Social mobilization is the primary step of community development, to organize and initiate action with their own enterprise and creativity. Through mobilization, people can organize themselves to take action collectively by developing their own plan and strategy for Socio Economic Development. Socio-economic development initiatives are a great incentive for community members to organize themselves. TNULM envisages universal social mobilization of urban poor and vulnerable sections into Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations. Generally, women from the poor and vulnerable households are mobilised as Self Help groups with a membership between 10 and 20.

TNULM lays particular emphasis on the mobilization of vulnerable sections of the urban poor population, such as SCs, STs, minorities, women-headed households, differently-abled, destitute, migrant labourers, and vulnerable occupational groups such as street vendors, rag pickers, domestic workers, beggars, construction workers etc.