Supporting and Serving our Members

Members!

MACDC works to support our members in the field by both developing resources and leading learning initiatives and capacity building programs. We continue to build and grow the Mel King Institute for Community Building and our nationally recognized Community Development Innovation Forum, which we co-sponsor with LISC, provides important thought leadership for the field. These programs are described elsewhere in this Annual Report. In addition to these important programs, we continued to facilitate peer to peer learning and collaboration among our members through the following programs
 
Every year, MACDC releases the Growing Opportunities, Assets, and Leaders (GOALs) Initiative report to highlight the achievements of our members. In 2009, the GOALs results are especially impressive as MACDC Members managed to stay on track in meeting their performance goals in the midst of an unprecedented economic downturn. In 2009, MACDC’s members:
  • Engaged 2,143 community leaders who volunteered in CDC activities
  • Built or preserved 1,357 homes
  • Created or preserved 2,740 job opportunities
  • Assisted 2,008 entrepreneurs to start, grow, or stabilize their businesses by helping them to write business plans, identify new markets, improve operations and obtain financing
  • Supported 38,216 families with housing, jobs, foreclosure prevention counseling, homebuyer education and other services
  • Attracted more than $308 million in both private and public investments to support their community improvement efforts
MACDC is three years into the 4-year goals established for 2007-2010. Despite the economic crisis, CDCs are close to meeting their goals for leaders, homes and jobs, and are exceeding their goals for entrepreneurs assisted, families supported, and investment leveraged.
 
MACDC’s Peer Groups and Committees met throughout the year to address both macro issues that impact communities state-wide as well as individual issues impacting community economic development professionals. During FY2010 over 120 staff, board and leaders of CDCs participated in our different meetings.
 
The Alliance: Advancing Community Development by Confronting Racism is a coalition of community development organizations and practitioners dedicated to increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the leadership in the community development field.  In FY2010, The Alliance launched its Alliance Ally Awards, recognizing both Boston Private Bank and Allston Brighton CDC for their role in supporting the mission of the Alliance.  It completed the third cycle of the Mentoring program bringing the total number of mentor/mentee relationships to 40. As one person noted, "the program broadened the professional networks of mentees.” To better understand the value of the Mentoring program, the Alliance conducted an evaluation and found that past participants saw both personal and systemic benefits. “The Mentor program was a wonderful personal experience. It was a good match and beneficial to me on a personal level” noted one participant while another said it “helped open my eyes to a lot of racism, institutionalized racism.”
 
The Boston Committee met monthly to discuss a range of topics from foreclosures, to rental housing development, homelessness, and small business development. This year, the Committee placed a significant emphasis on learning from each other and from external partners about how we can implement energy efficiency programs and promote green job development. We also met regularly with the City of Boston and successfully advocated for changes to some of the City’s housing development finance rules that will make CDC sponsored housing developments more sustainable for the long term.
 
The Housing and Real Estate Development Peer Group met every other month to discuss topics such as how to cope with the problems in the tax credit investor market, challenges in redeveloping foreclosed properties, and accessing funding for energy efficiency improvements to multifamily properties.
 
The Organizing Peer Group continues to build off of the experiences of its members and create sessions that reflect their needs and community issues. The group met bimonthly and had members lead targeted discussions as determined by the group.   The sessions were Technology and Organizing (led by Kyle Robidoux of JPNDC), One-on-Ones (led by José Massó of Urban Edge), Leadership Development (led by Katie Provencher of Urban Edge) and Community Based Research (led by Sarah Horsley of Fenway CDC).
  
The Public Policy Committee met throughout the year both in person and by phone to discuss the ongoing legislative and federal work. During the summer the committee assisted MACDC staff in reaching out to member CDC as the new advocacy campaign was developed.
 
Small Business Peer Group met to learn from each other about strategies for helping small businesses obtain credit and survive the downturn, to discuss how we can find new ways of collaborating, and to work together to advocate for greater state support for small business development.
 
The Western Massachusetts Community Development Collaborative continued to meet quarterly to share information and problem-solving strategies and continued their collective efforts to support Commonwealth Corps Members at six CDCs to focus on community outreach and education in rural communities and small cities.