Strengthening Future Work on
Theme 1: Redefining Place
How should policy makers and practitioners think about “place” in future place- based efforts? Defining the place targeted by a community change effort has been a persistent problem for practitioners and researchers. The boundaries recog- nized by the Census Bureau, school districts, postal service, and police rarely map well onto each other or onto the boundaries that residents identify as their neighborhood. By and large, practitioners have dealt with this dilemma by avoid- ing rigid definitions of their neighborhoods, while researchers have become in- creasingly sophisticated in their use of different kinds of local area data to de- scribe neighborhoods and track change.
Two more challenges have been added recently to the problem of defining place. The first is an awareness of the importance of metropolitan and regional influences on neighborhoods’ status and trajectory. The past decade has seen major growth in the study of metropolitanism, regionalism, smart growth, and equitable development, shedding light on how neighborhoods interact with the geographies and economies that surround them. This growing appreciation of neighborhoods as complex systems that are continually adapting to their sur-
rounding circumstances, rather than static places, challenges traditional ways of thinking about the purpose and design of place-based interventions. The implications for action that these analyses suggest are at a very early stage of development, however.
For example, Weissbourd, Bodini, and He (2009) found that one-third of neighborhood change depends on regional trends. They conclude:
Community and economic development should aim at maximizing the con- nections and transactions that link the neighborhood, its assets, and resi- dents to the larger systems. . . . One could imagine an enhanced comprehen- sive neighborhood planning approach which brings more business planning principles to community and economic development. . . . [G]iven a detailed analysis of neighborhood assets, challenges and opportunities, a compre- hensive planning process could identify a vision and goals for development of those assets in the larger regional context and strategies, programs, prod- ucts, and services to address barriers and facilitate connections, transac- tions and investment. In this approach, interventions would be tailored and driven by the functions the neighborhood serves, what types of people and investment it seeks to attract or retain, and what it takes to engage the larger systems to create the right balance of amenities to attract the desired investments and demographics.
The second challenge emerges out of a growing awareness that residents of poor communities move frequently and a recognition of the powerful effect that migration into and out of neighborhoods has on efforts to change and track resi- dents’ well-being. Coulton, Theodos, and Turner (2009) found that roughly half of the families in neighborhoods that they studied changed residences in a three- year period, with these implications:
We find that neighborhood change is often the result of mobility—differ- ences between the characteristics of movers and newcomers. In contrast, changes among stayers over a three-year period are generally small. Efforts to strengthen neighborhoods should acknowledge both the slow pace of change among stayers and the role played by the continuous flow of house- holds into and out of the neighborhood. . . . [T]he goal of place-based initia- tives should be to strengthen neighborhoods’ performance for all their resi- dents: supporting up-and-out movers while reducing churning, supporting the attached stayers while improving the choices available to dissatisfied stayers, and engaging with both positive and dissatisfied newcomers to draw them into neighborhood networks and supports.
Thus, while our current understanding of neighborhood dynamics is more sophisticated than in the past, the field is only just beginning to figure out how that knowledge should be translated into community change strategies. The next generation of community change efforts must take up the challenge of develop- ing good theories of change that reflect this new understanding of regional and mobility dynamics, as well as good ways to operationalize the knowledge.
Theme 2: Demonstrating the Value of Community Building
How can the field do a better job of demonstrating the added value of a “com- munity building” approach to neighborhood change? All of the community change efforts reviewed here work according to community building principles, although they vary in terms of how central community building is to their mission and oper- ations. An important challenge to the field is to “prove” that a community building approach to planning and implementing neighborhood change is better than sim- ply putting high-quality human, physical, and economic development programs into place in the neighborhood. Are better outcomes produced as a result of invest- ing the time, money, and capacity to house them in a broader community building effort? Which outcomes are enhanced? Over what time period?For some, community building outcomes are ends in themselves. Fortunate- ly, evidence is mounting that community building outcomes such as increased social capital and a more mobilized community can be produced by common- ly employed strategies such as outreach, organizing, community planning, and cultural events. The harder nut to crack is to demonstrate that those enhanced community building outcomes then lead to improved social and economic well- being for residents and a stronger, more resilient community over the long run.
Stakeholders in the field have made several assumptions about how commu- nity building approaches might enhance outcomes for individuals and neighbor- hoods. For instance, they hypothesize that community building approaches help ensure more effective links and interactions among human, economic, and physi- cal development activities; build greater community investment in the work and therefore ensure that the effort is more sustainable over time; or create a “sense of community” and relationships that can be tapped over the long run to improve the community. These are strongly held beliefs by many who work in the field, but they are still hypotheses that need to be systematically tested and backed up with evidence.
One obstacle is that it is almost considered heretical to challenge assumptions about the purpose and value of community building. Many actors are ideologically committed to concepts of participation, empowerment, democracy, and communi- ty ownership, so raising questions about the instrumental value and payoff of com- munity building is taboo. This hesitance has not served the field well: many who
would benefit from better knowledge about community building have not made demands on the academic community and funders to undertake rigorous research on this set of questions. The time has come to make better progress on understand- ing community building’s contribution to community well-being.
This is an important area for the field to focus on for three reasons:
e There are always trade-offs in decisions about how to use funds. This is especially true with the relatively flexible funding that philanthropy pro- vides. It is crucial to be able to make a compelling case that community building is a priority use of precious resources.
e One goal of community change efforts should be to build better theories for how to make significant improvements in the conditions of distressed neighborhoods. The community building hypothesis is so central to this work that leaders must place priority on understanding its role in the theory of change: What does it produce? When it is critical? For which purposes? In which contexts? It is important to move this discussion out of the realm of values, ideology, and political correctness so we can build an evidence base. Some progress has been made in unpacking and speci- fying community building strategies and outcomes. The challenge is to organize that knowledge and develop systematic learning opportunities as we go forward.
e If the purpose of community building is to strengthen local, civic, demo- cratic, and social justice institutions, then the field needs to be able to declare that with confidence, rather than judge community building by whether tangible outcomes can be ascribed to it.
Theme 3: Defining Sustainability and How to Achieve It
What does sustainability mean in the context of community change? The prob- lems associated with keeping worthwhile organizations or programs alive in the antipoverty, social services, and community development fields are not new. Philanthropic dollars will never cover all of the costs, and public funding is cat- egorical, prescriptive, and subject to political and economic vagaries.
In some ways, the question of how to sustain the work of a community change effort mirrors the familiar problems of traditional community-based organiza- tions because it is, in part, about ongoing support for basic programs. At the same time, it also has some elements that are unique, including covering the costs of community building activities, managing complex working partnerships, build-
ing capacity, promoting systems change, and building a system of ongoing learn- ing and feedback to guide work that is developmental. These activities are typi- cally covered by foundations in the context of a community change effort, and they are difficult to continue once the sponsoring foundation ends its support.
The theory of sustainability for community change efforts over the past 20 years has assumed that, although philanthropic investments in community build- ing might wane over time, their payoff in terms of enhanced organizational and community performance should position the change effort to attract new sup- port over the long run. Or they might instill new ways of working that continue to yield benefits beyond the term of foundation grants. Experience from com- munity change efforts, and from CCIs in particular, shows that although spon- soring foundations have expected local entities to find the means to sustain both programmatic and nonprogrammatic activities initiated by the foundation, this has been extremely difficult. In his 2002 report on CCIs’ sustainability issues, Ira Cutler made the following observation:
The common view is that, after a time, a community-driven effort should show enough promise or have made enough progress to attract new funders. Ultimately, the original sponsoring foundation can withdraw or greatly lessen its support, and the effort will continue. This simple model—design, demonstrate, evaluate, disseminate, and wait for large-scale public and pri- vate funding to underwrite continued operation or even expansion—is the “sustainability theory” behind most community-based initiatives. Many people believe the model does not work, at least in the short term. Others believe the model is fine if the product under consideration is a direct ser- vice. Coordinating, community-building, or other collaborative efforts are another problem altogether.
Experience also suggests that when an initiative is heavily identified with the sponsoring foundation, it is particularly difficult to get buy-in from other funders. In the words of one observer, “Every funder is trying to leverage every other funder.”
It is rare to find an organization that has a sufficient endowment or inde- pendent revenue streams to sustain community building and similar functions after a time-limited initiative ends. Some exceptions might be found among uni- versities, foundations, CDFIs, and large CDCs whose housing and commercial projects generate unencumbered revenue. However, the public sector generally funds only direct programmatic work, whether it is oriented toward human, physical, or economic development.
Terms such as exit strategy or sustainability plan are used more often when referring to foundation-sponsored initiatives that have start and end dates than
to the work of traditional social service agencies and community-based organi- zations. All too often, the terms are code for “winding down the work.” In some cases, organizations have folded because they cannot keep the work funded (e.g., DC Agenda). In others, organizations that were founded to perform some of the local community building, convening, and policy work take on contracts to provide direct services or technical assistance and use them to sustain activi- ties (e.g., Urban Strategies Council). The Annie E. Casey Foundation is paying considerable attention to ways to maintain the work of Making Connections beyond the end of its full-scale support in 2011, including strategies for match- ing Casey dollars with local funds and using Casey dollars to leverage public funds. It will be important for the field to observe, assess, and learn from this experience.