate new governance concepts, and subtly influence the members of the community, thereby improving the cognitive level of residents and changing the traditional concept that social workers are “volunteers in vests”. On the one hand, cultivate resident “leaders”. L Community uses the influence of community self-organization leaders and community virtuous people to cultivate “leaders” with leading and exemplary roles. Under the leadership of the “leaders”, residents gradually accept community social organizations and understand the necessity and importance of their work, thereby supporting the work of various subjects in terms of concepts and laying the ideological foundation for further participation in practice. On the other hand, strengthens public opinion supervision. By using the community’s residents’ deliberation system, women’s petition agency, and heart-to-heart talk rooms to provide community residents with a normalized and convenient supervision platform, we use big data, WeChat, Douyin, and “L Community Smart Community Service Platform” and “Smart Community APP” to collect opinions and suggestions from a wider range of residents, thereby optimizing and improving work. Through the practice of residents’ supervision, residents’ satisfaction has been continuously improved, and various social organizations have increasingly gathered around the community party organization, laying the foundation for the community to exert its co-governance capabilities.
The community is the community of residents, and the needs of residents are the direction of community governance. By flexibly leveraging the professional advantages of social organizations and social workers and understanding the actual needs of community residents, we can change the path-dependent ” single mobilization ” approach, give full play to the mobilization power of other informal organizations, and achieve coordinated progress and common development of social mobilization (Xu & Liu, 2024). Volunteers from social organizations in the L community conducted in-depth visits and actively conducted field surveys on the community’s widowed elderly, single elderly, special elderly, and elderly in need, established a database for assisting the elderly, and adopted a “three-to-one” assistance model, that is, three volunteers paired up to assist one elderly person, and effectively helped the elderly solve their problems and provide heart-to-heart counseling. Regarding this practice, the volunteer leader of the L community said: “Grandma He in the community is an elderly widow. She had only one child but he died young, and her husband also passed away. She is old and has been alone for a long time, so she has no emotional comfort and can’t do some housework. Later, under this assistance model, several volunteers helped her do things within their ability and chatted with her, which brought great warmth. The old woman was moved to tears many times. Secondly, establish an assistance model of “assisting, supporting, and accompanying” to empower the elderly, care for children, achieve fun for the old and the young, improve the happiness of the old and the young, and build a space for common learning and a bridge for emotional communication for the elderly and children. Through various cultural activities, we convey the community’s public spirit, public welfare concepts, and values, gradually guide multiple subjects to participate in community governance, and gradually shift the governance concept from being guided by administrative tasks to being guided by residents’ needs. We carry out public welfare assistance activities such as “Morning and Night Companionship” and “Smart Support for the Elderly” to visit residents in-depth, comfort the lonely elderly, enrich their spiritual world, and enhance their sense of belonging; we stimulate young people’s sense of responsibility in the form of “theme education” and “weekend classes”.
Providing community volunteer services is the main way for social organizations in the L community to participate in community governance. In response to the problems of miscellaneous volunteer services, chaotic staffing, and weak community residents’ enthusiasm, L community has played its location advantages and introduced several social work service centers to form a community volunteer service system with wide fields, multiple levels, and wide coverage. For example, in terms of helping the elderly, the Shanxing Social Work Service Center was introduced to run the “Love in the Sunset” project to carry out companion services and knowledge training; in terms of loving children, the Zhongai Social Work Service Center was introduced to carry out activities such as 4:30 classes, weekend classes, scientific experiments, and traditional Chinese quintessence to practice the concept of “accompany and development”; in terms of community governance, the D City Benshan Social Work Service Center was introduced. After a process of demand survey, personnel recruitment, and team building, a group of community self-organizations such as community cultural and art troupes, environmental protection propaganda teams, and safety emergency teams were incubated and cultivated, and a list of service projects was generated. The service objects were customized with demand-oriented special public welfare services and guided the residents to participate in community public affairs. As of July 2023, various organizations have carried out 32 service activities and served more than 4,000 residents. The “14th Five-Year Plan for Urban and Rural Community Development and Governance in City D” points out that by 2025, urban communities will have an average of 12 community social organizations, including resident services, cultural and sports activities, public welfare and charity, participation in grassroots governance and other categories. By then, the volunteer service system and quality in the L community will be further improved and enhanced.
As a flexible force, social organizations directly point to the community citizen participation network and self-organization construction, thereby activating community social capital from the bottom up. In the cultivation of social capital, social organizations in the L community play the role of “database” for information exchange and “bridge” for resource exchange. First, link external resources. L community Zhongai social work undertakes public welfare fund projects such as “Children’s Safety” and “One Foundation Warmth Package”, bringing warmth and assistance to poor students in the community; Benshan Social Work Service Center has established project relationships with Shanghai True Love Dream Charity Foundation, Shenzhen One Foundation Charity Foundation, Zhejiang Women and Children Foundation, China Social Relief Foundation Beijing Da Ai Qing Chen Foundation, etc. so that rich social capital can be injected into L community; at the same time, D city links social charity resources of nearly 5 million yuan, introduces 12 million yuan of Sinopec charity scholarships, and subsidizes more than 3,000 needy students including L community. Second, activate internal community resources. On the one hand, the L community has been renovated to be more people-friendly, covering an area of more than 380 square meters. With the help of teachers and students from S University , the Zhongai social workers have painted and beautified the idle wall resources in the community, revitalizing the idle resources in the community; Benshan social workers have taken the lead in establishing a community talent database, and at the same time carried out a variety of cultural and sports activities to mobilize the emotions of residents, awaken the sense of ownership, encourage the cultivation of community self-organization, and activate community human resources. On the other hand, the first smart community in D City was created. The L community uses the “Smart Community APP” to integrate community party-building resources, government resources, medical resources, and commercial resources to form a “smart life circle”. The L community smart platform has achieved full coverage of more than 3,000 households, and the platform has more than 7,000 registered users, which not only facilitates the daily life of residents but also provides an intensive smart platform for the work of community social organizations.
The community is a place for grassroots self-governance. The innovation of “governance” also includes the meaning of residents’ self-governance, that is, returning the community to the residents. L Community social organizations use diverse community cultural activities as a carrier to continuously activate residents’ awareness of participation in activities. First, cultivate the spirit of public participation of residents. In the activities of spiritual civilization creation, the majority of residents gradually realize that they are the masters of the community and the subjects of self-management and self-service, to further participate in community self-governance as active persons, laying a value foundation for the good governance of the community. Second, cultivate the democratic participation ability of residents. In the organization, planning, and implementation of public activities, the ability of community residents to engage in democratic consultation, democratic management, and democratic supervision can be exercised. Using community self-organization as a platform can further enhance the democratic participation ability of residents and become a master of residents’ self-governance so that residents can become their managers and builders of the community. The head of a social organization said: “(Our) help is still very obvious. In the past, some residents had low quality and were unwilling to participate in any activities, always finding various reasons and excuses to shirk. Later, we provided corresponding services based on the actual needs of residents and solved some problems. Gradually, we changed the previous dilemma of us performing and them watching. They are also willing to join us, and we jointly carry out activities and participate in community governance together.
A sound policy guarantee mechanism can not only provide political guarantees for social organizations to participate in community governance but also guide social organizations to participate in community governance in an orderly and efficient manner from the perspective of future development and work goals. First, improve the design of supportive policies. It is necessary to formulate specific policies such as the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting Social Organizations to Participate in Community Governance” and the “Special Action Plan for the Development of Community Social Organizations”. On the basis of regulating and guiding social organizations, we should relax the access to social organizations, regularly organize promotion meetings and negotiation meetings, promote the docking of social organizations with communities, expand the service scope of social organizations in the community, use public welfare venture capital, welfare lottery and the establishment of relevant charitable funds to ensure the financial foundation, and then build a three-level support system of districts, streets, and communities. Second, improve relevant laws and regulations. Based on the stakeholder theory, we should pay more attention to the legitimacy and legitimacy of social organizations participating in grassroots social governance (Huang and Liu, 2022) . It is necessary to issue special laws and regulations for social organizations to confirm the application for establishment, financial support, personnel mobility, and promotion of social organizations, and examine whether there are aspects in the current laws and regulations that hinder development or even form restrictions, to clear obstacles for the development of social organizations. Third, provide developmental policy support. The municipal and district civil affairs bureaus take the lead in implementing training projects for leaders and key business personnel of social organizations, play an advanced and exemplary role, incorporate social organization practitioners into the management of reserve cadres for the community’s “two committees”, support the selection of community cadres from members of social organizations, and select outstanding community social organizations and service projects to commend and reward them.
Professional service capabilities are the basic support for the function of social organizations, and the optimization and construction of the organization’s structure is an important mechanism for improving the work efficiency of social organizations. Specifically, first, cultivate diversified community self-organization. Cultivate “one old and one young” special service teams to participate in community public welfare construction; cultivate emergency rescue and public health teams to participate in community safety construction; cultivate residents’ autonomy and residents’ consultation teams to participate in democratic community construction, form a community governance “public welfare pool”, and create a comprehensive and wide-coverage self-organization system in the community. Second, promote the “reorganization” of community self-organization. The community self-organization formed based on residents’ interests and hobbies will be forged into a community hub social organization. Through party building and professional business training for community self-organizations, the transformation from self-organization to the formal organization will be realized, and some functions of the government will be taken over, the needs of social organizations will be conveyed, and community resources will be integrated and residents will be mobilized to participate, becoming a new part of the community governance system. Third, promote the reform of the project system and group system. At present, the work of social organizations participating in community governance in many places is still in the development stage, and there is a relative shortage of business personnel in social organizations. The reform of project systems and group systems for social organizations is a means to maximize the use of limited resources. On the one hand, based on undertaking government project contracts, a project working group participated by personnel from all parties is established, which can not only link the resources of various entities to achieve multi-governance, but also realize the embedded governance of social organizations. On the other hand, the undertaken projects will be divided into detailed parts, and working groups will be established for each part to implement them in stages and steps to achieve the effect of micro-governance and refined governance.
Linkage” developed from the “three-society linkage” is a generally recognized model for social organizations to participate in community governance and a new paradigm for community co-governance. The “five-society” entities can effectively integrate governance cognition and convey the concept of co-governance by building differentiated linkage methods based on their advantages. First, the community leads the concept of co-governance. From the overall perspective, the leadership system of grassroots party organizations should be established and the value-leading function should be played. Community development plans should be formulated, and a multi-party exchange and consultation mechanism should be established to lay the foundation for the awareness of multi-party co-governance. Second, social organizations undertake the concept of co-governance. Guided by the value of community co-governance, they should undertake government-purchased service projects, connect with social charity resources, and contact various funds; internally, they should mobilize residents, contact neighborhood committees and property management, and jointly adhere to the work concept of resident orientation and residents as the center. Third, social workers and social volunteers practice the concept of co-governance. Implement the training project for young social workers and volunteer teams, and create a group of staff with strong professional capabilities and deep co-governance concepts to provide professional services; introduce volunteer forces from the government, universities, and civil society groups into the community to make up for the blank spots in social organizations’ services and the difficulties they want to do but have not done. Fourth, social charity resources convey the concept of co-governance. Compared with formal government resources, social charity resources have greater flexibility and public welfare recognition, promote the reform and construction of community social organizations, create a professional service brand for social organizations to embed co-governance, and enhance community influence. Based on this, the concept of collaborative co-governance is implemented and conveyed through the differential linkage of the “five social forces”, thereby consolidating the effectiveness of all parties to create a linked rather than static community governance community.
Funding Sources
I appreciate the resources provided by the key National Social Science Fund Major Program:
1. “Research on the Theoretical Connotations, Practical Pathways, and Safeguarding Mechanisms for Transforming Urban Development Models” (24ZDA051)
2. National Social Science Fund Key Program: “Research on the Modernization of Governance Systems and Governance Capabilities in Megacities” (22AZD141)
Disclosure Statement
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning this article’s research, authorship, or publication.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution.
