“Let’s invest in what works,” is a common and recurring slogan that has gained currency in recent years and why shouldn’t it? Who is going to advocate that we invest in what’s broken? So I was not surprised to see a new book built around this idea called “Investing in What Works for America’s Communities,” co-edited by Nancy Andrews, President of the Low Income Investment Fund and David Erickson from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.  The book urges us to “break through silos in our programs, our financing streams and our thinking” and to use “data-based rigorous analysis to direct scarce resources to what works.”  This is an important book with contributions from leading thinkers in our field so serious community development practitioners and students would be well advised to read it.

That is not to say that I liked or agreed with all that I read. Many of the articles were interesting, insightful, thought provoking and even inspiring. I found myself reacting with enthusiasm to many of the ideas in the book. And Ellen Seidman writes a wonderful summary of the many ideas presented that is worth reading even if you don’t have time for the entire book. As a whole, I think the book offers an important contribution to the on-going discussion about the future of community development in America, but I also think it exemplifies some of the trends in our field that make me very nervous.  So let me share with you some of what I think works about “What Works,” and what I think does not work.

What works about “Investing in What Works for America’s Communities:”

• • I agree with the general theme throughout the book that we need to take a comprehensive approach to community development. Virtually every article hit on this theme and it is consistent with the direction we are pursuing here in Massachusetts.
• • I was also pleased to read articles by a few of authors that emphasize the importance of engaging local residents and working at the neighborhood level.
• • It was gratifying to see a strong recognition of the importance of neighborhoods and neighborhood level work, in addition to the now common calls for regional solutions. We need to work at both levels and I think the book makes that point effectively. Thankfully, the pendulum is slowly swinging back to the center on the perpetual debate between regional and neighborhood level work.
• • The book includes interesting and thoughtful articles about a range of issues from health care, to housing, to education, to transit oriented development, to crime, to economic development and how these issues intersect with each other– there are good lessons and good ideas throughout.
• • Thankfully, the book avoids the tired old debate about place-based strategies and people-based strategies and endorses both approaches.
• • And the book includes one of the best histories of community development that I have read in a long time in a chapter by Alexander von Hoffman that traces the field’s history without focusing entirely on federal policy as many do.

What does not work about “Investing in What Works for America’s Communities:”

• • Amazingly, this 419 page book about the future of community development, a book with 30 authors, does not include a single page written by someone from Community Development Corporation. There are articles by academics, government officials, foundation executives, national non-profits, CDFIs and more, but not one by a CDC practitioner.  Now I would certainly not argue that CDCs should be the only voice in such a book, but how can that perspective be entirely excluded?  The national conversation about the future of our field must include a more diverse set of voices – we can’t allow it to become a small echo chamber.
• • Much of the book is focused on community development finance, an important topic to be sure. But it reinforced my growing concern about the sector is becoming too “finance-centric” just as we begin to move away from a “real-estate centric” vision of community development. Many of us have bemoaned the fact that our economy is increasingly dominated by the finance industry, but now we see the community development field is increasingly organized around finance.
• • While I am a strong proponent of comprehensive community development, I think this book might be taking the concept too far. Community development can’t be everything for everybody. The term loses meaning if we use it to describe every activity and program that benefits low income people or neighborhoods. Moreover, as the Aspen Institute has pointed out, too much comprehensiveness can be a problem too, as initiatives collapse under the weight and complexity of trying to connect every dot and solve every problem.
• • Similarly, the core premise of the book seems to be that the goal of community development is to dramatically reduce poverty in America. I don’t think that was or is the goal of community development, and certainly not the defining goal.  I certainly agree that community development needs to be part of the solution, but it can’t do it alone. If we expect community development to solve poverty than we are setting ourselves up to fail – even if we are successful at the more limited (yet still important) goals we can actually achieve like improving the quality of life for local residents, providing some economic stability  for low income families, and increasing community control over community assets and local development.
• • I also worry about the hyper-focus on outcomes and data. Now how can anyone speak out against achieving outcomes and measuring them with data? It’s impossible, right? And certainly, I think we should measure outcomes with data. But there are risks with data that were not sufficiently addressed in this book. Sometimes data can mislead. Sometimes, data can be flawed. Sometimes, data miss important elements. For example, poverty data does not account for housing subsidies, food subsidies, child care subsidies or health care subsidies, so providing those forms of assistance do not reduce poverty, at least as measured by our government. But do they help people make ends meet? Do they help people gain economic stability? Of course they do.  And a focus on population level outcomes can quickly create incentives to displace low income people and exclude them from the population being studied. Data is a tool that can be used wisely or poorly. Let’s use some wisdom along with our data.
• • Finally, the book fails to sufficiently talk about the vital role that advocacy and organizing play in shaping public policy at the local, state and national level. Any serious attempt to reduce income inequality and poverty in America has to include changes in policy. I believe that the community development movement has to be part of shaping that new policy framework.

“Investing in What Works for America’s Communities” makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate and discussion about the future of the community development field.  But we need more voices and more skeptical voices to join the fray.  At a minimum, I hope the next edition includes a few articles from those working on the front lines in America’s neighborhoods. I suspect they will have something interesting to contribute.

Consider:

• The Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, RI achieves a 53% reduction in crime.
• The Druid Hills Neighborhood of Charlotte, NC achieves a 58% reduction in crime.
• The Phillips Neighborhood in Minneapolis, MN achieves a 90% reduction in drug-related crime

What do these three neighborhoods have in common that enabled them to achieve and sustain such extraordinary reductions in crime? Each has had an intentional, pro-active partnership between the local CDC and the local police department. And according to a new book that highlights these and other success stories from around the country, such results could be achieved throughout the country if more CDCs and more police departments would join together.

Building Our Way Out of Crime: The Transformative Power of Police-Community Developer Partnerships, by Bill Geller and Lisa Belsky, is one of the most exciting books to come along in some time as it demonstrates with hard data and compelling stories the amazing results that have been and can be achieved.  Geller and Belsky have worked for decades to foster such partnerships largely as part of LISC’s Community Safety Initiative (which is now run by Julia Ryan, a former MACDC staff person.)

By working together, CDCs and the police can deploy their respective tools and assets in a coordinated way to attack high crime areas. According to the forward written by Paul Grogan and Bill Bratton, “these collaborations work – they reduce crime; replace problem properties with quality, affordable housing; attract viable businesses in previously blighted commercial corridors; make more strategic and efficient use of public and private sector resources; and build public confidence in and cooperation with local government and private organizations.”  

How does this happen? Police help CDCs prioritize development opportunities and design new developments in ways that make it easier to prevent crime (e.g. “put eyes on the street.”) CDCs eliminate blighted properties that consume a disproportionate share of police resources. Together, the police and the CDCs advocate for public and private investment that neither could attract on their own. The key, according to Geller and Belsky is to make the relationship intentional and long term. It is not enough for CDCs and police to function in parallel – they must work together and they must stick together for the long haul.

The report also helps to disprove the notion that locating new affordable housing in lower income communities will somehow make those neighborhoods worse. Indeed, what this book demonstrates is that carefully planned and designed affordable housing can not only improve the economic well being of its residents, but the overall quality of life for everyone in the community. Such a strategy will ultimately benefit many more people than simply trying to help a few lucky residents move to higher income and lower crime communities.  We need to fight crime in these neighborhoods – not give in to it.

Many CDCs in Massachusetts have also seen the power of such partnerships, so much so that officers from the Boston Police Department recently testified at the State House in support of the Community Development Partnership Act.  Boston LISC is supporting these efforts through its Resilient Communities/Resilient Families program.

What this book shows is that those efforts can and must be expanded because Geller and Belsky have shown us that we can indeed build our way out of crime.

Collaboration has become such a popular word in our field that one wonders at times whether it has lost its meaning and importance. Has collaboration become a cliché? Is it a passing fad? Has it been oversold?

I would have to say, from what I am seeing in Massachusetts and around the country, that the answer is an emphatic no!

When the Community Development Innovation Forum was launched in 2008, we established a collaboration working group that produced a report on different models of collaboration around the Commonwealth. The Forum has promoted collaboration as a critical strategy for increasing impact and gaining efficiencies.

Recently, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has published a terrific new report that highlights examples of new collaborations from around the country – including one from Boston (the Fairmount Collaborative in Boston.)  The paper, The New Way Forward: Using Collaborations and Partnerships for Greater Efficiency and Impact, was written by Dee Walsh and Bob Zdenek, two of our country’s leading practitioners. I highly recommend it to all community developers.

Meanwhile, on a recent trip to South Florida to speak at the Annual Summit of the Florida Association of CDCs, I learned about the Broward Alliance for Neighborhood Development (BAND.)  BAND is a coalition of more than 30 CDCs and nonprofit organizations in Broward County (Ft Lauderdale) who are committed to providing decent, affordable housing in their communities. The mission of BAND is to foster non-profits that create quality housing and strong neighborhoods. The goal of the organization is to increase the capacity of its non-profit members so that the varied housing needs of all residents of Broward County are met. BAND members have pooled resources to hire central staff and to secure NSP dollars for their communities.

Back here in Massachusetts the Catalyst Fund for Nonprofits  has announced its first set of grants to nonprofits that are pursuing innovative collaborations and two of the initial grants are going to MACDC members.  A recent article in the Boston Globe describes grants to Chelsea Neighborhood Developers to develop a Family Economic Center and to Urban Edge and Allston Brighton CDC to pursue a joint asset management strategy.

I think it is clear that collaboration is here to stay in the community development sector.

I recently read an book review by Anthony Lewis about a new biography of Justice William Brennan (Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion  by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel .) For those who don’t know, Brennan was a Supreme Court Justice from 1956 to 1990 and was one of the leading progressives who helped shape Constitutional Law throughout that period. He was known as a liberal who could actually get the votes for a majority opinion – not just write powerful dissents. Anthony Lewis explains how Brennan was able to get his colleagues to vote for his opinions.  Lewis’ summary nicely articulates what I believe is the secret formula for effective advocacy:

Brennan’s success “came from intellect, conviction, a strong tactical sense, an eye for the essentials rather than a wish list, and a relationship of good faith and confidence with his colleagues.” 

In my 25 years of advocacy work, I have seen the importance of these qualities time and time again, although I have never seen this formula so neatly summarized.  Anthony Lewis has provided MACDC, and all of us who engage in advocacy, a succinct and helpful guide for our ongoing efforts.

After a couple of years of cajoling and encouragement from friends and colleagues, and a few months of my own contemplation and procrastination I have decided to venture into the blogosphere. My hope is to offer some ideas, information, and insights that will be of interest to community developers and their partners in Massachusetts and perhaps around the country. I welcome your feedback and comments as I hope this blog becomes a vehicle for sparking conversation and debate about key issues in our field.

Right now I am reading a very interesting book called Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. I started reading the book because I am in Israel for the rest of January with a Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) delegation of non-profit leaders. We will be meeting with our counterparts in Boston’s sister city of Haifa and around the country, including some affordable housing advocates. I’ll be writing more about that later.

But right now I am really enjoying this book. While it is providing me with good context for my trip, it also has very relevant lessons for the work we are doing in Massachusetts with our Community Development Innovation Forum. You see, it turns out that Israel is the world’s leader in innovation and entrepreneurial activity – especially in the high-tech, biotech and smart energy fields.  The authors explore the cultural and environmental factors that support so much innovation. According to the authors, it flows from such factors as a lack of hierarchy, a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, a propensity to argue, debate, question and challenge authority, and an ability to see failure as learning step toward success rather than a reason to quit. In short,  it requires “chutzpah!”  Innovation has also been spurred by necessity (lack of natural resources, constant threats, economic and political isolation in the region) immigration, universal military service, and a strong commitment to education.   Entrepreneurialism is produced “when people can cross boundaries, turn societal norms upside down, and agitate in a free market economy … to catalyze radical ideas.”  The biggest obstacle to such innovation it turns out is “order. A bit of mayhem is not only healthy, but critical.”

Of course, there must be some balance. Israeli entrepreneurs benefit from “stable institutions and the rule of law,”  but also from Israel’s “nonhierarchical culture where everyone in business belongs to overlapping networks produced by small communities, common army service, geographic proximity and informality.”

When we are at our best, I think the community development field shares many of these attributes and characteristics. But I do worry that sometimes  we are afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, our own customs and practices, or powerful authorities, including funders and government officials. There may be a tendency to think that all of us should do the same thing or pursue the same solutions. We are often quick to judge and criticize those who try things differently. Too often we are afraid to acknowledge something has failed and when we do see failure we may see that as a permanent taint rather than a learning opportunity. In our desire for scale, efficiency, and an orderly delivery system, will we stifle the very innovation we need to achieve our ambitious goals?

My own sense is that we are all going to have to get more comfortable with disruption, confusion, disagreement, failure, and a bit of chaos if we are serious about creating a culture of innovation in our field. 

What do you think? Do you want to argue with me about that? Either way, post your comment!