Cross-Sectoral

SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS

African American Forum on Race & Regionalism
www.aafrr.org
The African American Forum on Race & Regionalism was initiated in 2002 and represents a joint effort of PolicyLink, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Clark-Atlanta University Environmental Justice Resource Center, and the Sustainable Community Development Group. AAFRR aims to provide a place for interdisciplinary dialogue on regional equity, community wealth building, and sustainable development and to ensure that the voice and views of African Americans are included in these discussions.

Alliance for Children and Families
www.alliance1.org
Committed to serving child- and family-serving nonprofits, the Alliance for Children and Families provides financial and technical support to organizations in the human services sector and their professional staffs nationwide, in order that they can better serve their constituencies. To date, there are more than 310 Alliance members in the United States and Canada, contributing more than $10.8 billion to regional economies, employing more than 53,000 full-time employees, and serving more than 3.4 million clients annually.

Annie E. Casey Foundation, Making Connections Initiative
www.aecf.org/MajorInitiatives/MakingConnections.aspx
Started in 1999, the Making Connections Initiative is a 10-year project designed to promote and support local efforts to rebuild neighborhoods in 22 cities. The coalitions built include residents, community leaders, businesses, government officials, schools, faith-based groups, community development corporations, and other community-based organizations.

The Aspen Institute, Roundtable on Community Change
www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/community-change
The Roundtable on Community Change was established in 1992 as a forum in which foundation sponsors, directors, technical assistance providers, evaluators, and public sector officials could meet to discuss the lessons that are being learned by comprehensive community initiatives across the country and to work on common problems they are facing. The website includes a number of reports on the issues and obstacles that such efforts face.

Calvert Foundation
www.calvertfoundation.org
The Calvert Foundation invests in community development financial institutions and other community development non-profits working in urban and rural communities throughout the world. In addition to information about its social investment programs, Calvert also maintains on its website profiles of over 100 community-development corporations and financial institutions.

Center for Community Progress
www.communityprogress.net
A joint project of the National Vacant Properties Campaign and the Genese Institute, the Center for Community Progress works with government officials and nonprofit organizations to implement policy changes that encourage the reuse of vacant, abandoned, and under utilized properties. Striving to create strong communities by redeveloping these properties, the center accomplishes its mission by developing a national network of vacant property practitioners and experts, research dissemination, advocacy, and local capacity building through technical assistance and training work.

Delta Institute
www.delta-institute.org
Recognizing the potential for a green economy to also mean stronger, healthier communities, Delta Institute is working to develop the Great Lakes Region into a global leader in green technology, green jobs and green innovation. Forging a network of business leaders, local and state government, and nonprofit and civic associations, the Delta Institute has established ambitious goals for 2020 that include investing $250 million in pollution prevention, remediation and reuse, developing 200 sustainability programs for businesses and government, and creating 50 sustainable models for community economic development.

Ford Foundation, Asset Building and Community Development Program
www.fordfoundation.org/grants/program-related-investment
The Ford Foundation's Economic Fairness and Opportunity program helps strengthen and increase the effectiveness of people and organizations working to find solutions to problems of poverty and injustice. Foundation grants and program-related investments support a wide variety of organizations pursuing community development objectives, including community development corporations, cooperatives, community land trusts, and community development financial institutions.

Innovation Network for Communities
www.nupolis.com
Founded in early 2007 with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Innovation Network for Communities seeks to spur community wealth building by identifying and working with partner organizations to help develop and scale up innovations. Known as nuPOLIS on the web, the group's current areas of focus include workforce development, urban sustainability strategies, urban low-income minority student learning strategies, and urban market-driven economic development strategies.

LIFT
www.liftcommunities.org
LIFT works to address the issue of poverty and limited opportunity through a two part approach: first, by having trained volunteers assist low-income individuals obtain secure income, housing, health care, and education; and, second, by encouraging LIFT alumni to engage the issue of poverty in future careers across all sectors. LIFT currently runs centers in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, having trained more than 5,000 volunteers who have assisted more than 30,000 individuals and families.

PolicyLink
www.policylink.org
PolicyLink is a national nonprofit research, communications, capacity building, and advocacy organization working to advance policies to achieve economic and social equity. PolicyLink collaborates with a broad range of partners to implement strategies to ensure that everyone—including those from low-income communities of color—can contribute to and benefit from economic growth and prosperity. PolicyLink advocates for equitable public investment, the fair distribution of affordable housing, and community strategies to improve health.

The Praxis Project
www.thepraxisproject.org
The Praxis Project is a national, nonprofit organization that builds partnerships with local groups to influence policymaking to address the underlying, systemic causes of community problems.

Project for Public Spaces
www.pps.org
Founded in 1975, Project for Public Spaces has helped over 2,000 communities in 26 countries improve their parks, markets, streets, transit stations, libraries, and other public spaces. The process used is a participatory one, based on surveying community members to develop projects, beginning with small-scale efforts, to meet their needs. One of the group's projects involves the promotion of public markets, in which public markets are employed to spur local community wealth building. Examples range from an effort centered around local vendors in Athens, Ohio, to a transit-linked development project involving a local community development corporation in the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland, California.

Social Compact
www.socialcompact.org
Social Compact is a coalition of business leaders who seek to promote business investment in lower-income communities for the benefit of current residents. Social Compact aims to counter negative stereotypes—reinforced by poverty and a lack of dependable business-oriented market information—that lead to underinvestment in inner-city markets. In particular, Social Compact addresses these issues by conducting its own highly detailed inner-city neighborhood market analysis (which it calls a "DrillDown" analysis) and through extensive municipal and community trainings and consulting work.

Sustainable Economies Law Center
www.sustainableeconomieslawcenter.org
Seeking to facilitate the growth of sustainable, localized, and just economies, through legal research, professional training, resource development, and education, the Sustainable Economies Law Center operates programs in five fields: urban agriculture; cooperatives; community-supported entrepreneurship; barter and local currency; and shared, sustainable and affordable housing.

United Neighborhood Centers of America
www.unca.org
United Neighborhood Centers of America is a national association representing neighborhood-based community centers throughout the United States. Formerly known as the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, it was founded in 1911 by Jane Addams and other pioneers of the settlement movement. Many of these settlement houses have expanded to become large community centers, whose programs include youth groups, senior services, neighborhood development projects, and services for immigrant and migrant workers.

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Wealth Creation in Rural Communities
www.creatingruralwealth.org
Wealth Creation in Rural Communities (WCRC), a project coordinated by the Center Rural Entrepreneurship, working in collaboration with Yellow Wood Associates, seeks to better rural communities through a systems approach to development that fosters diverse community forms of local wealth. The project aims to support efforts that link together assets, producers, and consumers in ways that benefit everyone and keep wealth anchored within the community.