Initially a concept that emphasized local service to empower individuals and families dealing with economic hardship, Community Action was central both for the War on Poverty and for Sargent Shriver, who believed that to truly empower people, you had to do so on their terms, not according to a cookie-cutter definition of success or prosperity. When Sargent Shriver came on the scene to lead the War on Poverty, he embraced the notion of community action and was a proponent of setting up local agencies that would focus on the specific and varied needs of the economically disadvantaged.