Cross-Sectoral

RESEARCH RESOURCES

*NEW*
Big Ideas for Jobs
www.bigideasforjobs.org
An initiative of the University of California, Berkeley with the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and W.K Kellogg Foundation, Big Ideas for Jobs is an effort to tackle unemployment in the short-term. Bringing together more than a dozen experts from a variety of fields, the project tasked with them with coming up with job creation ideas that are practical, tested, require limited investment, and are available to low-skilled workers. In addition to listings the many reports and ideas for this initiative, the website also allows for visitors to submit their own short-term employment ideas to be considered for inclusion in the next Big Jobs report.

Center for Community Capital, University of North Carolina
www.ccc.unc.edu
The Center for Community Capital conducts research on the role of CDCs and CDFIs, with a focus in three areas; 1) Exploring ways to leverage electronic banking technology to create new markets for financial services and savings accumulation opportunities for residents of underserved communities; 2) Supporting community wealth-building through home ownership; and 3) Documenting the business potential of America's urban and rural emerging markets.

COMM-ORG
http://comm-org.wisc.edu
Founded in 1995 and hosted at the University of Toledo, COMM-ORG has evolved into a community of scholars, community organizers, community development workers, and others that looks at a broad array of community wealth building strategies. The website includes a wide range of scholarly articles and links to many other related sites of interest.

Demos
www.demos-usa.org
Founded in 1999, Demos is a multi-faceted research and advocacy organization that focuses on issues of democracy, the health of the public sector, and the creation of a public realm of debate and ideas. It also has an economic opportunity program that focuses on promoting new ideas in the areas of higher education, income and asset-based policy as means of building wealth among people of low and moderate incomes.

Innovation@cfed
http://innovation.cfed.org
innovation@cefd is a new resource site launched by CFED, a leading asset-building organization, which hopes to facilitate the next generation of effective strategies to build economic opportunity. The Innovators-in-Residence program will help identify individuals with promising ideas who would benefit form additional monetary and technical support.

Insight Center for Community Economic Development
www.insightcced.org
Formerly known as the National Economic Development and Law Center, the Insight Center has restated its mission as “Helping people and communities become, and remain, economically secure.” The group works across sectors and has had a perspective of race to its work, including a project to expand the impact of experts of color in the savings and asset building field, as well as innovative research that will help strengthen minority- and women-owned businesses.

Institute for Comprehensive Community Development
www.instituteccd.org
A project of LISC Chicago, the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development works to build the capacity of community development practitioners by providing technical assistance to community development initiatives across the nation, highlighting and developing best practices and supporting public policy that effectively links government programs to community development.  The Institute focuses on a holistic approach that looks beyond single issue, project-based strategies and instead incorporates a broad vision of how local agencies, organizations and institutions can partner to improve a community's quality of life.

Institute for New Economic Thinking
www.ineteconomics.org
Founded in October 2009, the Institute for New Economic Thinking is a nonprofit that seeks to promote changes to our current economic system and support new paradigms in the understanding of economic processes through conferences, grants and education initiatives.  George Soros has pledged $50 million pledge over ten years to fund this Institute; the majority of the funds will finance grants.

Institute for Local Self-Reliance
www.ilsr.org
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance takes a comprehensive approach to community building. Its “New Rules” project provides a wealth of practical examples of local legislation that has supported local community wealth-building efforts and can be used as templates for similar efforts in other communities. The ILSR web site also contains many publications on efforts to develop environmentally sustainable businesses as part of a community wealth-building strategy.

Our Native Circle
www.ournativecircle.org
Our Native Circle serves as an online community and resource where Native and non-Native community economic development practitioners can come together in force to share, inform, learn and connect. Site members include Native CDFIs (Community Development Financial Institutions), tribes, Native organizations, individuals, foundations, social entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, trainers and others working in and supporting Native community development.

Poverty & Race Research Action Council
www.prrac.org
Founded in 1990, the Poverty & Race Research Action Council aims to generate, gather and disseminate research on the relationship between race and poverty, and to promote policies and practices that alleviate conditions caused by the interaction of race and poverty.

Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED)
www.picced.org
PICCED helps advance public policy that supports sustainable, equitable, community-led development. PICCED's research and advocacy efforts have included the promotion of inclusionary zoning, support for mutual housing associations, publishing oral histories of community development corporations, and participation in the successful effort to establish an affordable housing trust fund in New York State.

Restoring Prosperity Initiative: The Brookings Institution
www.restoringprosperity.org
The Brookings Institution's Restoring Prosperity Initiative is a research project that looks at ways to restore prosperity in America's struggling cities, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest, by directing states and cities to adopt policies that will support urban community wealth building. This initiative focuses on strategies in six states (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut), as well as in some large cities in the Northeast and Midwest outside those states, such as Baltimore.

Southern Growth Idea Bank
www.southernideabank.org
This online search engine is powered by the Southern Growth Policies Board—a non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to the economic development of the South through regional collaboration. Users can perform a targeted or keyword search of several community and economic development and support programs in the South. Program areas are distinguished by technology, globalization, workforce, and community.

Stablecommunities.org
www.stablecommunities.org
Providing community-based solutions to the foreclosure crisis, Stablecommunities.org is a new resource site for community development practitioners. Sponsored by NeighborWorks, the site features sections on how to address the increase in vacant property, on gathering support from various programs and partnerships, and on advocating for policy changes on the state, local and national level.

Yellow Wood Associates
www.yellowwood.org
Founded in Yellow Wood Associates is a women-owned, small business, consulting firm focused on rural community economic development. Working with federal, state, and local governments, non-profit organizations, community groups and foundations, Yellow Wood strives to allow communities and their economies to reach material sufficiency, not maximization, and to promote responsible stewardship of shared natural resources. Yellow Wood provides capacity building, a green community technology service, feasibility studies and economic and fiscal impact analyses for clients.

Vital Communities Toolbox
www.tompkins-co.org/planning/vct/
Maintained by the Planning Department of Tompkins County (Ithaca and environs) in upstate New York, this website contains an "A-Z" listing of different community wealth-building tools, ranging from business incubators to community land trusts to transit-oriented development, to name just a few of the topics.