While the Tea Party’s manufactured crisis over the debt ceiling sucks up all the oxygen in Washington, the White House quietly released an important new report in July entitled Building Neighborhoods of Opportunity that outlines best practices in neighborhood revitalization around the country.  The report highlights the work of CDCs, community based groups, schools and local governments and discusses how the federal government could more effectively support such efforts.

When I sat down to read it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they identify five key elements to successful neighborhood improvement – and I agree with all of them (I don’t always agree with the White House these days!) Specifically, the White House report highlights these five things: 

1. Resident engagement and community leadership catalyzes and sustains comprehensive change efforts;
2. Developing strategic and accountable partnerships leads to lasting change;
3. Maintaining a results focus supported by data presents a strategy for achieving specific objectives, helps to focus multiple stakeholders on a common goal, and can lead to a common dataset to measure progress;
4. Investing in and building organizational capacity helps organizations meet their objectives; and
5. Aligning resources to a unified and target impact strategy builds a critical mass of efforts in a neighborhood to reduce neighborhood distress.

We can see each these elements in action today in the work that community developers are doing in Boston and around the country.

I was particularly pleased to see items #1 and #4, as much of the current momentum in our field is moving away from these two concepts.  I worry that the drive toward regionalism, centralization, consolidation and organizational scale that permeates much of the national dialogue will inexorably weaken opportunities for meaningful resident engagement and community leadership - what I and others call “demand driven community development.”  Don’t get me wrong – scale and efficiency are good things. But, I am glad that the White House report is reminding us about the importance of community engagement. I hope it will inspire policymakers, funders and practitioners to think about how we can create a system that is both more efficient and more genuinely community based.

The White House is also correct to underscore the importance of building the capacity of organizations to initiate, implement and sustain community improvement.  I hope this serves to push back against what I perceive as a growing “capacity building fatigue” among some funders and policy makers who prefer to work only (or mainly) with well established (and usually large) groups that already have substantial capacity.  Capacity building, like education, needs to be a permanent feature of a well organized, high performing and adaptive community development system.

While there was much to like in the report, it does not offer a strategy for supporting resident engagement and capacity building in a systemic way that gets us to serious scale. Most of the highlighted programs are models and pilots serving a few dozen neighborhoods. But the question that the White House and all of us need to ask is how we support this work in hundreds or even thousands of neighborhoods.  For that, we need sustainable business models that support long term capacity building and resident engagement at the local level.  MACDC’s proposed Community Development Partnership Act is a key part of our answer to that question.  And we also need to make community development programs and projects profitable for community based non profits so they can earn the flexible funds they need to build and sustain their own capacity over time.  Adjustments in federal rules and guidelines could help with that objective.  

The White House report lays out some exciting ideas for generating sustainable economic development at the neighborhood level - something our country desperately needs. Let’s hope that the debt ceiling deal does not kill these efforts before they have a chance to bear fruit.

In recent years there has been a growing discussion about the coming generational change in the leadership of the community development field. As the founders of our field move toward retirement, a new generation of community developers are eager to make their own mark on the field. Of course, this transition is not without challenges as some fear it is happening too fast without sufficient preparation, and others are frustrated that it is happening too slowly as they are forced to wait and wait for their turn.

Two recent articles on this subject are worth reading. Rick Cohen, a long-time community developer and writer started the discussion with an interesting blog post on NACEDA’s website. Rick interviewed several younger people in the field who expressed their frustrations with how they feel treated by those with more experience. This prompted NACEDA staffer, Frank Woodruff to share his own thoughts as a 28-year old working in the field. As someone who sits squarely between the baby boomer generation and the Millenials I have always found this conversation to be challenging. I find myself agreeing and disagreeing vigorously with voices from both camps. (Born in 1963, I am technically a baby boomer, but I can assure you that I don’t feel like one!)  For many years after starting at MACDC in 1993, I was almost always the youngest person in the room as “real” baby boomers (those born in the late 1940s or 1950s) dominated the field. Now, finally, that is no longer the case and I am thrilled -- well, maybe not thrilled to be getting older, but thrilled to see new leadership, new ideas, new skills and new faces at the table.

Rick's article highlights the desire among younger community developers to seek collaborative and comprehensive solutions to today's challenges. I agree!  They also want to find a better work/life balance and better pay. I think I agree with that too, although my kids might say that I don't adhere to this philosophy.  But I found many of the comments in Rick’s piece troubling. While each person voiced understandable frustrations, the collective weight of their comments struck me as whining. While ageism certainly exists in the field (in both directions, no doubt) I firmly believe that the community development field offers many opportunities for talented people to prove themselves. Should older practitioners be more supportive and welcoming of younger ones? Of course!  But don’t wait for an invitation to lead – just do it. 

On the other hand, Frank’s article really resonated for me – despite the 19 years between us. Frank’s brilliant piece is both funny and insightful. Perhaps my favorite segment from Frank is as follows:

"State by state, community development boards and staffs are fighting tooth-and-nail for programs like HOME, LIHTC, Section 4 and other tools of previous decades. Being supportive, Millennials begrudgingly submit to the acronyms and jargon while secretly hoping our careers in community development are not spent budget-cycle after budget-cycle clinging to the accomplishments of our predecessors.

We quietly ask ourselves, “What if those programs went away? How would we replace CDBG? Or would we want to? What would a modern-day ‘CRA’ look like? Or is CRA necessary? Can financial institutions be compelled by opportunity instead of regulation?” These programs were created at a singular point and time with a certain definition of social justice.:

It is precisely this openness to change and new ideas that younger leaders can bring to our field and that our field desperately needs.  We don’t want to ignore the hard lessons learned over the past 40 years, but neither can we allow long-standing traditions to become rigid orthodoxies that can’t be challenged and changed.  And many of us have tired from hearing about the Glory Days in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Community Development movement is destined for major change. Much of this change will be driven by outside forces as our economy and our communities evolve and change. But much will be driven from the inside as new leaders take the helm and lead us to a future that may not be fully defined, but will, I believe, be brighter and better not just for our field, but for our communities as well.

I just read an excellent article by Ann Houston from Chelsea Neighborhood Developers (CND) and Hilary Marcus from Neighborworks America. The article talks about the difficult, yet ultimately productive, process that the CND board of directors went through in deciding whether and how to expand their services to Revere. The article offers important lessons for all CDCs considering a geographic expansion or any other major shift in their organizational strategy or focus.

The major thrust of the article is the importance of discussing the governance implications of expansion early on in the process. For me, however, the the most interesting aspect of the article was the discussion of how important it was for the board to reflect on, and respect, both the sense of loss, and the actual loss that might come from expanding to another city. CND has been focused on serving Chelsea since it was founded and the board members joined the board specifically because of their commitment to Chelsea. Would expanding to Revere dilute that focus? Ann and Hilary talk about how the board approached this question with respect and care. The board ultimately decided that expansion would be good not just for the organization but for both Revere and Chelsea. But part of that process was to mourn in meaningful and tangible ways the loss that inevitably comes with change.

In reading the article, I realized that I often fail to respect that sense of loss and fail to take the time with others to mourn and honor the past. Expansion and change are often necessary and good - but they do not come free. Those who might oppose a particular change or expansion are not simply bad people who are obstructionists or narrow minded. They may simply be fighting for the same community and the same people for whom they have always fought. Their sense of loss is often real - expansion can mean dilution for some communities. This should not necessarily stop change, but it is important to give respect and voice to that which is lost.

I encourage others to read Ann and Hilary's important article. I'm glad I did and I hope to apply its lessons as MACDC continues to change and evolve in the coming years. Mourning loss and change may be the key to our future growth and success.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran  a series of articles alleging widespread failures in the federal HOME program administered by HUD and hundreds of local and state government agencies. The articles claim that hundreds of projects have died, millions of dollars have been wasted and that HUD and local housing agencies have failed to protect the taxpayer's money.

The articles certainly uncover some distressing stories and clearly HUD and our local housing agencies need to do a better job. The story also underscores the importance of providing non profit developers with support, oversight and capacity building services - especially during challenging economic times like these.

However, the Washington Post articles do the country a dis-service by grossly exaggerating the problems and failing to put the small number of problem projects in the context of the one million homes developed by this program over the years. Even Adrian Gonzalez strikes out occassionally and we cannot expect a federal program with thousands of projects underway across the entire country to never have any problems - especially during the worst real estate market since the Great Depression.

Perhaps the most glaring error is the claim that 1 in 7 HOME projects are delayed when in fact less than 2.5% are delayed, and most of those have either been resumed or are delayed due to market conditions. This is not a minor mistake. Check out HUD's response to the Post for more factual errors in the article.

By failing to get its facts right and by failing to put the problems in the context of the overall track record of the program, Post demonstrates either laziness or a desire to create a scandal where none exists. It is unfortunate that the Post seems eager to jump on the "government is broken" bandwagon, especially when articles like this will create real harm for struggling families and communities.

MACDC staff and leaders will be joining with our NACEDA colleagues to take this message to Congress during our annual NACEDA Summit this week. Let's hope our elected representatives take the time to look at the facts and not just the headlines.

The Community Development Innovation Forum has helped to spur numerous efforts to expand and deepen collaboration with the goal of improving effectiveness and efficiency in the sector. With the help of new funding from Citi and Bank of America, MACDC is now leading a major planning effort to explore the efficacy and viability of a statewide partnership among CDCs and others who provide technical assistance to local entrepreneurs.

For years, MACDC members have helped entrepreneurs start, grow and sustain small businesses that provide jobs and opportunity for local communities. In 2010, our members served over 2,000 entrepreneurs develop business plans, find new locations and markets, access financing and deal with the slumping economy. CDCs have frequently partnered in these efforts with each other and with other organizations such as Small Business Development Centers, local governments, banks, and CDFIs (many of our members are CDFIs themselves.) Perhaps the most sustained and deepest of these partnerships has been the Community Business Network in Boston through which several CDCs have worked together since the mid 1990s.

Earlier this year, MACDC received funding from Citi and Bank of America to explore the potential for a statewide partnership that builds and expands on these earlier efforts. We formed a planning committee comprised of practitioners, public officials, bankers and scholars to guide our planning effort and hired two experienced consultants, Leslie Belay and Jason Friedman, to conduct research, planning and program design work.  Jason is examining best practices around the country and Leslie is conducting interviews and focus groups with stakeholders here in Massachusetts. At a recent meeting with the SBA and their partners, national SBA Administrator Karen Mills joined the meeting and voiced her strong support of the effort and specifically encouraged SBA partners like the SBDCs to partner with CDCs and vice versa.

The planning efforts has already identified several areas where collaboration could yield significant benefits. These could include: shared information technology and outcome measurement systems; shared protocols for intake, assessment and business plan assistance, shared expertise in specific sectors or areas of support (e.g. food industry, or green technologies); shared market research that would provide local businesses with access to better market data; joint partnerships with other organizations, professional development and training for practitioners, joint fundraising, and special projects.

We expect the planning process to proceed through the summer with the hopes of making a determination by early Fall as to whether such a Partnership makes sense. If we decide to move ahead, the next stage will include fundraising, recruitment of the initial class of members, and refinement of the program design, structure and services.

If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, please contact me.

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.

The first meeting I ever attended on behalf of MACDC – way back in 1993 – was at the Bowdoin Street Community Health Center. The purpose of the meeting was to strategize ways to reduce childhood lead poisoning by building a coalition of community development, housing, environmental and public health advocates to fight for changes in policy and practice that would better protect our children. Over the ensuing years, we successfully won major legislative change, new funding for lead abatement, and a robust effort of abatement, education, prevention and treatment that has nearly eliminated lead poisoning from the Commonwealth (although the risk is still serious in much of our older housing stock.)

The success of that collaborative effort came to mind the other day when I was attending the Health Communities Conference co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Mel King Institute’s Innovation Forum and several other partners. The conference explored the benefits of linking community development to community health efforts as a way to reduce chronic disease and improve wellness. The importance of this effort was underscored by Paul Grogan, President of the Boston Foundation, in his keynote remarks where he highlighted the fact that health care spending is now completely crowding out public investment in virtually every other area – education, recreation, housing, community development, food supports, and public transit. Yet by investing in these other areas we could actually reduce the need for costly medical care and improve the quality of people’s lives. Indeed, providing a homeless family with stable, safe housing might do more to reduce hypertension, asthma, and other chronic illnesses than all the medicine that money can buy.

The Conference included a number of interesting speakers from both the community development and the community health sectors. We heard about cutting edge research that documents that close correlation between socio-economic status and neighborhood quality with health outcomes. We also learned about innovative programs at the ground level that are beginning to make an impact. Materials from the conference are expected to be available soon on the Federal Reserve Bank’s conference web site.

MACDC intends to work with our partners in the public health field to build on the excitement from the conference to explore opportunities for innovation in public policy and community practice. With health care at the top of the priority list in both the State House and Congress, there will be many opportunities to gain traction. Perhaps someday, doctors will have the ability to fight the causes of disease by prescribing rental assistance subsidies, job training and T-passes instead of being limited to simply treating the symptoms of disease with costly medical procedures and pharmaceuticals

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.

Performance and accountability are the subject of substantial discussion these days throughout the nonprofit sector. Government agencies, private funders and non-profit leaders themselves are increasingly focused on taking steps to ensure that we fund programs "that work" and stop funding those "that don't".   Last week, I wrote about Social Impact Bonds, a new approach for doing this about which I have serious concerns. Today that I want to share an idea that I think has great promise.

Obviousely, no one can disagree with the view that we should "fund what works." But this statement simply begs the question of what we are trying to achieve. While this may seem easy to determine, in fact it is often not. Most non-profit organizations and programs have multiple stakeholders, each of whom have their own set of goals – goals that are sometimes in conflict, and are almost always different in terms of emphasis, time frame and priority. Balancing the interests of these different stakeholders is one of the key challenges of being a leader in the nonprofit sector.

At the same time, it is precisely this balancing act that I believe drives innovation and ultimately better, and more sustainable, long-term outcomes. Simply put, this complexity mirrors the complexity of the real world so it produces solutions that will work in the real world. Communities and people are complicated. There are no silver bullets or simple solutions to deeply rooted, complex social challenges, and success looks differently to different people. Equally important, all activities and interventions have multiple impacts and externalities – positive and negative – and they all have short term and long term impacts. This is especially true in the community development field where we are trying to have an impact on individuals and families as well as the broader community. I believe that having multiple stakeholders at the table helps to ensure that all of these impacts are considered, and that negotiating these competing interests results in more balanced, creative and effective solutions.

MACDC hopes to promote this framework through our campaign to enact the Community Development Partnership Act.  This bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry and Senator Sal DiDomenico and 46 other legislators, (and modeled after similar programs in other states) would use tax credits to leverage private donations to genuine and authentic community based development organizations, i.e. CDCs. Rather than creating static, rigid, or one-dimensional outcome metrics for the program, the CDPA will use three levels of accountability to ensure the program’s success while maintaining local flexibility and driving innovation.

• -  First, and foremost, community members would have a voice because only those organizations with meaningful community representation on their board of directors would be eligible to compete for the tax credits. This helps to ensure that programs and activities funded are relevant and appropriate to the particular local community.
• -  Second, state government will have oversight because they will review each application and determine which groups receive an allocation of tax credits. Those applications will specify how the CDC will evaluate and measure success. The state will then collect data and reports to measure progress and outcomes.
• -  Third, the CDCs will need to convince private sector donors – corporate and individual – to make donations with the tax credit creating an incentive, but no guarantee, that funds will be provided.

We believe that having three levels of accountability increases the likelihood that the CDPA will be successful as compared to a program that is designed to simply meet the needs of a specific funder or stakeholder.  To be successful, CDCs will need to innovate, partner, measure, learn, and adapt. CDCs that don’t will surely lose the support of at least one of their key stakeholder groups – if not all of them – and fall out of the program.

Performance and ensure accountability are core values for MACDC. Look for future blog posts about other ways that MACDC, its members and our partners are seeking to advance those values. And, please, share your own!

My 15-year old son is required to declaim a speech or poem each term as part of his English course at his high school. This requires memorizing the text and reciting it with clarity and conviction.  Last week, he declaimed one of President Roosevelt’s famous speeches - the Man in the Arena speech delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on April, 23 1910. 

One wonderful passage in the speech reads as follows:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I think this a great message - not only for my teenage son - but for all of us.  Indeed, it makes me think about one of the major reasons I chose to enter the community development field years ago when I finished law school. Prior to that time, I had spent my career fighting against environmental pollution and dirty energy. When I learned about how CDCs fought for something positive, I knew that I wanted to be part of that effort.  For me, community developers and CDCs exemplify what Roosevelt was saying. Community developers don't sit back and simply complain about what's broken. They put themselves "in the arena," projecting a positive vision for our communities. Community developers are certainly not "cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat;" but rather community developers "strive to do the deeds" and "spend [themselves] in a worthy cause."  In so doing, they take risks, endure criticism, "err [and] come short again and again" and often, albeit not always, succeed in "high achievement." Every time I attend a CDC annual meeting, ribbon cutting, graduation or community event I am reminded and newly inspired by those who do this work on the front lines.

The community development movement emerged long after Theodore Roosevelt passed away, but I'm fairly certain that if were alive today he  would have admired community developers just as much as I do.