Many think of community organizing for prevention or other projects as trying to get as many community members as possible to participate. While it is desirable to include representation from many diverse segments of the community’s population, it will likely not be possible to engage individuals from every community segment. “Intentional Organizing” refers to strategic organizing. Environmental prevention works by engaging the necessary community members at the right time. This means broad based participation at the point when demonstrating broad community support is necessary; policy-maker participation may be targeted at the point when potential policy solutions are being tested; medical workers and other informal influential community members may be engaged to participate in a media event as community spokespeople, etc.

This approach may be different for communities where prevention coalition meetings consist primarily of representatives from social services, public health, substance abuse treatment and prevention agencies. Intentional organizing does not preclude these individuals from being involved, but the objective is to get a broader representation of key segments of the general population.

Because the primary objective of a coalition is to help develop and implement the strategic plan to change those elements in the local community supporting unhealthy and unsafe behaviors,
local coalitions are frequently referred to as Local Strategy Teams.