Anchor Institutions

MODELS & BEST PRACTICES

Bush Creek Community Partners (Kansas City, MO)
www.bccp.org
This effort, begun in 1994, has brought together local colleges and research institutes, hospitals, art museums, the Kaufman Foundation and business to collaborate to pursue a common mission of developing a cultural and research corridor surrounded by healthy neighborhoods. Over the course of the following decade, over $1 billion was invested in corridor initiatives.

Greater Philadelphia Federation of Settlements (Philadelphia, PA)
www.greatsettlements.org
Founded in 1906, for a century the Greater Philadelphia Federation of Settlements has helped build strong neighborhoods by strengthening families and civic life. The Federation achieves this mission through serving as a focal point for leadership and collaboration, and working with settlement houses and neighborhood centers—community-based anchor institutions that provide services for low-income families, children and youth—reaching over 25,000 people a year.

Greenleaf Christian Church community development ministry
(Goldsboro, NC)
www.greenleafdoc.com/greenleafdoc/about_greenleaf
Greenleaf Christian Church has consistently remained socially active on behalf of low-income members of its community. In 1997, the Church negotiated the purchase of a five and a half acres track of land and a 26,000 square-foot building to house a fellowship hall and new ministries, including a preschool, job/computer training center, and an office for Rebuilding Broken Places CDC—investing over $1.5 million in the process. To date, the CDC the Church help found has invested over $7 million in community development efforts.

Initiative for a Competitive Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY)
www.bedc.org/icb.htm
ICB is a comprehensive economic strategy designed to increase economic opportunities for low-income Brooklyn residents. In partnership with the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, and the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation, ICB is implementing an economic strategy anchored on growing sectors of goods and services that cater to the local community.

Milwaukee Intercity Congregations Allied For Hope (Milwaukee, WI)
www.micahempowers.org
Founded in 1988, in the same likeness as the prophet, MICAH (the organization) is a coalition of metropolitan leaders and over 35 congregations dedicated to building power to create better jobs, quality public schools, opportunities for youth, civil rights for immigrants and police accountability for all.

New Schools New Neighborhoods (Los Angles, CA)
www.nsbn.org
NSBN was formed both to advocate for a vision of public facilities, most especially schools, as vital community centers, and to assist families and neighborhoods in creating built models of community centered learning centers. NSBN has emerged as California's independent, neighborhood-led master planner, committed to reforming existing approaches to site and designing family resource centers, public schools, parks, libraries & housing.

Rochester Area Foundation—First Homes (Rochester, MN)
http://www.rochesterarea.org
Supported by a $7 million donation from the area’s leading anchor institution and employer the Mayo Clinic (which employs 28,000 in a city of 95,000), the Rochester Area Foundation in 1999 launched First Homes. Mayo’s leading donation led to an additional $7 million in donations, leveraging an additional $115 million. To date, 420 new single-family homes and more than 225 new below-market-rate rental units have been built. Of those single-family totals, more than four dozen are community land trust properties, one of the first times an anchor institution has directly supported the development of this permanently affordable housing model.

Swedish American Health System, (Rockford, IL)
www.swedishamerican.org
SwedishAmerican is a not-for-profit, locally governed healthcare system that serves 12 counties in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. As part of its community building efforts, the hospital has supported the replacement of substandard dwellings with Habitat for Humanity homes, financed the building of a new playground, provided 50/50 matching grants for home improvement projects, and established an employee homeownership assistance program for homes bought within a 6-block radius of the hospital, which includes a $5,000, five-year forgivable grant ($10,000 for low-income employees) to employees in good standing.

Uptown Consortium (Cincinnati, OH)
www. uptownconsortium.org
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 an anchor-based approach to community wealth building. 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, helping leverage over $400 million for community renovation work.

Univer/City Partnership (Worcester, MA)
www. univercitypartnership.org
The UniverCtiy Partnership is a nonprofit coalition of public and private sector organizations working with Worcester-area colleges. These organizations include the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Worcester Business Development Corporation, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium, and the City of Worcester. This unique Partnership was created to fully engage Worcester's institutions of higher education, which enroll 30,000 students, in promoting economic development and community revitalization. The Partnership encourages area students to take greater advantage of Worcester as a "learning lab," which can provide them with opportunities for academic and civic engagement.

University Park plan (Gary, IN)
www.iun.edu/~univpark
The University Park plan, developed by Indiana University Northwest developed in 2001 and 2002 by a City task force consisting of representatives of community organizations, store owners, local educational institutions and City agencies, seeks to utilize schools, area colleges, and community centers as anchor institutions for its comprehensive community redevelopment effort.

The Partnership CDC (Philadelphia, PA)
www.thepartnershipcdc.org
Founded in 1992, The Partnership CDC (formerly West Philadelphia Partnership) involves the collaboration of the University of Pennsylvania, health care institutions, local companies, and local community development corporations and neighborhood associations to enhance the quality of residential and economic life in West and Southwest Philadelphia, with a focus on workforce training and youth education programs.