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Defining a Community Change Agenda for the Future: Applying Lessons from Recent History

Defining a Community Change Agenda for the Future: Applying Lessons from Recent History. Tom Dewar and Anne Kubisch Roundtable on Community Change The Aspen Institute November 3, 2009. The Aspen Roundtable: Voices from the Field.

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Defining a Community Change Agenda for the Future: Applying Lessons from Recent History

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  1. Defining a Community Change Agenda for the Future: Applying Lessons from Recent History Tom Dewar and Anne Kubisch Roundtable on Community Change The Aspen Institute November 3, 2009

  2. The Aspen Roundtable:Voices from the Field • Combination of program documents, evaluations, and interviews/focus groups • Voices 1 (1997): Description of comprehensiveness, community building, process-product tension • Voices 2 (2002): Emphasis on capacity building and connections

  3. Place-Based Efforts Are Here for the Foreseeable Future Voices from the Field III: Refers to 40 community change efforts over 20 years • $1 billion in philanthropic investment over the last two decades • More than $10 billion in public sector investment • Future: Stimulus package, Neighborhood Stabilization Program, Choice Neighborhoods, Promise Neighborhoods, transit funding, green jobs

  4. Community Change Efforts Vary: The general model

  5. How we will present the findings • Three levels: • Individual level • Community level: Includes both physical/economic change and community capacity building • Policy and system level • General findings • Some keys to success • Unresolved problems, challenges for the future

  6. Individual-Level Outcomes:People-oriented strategies • Put into place “best practices” • Outcomes seen for the individuals who received the services • Many focused on EITC uptake (low-hanging fruit)

  7. Community-Level Outcomes:Type I,Physical/economic-oriented strategies • Major physical revitalization causes real change in communities • Large and/or mission-driven CDCs have effectively balanced physical with other strategies; small CDCs can’t seem to get to scale • Developers (non-profit and for-profit) are efficient housing producers and have a growing track record re: social, environmental and civic community well-being

  8. Community-Level Outcomes:Type II,Increased community capacity • New leadership emerged • New connections were made across community residents • Many organizations’ capacities were built • Community “civic” capacity increased: organized, planful, stronger voice city-wide

  9. Data: collect, analyze and consider implications of data about the community Inclusive community visioning and planning process: goals to work toward, ability to take advantage of opportunities, aim for alignment Locally-based broker/mediator: convener, organizer, network builder, policy advocate, focus on alignment Community-Level Outcomes:Common strategies to build community capacity

  10. Policy and Systems Change • Many attracted and leveraged new funding • Partnerships between communities and powerful allies triggered system responsiveness • Parallel policy and advocacy track to support community agendas

  11. Keys to success: Some big themes • Clarity about goals, definition of success and theory of change • Intentionality • Proportionality • Valuing community capacity building • Brokering and alignment

  12. Keys to success: Effective roles of foundations • Use all philanthropic “capitals:” • Financial: grants and investments • Technical: access to national research and practices • Civic: convening, helping to set the agenda, taking on policy and systems change • Moral: embracing equity and empowerment • Reputational: ability to take risks • Intellectual: learning and creating a learning culture • Not all foundations should do CCI-type work • The role of national foundations should be revisited: Local work? Field-building? Policy?

  13. Individual Level: Unresolved problems and challenges for the future • How to attain population-level change through human investment strategies? • What is the added-value of delivering good services through a community change effort? • What do we mean by “synergy”? Is co-location good enough? • What do we mean by “overcoming funding silos”? What does it look like in practice?

  14. Community Level (Physical/economic): Unresolved problems and challenges for the future • Can community efforts succeed in promoting economic development (beyond commercial development)? • Who, aside from private developers, should do physical development? • How to do development without displacement? • Can mixed income work, and be stable?

  15. Community Level (Capacity): Unresolved problems and challenges for the future • How to take advantage of new forms of organizing that is reaching new and different audiences? • Community capacity-building requires staff and funding? Who will pay? • How to strengthen cross-sector alignment (public, private and community) on behalf of the community? • How to improve the evidence that increased community capacity results in improved “hard” outcomes?

  16. Policy Level: Unresolved problems and challenges for the future • What does community level work have to do with system change? How to maximize the community-system change link? • How will the current economic crisis affect all of this work? • Racial segregation is increasing: how to tackle the race/place/poverty knot?

  17. Thank you

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