E-Newsletter | July 2007
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to our latest www.Community-Wealth.org
e-newsletter. This quarter we bring you three new developments:
- We are pleased to announce our latest report: Linking
Colleges to Community: Engaging the University for Community
Development (PDF 1MB). University-community partnerships
are becoming an important element in reinvigorating our
civic life. Yet, overall, higher education remains a “sleeping
giant” when it comes to strategically using its considerable
resources to meet the challenges facing our communities.
This report proposes a comprehensive strategy for foundations
and others to leverage the $350 billion higher education
industry for community benefit.
- The Democracy Collaborative has entered into a partnership
with the Cleveland Foundation to help develop the economic
development component (PDF 140KB) of the foundation's
multi-pronged initiative focused on the city's Greater
University Circle neighborhoods. The initiative seeks to
leverage the economic practices of local anchors (such as
universities, hospitals and cultural institutions) to support
community wealth building strategies.
- We have also begun a partnership with the Leading
Institute of Rutgers University and the Center for Public
Leadership at George Washington University. Together, we
will design and organize a workshop for mid-level planners
and development practitioners that will debut this October
in Washington, D.C. The program will include six full-day
training sessions and three months of one-on-one executive
coaching about the most challenging and relevant topics
facing mid-level community building professionals.
I also wanted to bring to your attention two new features
of the C-W.org website:
- We've entered the blogosphere via our C-W
Blog. Each week we post items about up-to-the-moment
developments, breaking stories, new legislation, and more.
If you know of something we should announce or feature,
please send it along.
- This month we unveil a new Community
Wealth Building Toolbox. Our goal is to provide a starting
point for practitioners seeking to implement community wealth
strategies locally. Here you'll find manuals and other
how-to materials. Combined with the links to support organizations
in the different sections of our website, we hope these
tools will provide a leg up for all of you who are initiating
wealth building efforts in your communities. Please send
us your own favorite tools so that we can include them in
our toolbox.
As always, we have added dozens of new links, articles, reports,
and other materials to the site. Look for this symbol
to find the most recent additions.
 Ted
Howard
Executive Director, The Democracy Collaborative
 Study
Reveals 17 Million American Households in 2005 Spent Half
Their Income on Housing
Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies'
annual State of the Nation's Housing report found that
a record 17 million American households (up from 15.8 million
the year before) spent over 50 percent of their income on
housing, a level that qualifies such households as “extremely
cost burdened” (typically, for housing to be considered
affordable it should cost 30 percent or less of income). In
13 states, including California, New York, and Florida, more
than half of all low-income households applied more than 50%
of their earnings to meet their housing needs.
report-jchs.pdf
(6.5MB)
 Asset
Building Comes of Age
In a Spring 2007 article in the National Housing Institute
journal Shelterforce, C-W.org's Gar Alperovitz, Steve
Dubb, and Ted Howard examine growing efforts nationwide to
integrate individual and community wealth building. Surveying
innovative practices in a number of cities, the article explores
the growing potential of across-the-board asset accumulation
strategies that can more effectively benefit low-income communities.
article-shelterforce.pdf (144KB)
 Confronting
Race & Building Equity in Cleveland
In a May 2007 report from the African-American Forum
on Race & Regionalism, researchers from the Environmental
Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, the Kirwan
Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State
University, and PolicyLink adopt a wide ranging approach to
issues of racial inclusion and economic growth in Cleveland.
Using “equitable regionalism” as a framework,
the study seeks to balance “in-place” approaches
that focus on directing investment to low-income areas with
approaches to better link residents of low-income neighborhoods
with job opportunities beyond the neighborhood. Recommendations
center in five areas: education, economic development, housing,
transportation, and public health.
execsum-johnson-et-al.pdf
(4.2MB)
For full report, see,
report-johnson-et-al.pdf (8.4MB)
 Community-University
Partnerships Anchor Wealth Building in Worcester, MA
As detailed in a discussion paper sponsored by the Federal
Reserve Bank of Boston and the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
Worcester has become “a living laboratory for university-community
partnerships.” The city's University Park Partnership
(UPP), led by Clark University, is seen as a national model.
Clark's endowment investment has helped finance both
improved K-12 schools and physical neighborhood revitalization.
Other area colleges have also undertaken innovative approaches,
including the College of Holy Cross, which has used loan guarantees
to support affordable housing development, and Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, which is building a multi-use facility (housing,
office, retail, and lab) in a former brownfield site.
paper-marga.pdf (348KB)
Social
Enterprise Study Sparks Debate
The Limits of Social Enterprise, a June 2007 Seedco Policy
Center study, has generated considerable attention, including
coverage in the Wall
Street Journal and The Nonprofit Quarterly
(link to article no longer active). Sparked in part by an
internal examination of complications Seedco itself had in
developing a social enterprise, the report provides a cautionary
tale regarding the challenges of developing businesses that
generate revenues while helping to fulfill a nonprofit's
social mission. However, as Social
Enterprise Alliance President Kris Prendergast (PDF 76KB)
points out, such caution can be taken too far. After all,
despite the difficulties, nonprofits that generate revenue
are hardly new. As Prendergast notes, “universities
and nonprofit hospitals are some of the most successful and
long-standing social enterprises around.”
report-kleinman-rosenbaum.pdf
(976KB)
 ESOPs
Featured as Wealth Building Strategy at National Policy Conference
At the Campaign for America's Future “Take
Back America” conference in Washington, DC (June 18-20),
John Logue, founder and Director of the 20 year-old Ohio Employee
Ownership Center at Kent State University, delivered a presentation
on the wealth building and job anchoring effects of employee
ownership. To date, Logue's Center has helped generate
or sustain 14,500 jobs in Ohio, as well as secure $349 million
in equity for Ohio employee-owners. By creating similar centers
in other states and integrating employee ownership into economic
development strategies, Logue contends that similar results
could be achieved throughout the country.
paper-logue.ppt (11.1MB)
New
America Unveils 2007 Asset Policy Agenda
In April, the New America Foundation released its 2007
Asset Policy Agenda. Key policy priorities include support
for children's savings accounts and a wide variety of
other mechanisms to encourage savings (including for retirement
and college), expand financial education, raise asset limits
in public assistance programs to avoid forcing people to reduce
their savings in order to qualify for aid, support microenterprise
development, and strengthen protections against predatory
lending, payday loans, and other “asset-stripping”
practices.
paper-boshara-et-al.pdf (292KB)
 Report
Offers Vision of a Community-Based Economy
An oft-heard refrain is that anti-globalization activists
are better at saying what they are against than what alternatives
they favor. This report, coauthored by four activist non-governmental
organizations, provides a framework for a 20-year agenda to
redesign markets in ways that might protect common assets
and redirect capital to meet community needs, while building
countervailing community-controlled institutions that can
enhance community rights.
report-marx-et-al.pdf (1.7MB)
Brookings
Study Highlights the “High Cost of Being Poor”
Following up on a national report last year on a similar
theme, this Brookings report focuses specifically on the high
cost of being poor in the state of Kentucky. Not only are
lower incomes themselves a constraint, but people with lower
incomes face higher prices for the services they do buy. Among
the added expenses faced by those making $20,000 or less a
year in the state of Kentucky: car insurance, on average,
costs the poor $384 a year more and cars of comparable quality
$500 more. Low-income Kentuckians pay an average of $363 a
year more in home insurance. They also receive less favorable
rates for financial services and loans. To reduce these cost
burdens, the study recommends developing financial services
targeted for low-income residents and creating insurance pools
that can help balance the scales.
report-fellowes-et-al.pdf (6.8MB)
C-W.ORG INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY
BUILDERS: |
 Seema
Agnani of Chhaya Community Development Corporation
Seema Agnani is founder and Executive Director of Chhaya
Community Development Corporation, based in the Queens borough
of New York City. Founded in 2000 to serve New York City's
rapidly growing South Asian community, high land prices have
forced Chhaya to innovate in its affordable housing strategy.
Rather than developing new housing, the CDC has worked with
City officials, architects, and homeowners to improve and
legalize New York City's growing market (which now numbers
over 100,000 units citywide) of “in-law” or “informal”
housing. C-W.org interviews Agnani to get her perspective
on current issues facing CDCs and the South Asian community,
both in New York City and nationally.
interview-agnani.pdf (104KB)
 C-W
City, Summer 2007: Baltimore, MD.
(eighth in our continuing series of city profiles)
Once an industrial town with an economic base driven
by steel processing, shipping, and manufacturing, Baltimore's
economy increasingly centers on its “eds and meds,”
most notably Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. Both the
promise of anchor-led development as well as the threat of
displacement for many long-time residents have led to a number
of innovative community wealth-building efforts.
 Co-op
Association Sets Path For Creation of National Co-op Equity
Fund
The National Cooperative Business Association and its
foundation arm, the Cooperative Development Foundation, held
their Annual Meeting on May 1, 2007. Among the highlights
of the conference was a proposal to launch a feasibility study
to create a national co-op fund that, in the mold of a socially
responsible investment fund, would preferentially invest in
cooperatives.
article-dubb-ncba-cdf.pdf (100KB)
 Co-op
Bank Highlights Purchasing Co-op Struggle against “Big
Box” Stores
Hundreds gathered at the annual meeting of the National
Cooperative Bank held May 2, 2007, in Washington, D.C. The
centerpiece of the meeting was a roundtable discussion, that
included Stacy Mitchell, Senior Researcher of the Institute
of Local Self-Reliance, and author of Big-Box Swindle and
a DC hardware store owner who is also an active member of
the Ace Hardware purchasing cooperative.
article-dubb-ncb.pdf (100KB)
 City
First Enterprises (Washington, DC)
Founded in 1993, City First is launching a community land
trust initiative that aims to create one of the largest community
land trusts in the country. With $10 million in support from
the District government, which will leverage $65 million in
socially responsible investment funds supported by New Markets
Tax Credits, the group plans to develop 1,000 units of community
land trust housing. Ultimately, City First aims to develop
a total of 10,000 permanently affordable housing units.
www.cfenterprises.org
 Homeward
Bound (San Rafael, CA)
A project of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition,
the Community Investment Network provides information on issues
ranging from Community Reinvestment Act ratings on banks,
predatory lending policy debates, and financial educations
programs, to community development policy and links to local
community reinvestment coalition organizations across the
United States.
www.hbofm.org
 National
Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations
Founded in March 2007, NACEDA brings together 15 state
associations of community development corporations (CDCs),
serving as a new national organization for the CDC movement.
Goals of the new association include advocating for public
policy to support community economic development at the federal
level, providing peer-to-peer support and development for
state association staff, and supporting the development of
new and emerging state associations.
www.naceda.org
 Social
Venture Network
Founded in 1987, SVN is a community of leaders—company
founders, private investors, and social entrepreneurs—who
share a commitment to building a just and sustainable world
through business. SVN's work aims to provide a forum
where socially responsible businesses and innovative nonprofits
can meet and address in commons issues of social and economic
justice.
www.svn.org
 Uptown
Consortium
Founded in the summer 2003 by the leaders of Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical
Garden, The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, TriHealth,
Inc. and the University of Cincinnati, the Uptown Consortium
illustrates how nonprofit anchor institutions can help build
community wealth. To date, the trustees of the University
of Cincinnati alone have allocated $100 million from the university's
$1 billion endowment to support the effort. All told, Consortium
investments for redevelopment, new construction and neighborhood
improvements in Uptown Cincinnati have totaled over $400 million.
www.uptownconsortium.org
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