The HDI projects work with community groups made up of community members with common needs and interests, such as landless casual laborers or fishermen, who elect their own spokespersons to represent them in village development meetings. All transactions between project and community are witnessed and ratified by the majority of the community members in a village forum. Existing village institutions such as the local abbot and the village monastery, or in other cases, the village church, are enlisted to provide a focal point for community cohesion and consensus. Community groups have been established to address interests of specific groups such as landless labourers and agricultural workers, who often make up the poor in the village.

The projects work with communities to ensure that the 'voice and choice' of all in the community have been heard, and that only those activities supported and agreed to by a majority, of the village are carried out, and that the minority concerns are heard even if activities are agreed upon by a majority. Only when such aspects have been ensured do the projects move towards activities in cooperation with the community.

The focus of the HDI projects, and of the community development projects in particular, is as much on promoting equitable and transparent processes, as on material inputs. While assistance in grants and kind for community assets and to help jump start some activities is provided, they are a means to ensure that prerequisite processes of community transparency and equity are met.

Ultimately, the aim is to leave communities a legacy of self-help human capacities, that will last beyond the end of the projects and enable them to carry on similar or new activities on their own.