E-Newsletter | January 2008
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to our latest www.Community-Wealth.org
e-newsletter. This quarter we bring you the following new
developments:
- In November we published an article in the Chronicle
of Philanthropy highlighting efforts that mobilize colleges
and other anchor institutions to use their resources to
build communities and reduce economic inequality, article-alperovitz-et-al.pdf
(108KB).
- Fans of NBC's hit TV program “The Office”
may recognize Scranton, PA as the home of fictional paper
company Dunder Mifflin. But in the real world, Scranton
is now the site of an ongoing community wealth building process
that began in late 2006 following an economic roundtable
of city leaders. Initiatives are now underway focused on
joint local purchasing by the city's anchors, employee
ownership, and community-based strategic planning.
article-burke-myers.pdf
(72KB)
- Detroit, Michigan is one of our nation's most economically
distressed cities. But Detroit is also the center of a robust
network of community wealth building models and innovations.
This quarter we present the tenth in our continuing series
of profiles of Community Wealth Cities: Detroit,
Michigan.
- We also offer the fifth of our series of conversations
with community wealth building leaders: Maggie
DeSantis of Detroit's Warren-Conner Development
Corporation. For more than 20 years, this CDC has effectively
combined community organizing and community development
work.
- And last, but not least, we continue to add postings
to our C-W
Blog, where we feature items about up-to-the-moment
developments, breaking stories, new legislation, and more.
If you see something we should announce or feature, please
let us know!
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
 Policy
Support for Social Enterprise
Using case studies of eight social enterprises, Andrew Wolk,
CEO of Root Cause and
a Senior Lecturer of Social Entrepreneurship at MIT, examines
how social entrepreneurship can meet needs that are neglected
by the market. The report also explores how government policy
can help foster social enterprise innovations. To date, most
policy support for social enterprise has been ad hoc, but
recent events, including the formation in the State of Louisiana
in 2007 of an Office of Social Entrepreneurship, illustrate
the promise for the development of more comprehensive policy
support.
report-wolk.pdf (346KB)
 Community-Campus
Partnerships
This special issue of Community-Campus Partnership for Health's
Partnership Perspectives contains eleven articles that address
issues facing health-promoting community-higher education
partnerships. Among them: ways to balance power and share
resources among community and higher education partners; how
anchor institutions such as universities can most effectively
partner with communities of color and immigrant groups; and
strategies for translating partnership principles into standard
practice.
report-seifer-et-al.pdf
(6MB)
For more information, see the organization's website
at: www.ccph.info
 Supporting
Sustainable Community Development
Just Partners, Inc. of Baltimore, MD, has issued Sustainable
Communities for All Ages: A Viable Futures Toolkit. The tools
focus on five key areas: education and civic engagement; community
and economic development; individual and family wellness;
affordable quality housing; and land use, transportation and
natural resources.
tool-just-partners-sustainable.pdf (12.2MB)
For more information, visit the toolkit website at: www.viablefuturestoolkit.org
 Universities
Take On Increased Local Economic Development Role
“Today, many schools may be going back to their land-grant
roots and revitalizing the role for higher education in local
and regional economic development,” concludes an October
2007 article in Profitwise News and Views, a publication of
the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Highlighted in the article
are the efforts of Purdue University, which has established
a series of goals in both economic development and community
outreach.
article-mattoon.pdf (972KB)
Pittsburgh
Medical Center Commits to Funding Local Scholarships
As a December 2007 New York Times article highlights, the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has pledged up to
$100-million over 10 years to the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship
program. According to the Times, the hospital sees the program
as playing a key role in supporting the city's economy
by encouraging talented students to seek higher education
in their home city. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy observed,
the gift is the latest example of the efforts from "anchor
institutions—universities, hospitals, and other nonprofit
groups—to benefit disadvantaged neighborhoods.”
article-hamill.pdf
(64KB)
 Rhode
Island Social Enterprise Enjoys Rapid Growth
In the wake of dwindling federal and state funding and increased
competition for foundation grants, more nonprofits are launching
earned-income ventures, notes the author of a January 2008
article in Communities & Banking, a publication of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The article profiles the catering
operation of the Providence, R.I. nonprofit Amos House (picture
at right]. Rhode Island now boasts over 100 social enterprises
statewide.
article-watkins.pdf
(196KB)
State
Legislatures Support Community Development Finance
In 2007, “there were more [state legislature] bills
introduced to support opportunity finance than any other previous
year,” with a total of 98 bills introduced in 38 states.
So reports the Opportunity Finance Network, the leading trade
association of community development loan funds. Bills enacted
into law include the creation of a statewide community development
financial institution (CDFI) Fund in New York, a line-item
appropriation in a Virginia budget bill, and a community development
act that benefits CDFIs in Louisiana.
paper-williams.pdf
(340KB)
 Brookings
Report Highlights Growing Importance of Metro Regions
“Despite consuming just 12 percent of our land mass,
the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas harbor 65
percent of our population, and generate 75 percent of our
gross domestic product,” observes Alan Berube, Research
Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings.
In this report, Berube calls for a new federal focus on supporting
regionally specific strategies for community wealth creation
in the nation's metropolitan areas.
report-berube.pdf
(8.2MB)
Federal
Reserve Paper Makes Case for Economically Targeted Investments
A November 2007 discussion paper authored by Anna Steiger
of the Federal Reserve of Boston, Tessa Hebb of Harvard, and
Lisa Hagerman of Oxford, finds that: “There are opportunities
to attract larger amounts of institutional capital to the
emerging domestic markets while promoting the mechanisms that
help ensure these investments have a meaningful impact on
underserved communities.” In particular, the authors
note that institutional investors such as insurance companies,
large commercial banks, public sector pension funds, and foundations
have a critical role to play in community development finance
since they “can provide the patient capital needed for
community investments, many of which do not yield returns for
several years out.”
paper-steiger-et-al.pdf
(664KB)
C-W.ORG INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY
BUILDERS: |
 Maggie
DeSantis is President of the Warren/Conner Development
Corporation, a community-based organization that has been
working for more than two decades on Detroit's Eastside.
Founded in 1984, WarrenConner has undertaken a number of
initiatives, including youth development, community organizing,
business development, and affordable housing. Over the past
two decades, the group's work has helped create 200
jobs and generate nearly $20 million in private investment.
interview-desantis.pdf
(148KB)
 The
tenth in our continuing series of profiles of Community
Wealth Cities: Detroit, Michigan. Long suffering from
disinvestment, the City of Detroit, local community groups,
and the philanthropic community are stepping up their community
wealth building efforts. The City's NEXT Detroit Neighborhood
Initiative aims to implement six neighborhood plans that have
been developed through a 15-month community planning process.
Foundations have pledged $100 million to create a “New
Economy Initiative” to support “companies and
projects aimed at diversifying Michigan's ‘old economy'."
 CDFI
Leaders Gather to Build for Next Stage of Community Finance
Close to 700 people from around the country attended the 23rd
annual Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) conference in Miami,
Florida to share their experiences regarding community development
finance. Among the highlights of the conference was the announcement
of a new prize awarded for efforts to help “scale up”
innovation in community development finance. Two U.S. financial
institutions—Latino Community Credit Union of Durham, N.C., and ACCION Texas of San Antonio—were named
the first recipients and shared $8.25 million. The prize was
presented by OFN and funded by The Wachovia Foundation and
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
article-dubb-ofn.pdf (160KB)
 Catholic
Campaign for Human Development
For nearly 40 years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development
has been the domestic anti-poverty, social justice program
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Grants, implemented
in collaboration with local dioceses, are funded by an annual
collection in U.S. Catholic parishes and support community
wealth building. Priority areas include: community organizing,
community land trusts, community marketplaces, community development
financial institutions, worker cooperatives, and social enterprise.
www.nccbuscc.org/cchd
 Center
for Community-Based Enterprise
Founded in 2006, the Center is a group of socially-oriented
investors and business developers who seek to make Detroit
a national applied innovation lab for community based wealth
creation strategies. A fundamental principle behind the approach
is to create “rooted” wealth-creating capital
committed to operating in a specific community through its
ownership structure, business model, or by-laws.
www.c2be.org
 Low
Income Investment Fund
Over its 23-year history, San Francisco-based LIIF has provided
over $800 million in financing and technical assistance for
projects benefiting low-income communities in 26 states, leveraging
over $5.3 billion in additional private, public, and philanthropic
investments. Through this work, LIIF has served nearly 450,000
people and supported 55,000 units of housing; 47,000 childcare
spaces; 42,000 spaces in schools for children; and 2.5 million
square feet of commercial and community facilities space.
This past November, LIIF also published a new guide for charter
school development.
www.liifund.org
tool-liif-charter-school.pdf
(2.7MB)
 Team
Works
Founded in 2004, TeamWorks consists of two businesses, one
of which is a worker cooperative that provides house cleaning
and concierge services on the San Francisco peninsula; the
other offers business support services and is involved in
starting new worker cooperative sites.
www.teamworks.coop
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