Tag Archives: community development

What Makes an Effective Philanthropic Collaborative? Change Capital Fund Turns 20-Years-Old

Change Capital Fund, gearing up for its 20^th year, has proven to be an unusually effective philanthropic collaborative. The Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) has long believed that philanthropy – both by banks and private foundations – should focus much of their giving at the local level to neighborhood-based organizations that are effectively addressing problems and building grassroots capacity for greater change. We also believe that sometimes philanthropy should have a strategic theory of how targeted funding can have a larger impact beyond any individual grant. On this 20^th anniversary of the fund, here are some of the lessons learned and best practices ANHD has observed that have helped Change Capital to work this well for so long:

Have a theory of change that adds up to more than the sum of the grants:

Change Capital Fund began 20 years ago as the Neighborhood 2000 Fund, which then evolved to become the Neighborhood Opportunities Fund, which then evolved again into Change Capital. The names don’t matter, but the strategy each time did. Each iteration reflected a change in strategy based on key needs at that moment, but it always kept its focus on local, community-based organizations. The Fund originally came together with the strategic purpose of helping non-profit affordable housing developers adjust to the changing landscape of development by providing deep and multi-year capacity-building funding. This was an especially timely and important need, which the core funders recognized as they had been long-time backers of community development organizations.

With the original strategy showing significant results, the Fund evaluated the landscape to see where they could expand their reach. They had long recognized that the grassroots capacity of the New York City community development movement has always been one of the key strengths of our local approach, and so began a high-impact focus on increasing the capacity of local groups to build and sustain neighborhood-level grassroots organizing. Individually, and collectively, the groups funded by this initiative achieved local and citywide policies that continue to benefit low-income and immigrant New Yorkers. Change Capital Fund is the most recent evolution, continuing the strategy of building core capacities of essential neighborhood institutions, but this time with a focus on helping a smaller number of solid organizations take the next step in impact by strengthening organizational systems, innovating their programming, and increasing their capacity to track and capture outcome- and impact-oriented program data.

There have been a few consistent strengths in the success of each Fund incarnation:

• There was a funder-driven strategy, but strategy was developed in close collaboration with and based on a deep knowledge of the community development movement.
• The funding was given enough time to have a real impact – each Fund incarnation had two multi-year cycles, which allowed true capacity growth to take place in each of the funded organizations, and often led to changes in practices that the sector as a whole can implement.

Create an important, strategic space that welcomes all types of funders to collaborate:

The level of resources matter. Grants have to be substantial enough to allow the funded group to bring on additional staff, with a funding cycle that is long enough to allow the funding to have an impact on the group’s work and with enough cycles to allow the change in practices to take root and flourish. This level of commitment is essential, but it is generally the case that it takes more than one foundation to provide that level of resources. A key strength of each of the three iterations of the Fund is that the collaborative included a range of foundation types, from banks to community foundations to larger-scale foundations. The depth of knowledge and diversity of the funders allowed the Fund to become an important center of gravity in the field. New York has more foundations of all types than most cities, but an effort of the scale and ambition of any of the three funding iterations would be hard to sustain, even here, without the commitment of different philanthropic sectors held together by a shared strategic vision.

Evolve to meet new circumstances and challenges while keeping core supporters at the table:

Foundations always have competing areas of interest and focus, and sustaining a commitment for the long term is not easy. The remarkable durability of the Fund comes, in part, from the active interest of the core supporters in evolving their strategy as the lessons of each funding cycle are evaluated and absorbed. Over the past 20 years, this has kept each iteration of the Fund strategically and urgently focused on a key challenge of the moment. Also, the openness to collective evaluation with all the funders around the table has helped to keep the Fund an important center of gravity for supporters of the highest level of community development practice.

ANHD congratulates Change Capital Fund for its 20 years of important impact and looks forward to learning more lessons about effective collaborative philanthropy as the Fund continues to grow and evolve to meet its mission.

Benjamin Dulchin, ANHD’s Executive Director

Displacement Alert Project Map Gives Activists and Policy Makers Key Information to Proactively Address the Displacement Crisis

The tenant displacement crisis is at the center of neighborhood concerns and City policy focus. We cannot allow market forces to price and push out our City’s diverse communities. ANHD today released the Displacement Alert Project Map (the DAP Map) that, for the first time, presents key information in an interactive, easy-to-use map that local activists, service providers and policy makers have long needed.

www.dapmapnyc.org

The DAP Map is a web-based, building-by-building map designed to show where residential tenants may be facing significant displacement pressures across New York City. Read the exclusive report about the DAP Map in this piece published today in the New York Times –  New Tool Shows New York Neighborhoods At Risk Of Rent Hikes

The DAP Map has three data view options and one combined risk score view. Each view option is based on unique data compiled by ANHD. The map shows previously unavailable building-level data, and color-codes buildings by risk-level so the information is clear and intuitive:

• Is there a high rate of loss of rent-regulated tenants in the building?
• Do NYC Department of Buildings permits indicate a high rate of tenant turnover?
• Was the building sold for a price that might indicate a speculative investment strategy? 
• Where do we see building facing multiple combined risks?

Clicking on any individual building and details about that particular risk in that building appears in a pop up box. The DAP Map can also be searched by entering an individual building address.

ANHD developed the DAP Map as a strategic tool for tenants, community groups, service providers and policy makers who want to address NYC’s displacement crisis. Our ANHD neighborhood groups know that growing market pressures are impacting existing affordable housing, and increasing tenant harassment and displacement in many neighborhoods. The DAP Map can be used to:

• Identify at-risk buildings.
• Provide proactive outreach and education tenants.
• Identify where and why neighborhoods might be experiencing a wave of displacement pressure.
• Align government policies on displacement to real-time displacement forces and trends. 

The DAP Map data is currently viewable only at an individual building level – aggregate data will be included in the next phase of the project. Meanwhile, ANHD analyzed the aggregate level data and found the following neighborhood patterns:

• There are 96,000 multi-family buildings in the data set. They all had at least one indicator of potential displacement concern: sold in 2015, at least one rent regulated unit since 2007, or had a residential DOB since 2013.
• New York City has lost over 156,000 rent-regulated units from 2007 to 2014.
• Nearly 26% of the buildings on the DAP Map have a high risk score, suggesting increasing rents.
• In over 5,400 buildings, the 2015 sales price per unit increased by more than double the 2010 area average.
• Just 10 zip codes account for one-quarter of all the buildings in NYC that lost a high percentage of rent regulated units between 2007 and 2014.
• Twenty-five zip codes account for one-half of all the NYC buildings that lost a high percentage of their rent regulated units in that same time period.
• In those same 25 zip codes, there is a correspondingly high number of Department of Buildings permits, with 16 of these zip codes showing exceptionally high DOB permit activity.
• In those same 25 zip codes, there is a correspondingly high number of exceptionally high per-unit property sale prices. In 12 of those zip codes, the average per-unit sale price was 150% above the average price in the surrounding area.

New York’s low-income communities, communities of color, and immigrant communities have been disproportionately impacted segregation, redlining, and predatory practices, and are increasingly feeling pushed out of our City. ANHD and our members are committed to stopping New York City’s growing displacement crisis and building a more equitable future for all of our City’s neighborhoods.

The DAP Map can be a tool to uncover problem buildings and patterns that City policy can help to address. This past spring, Mayor de Blasio committed to enacting a new, city-wide Certificate of No Harassment program as one key tool to help prevent displacement and preserve affordable housing.

In Memoriam

David Pagan, September 24^th, 1943 – September 20^th, 2016

The ANHD family mourns the loss of David Pagan, who passed away yesterday after a short illness.

David was a lion of the community development movement in New York City, leading the Los Sures community development group on the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn from its early days in the 1970s until his retirement in 2010.

David’s life, and the impact of his work and leadership in Williamsburg and in the community development movement across New York City, has been extraordinary. David was a founding member of the ANHD Board, and his vision and values shape our work to this day.

David Pagan arrived in New York City from his native Barranquitas, Puerto Rico, in 1956. He grew up in the Williamsburg and Bushwick sections of Brooklyn. After attending New York City Community College, he was drafted into the Army and served in Vietnam as an infantryman in the Air Cavalry Division. When he returned, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and economics from Queens College and later a Master’s degree in Finance from St. John’s University.

David was a neighborhood and social activist at heart, and he was quickly drawn to the struggles in his own part of Brooklyn. The Southside of Williamsburg, like many neighborhoods across New York City in the 1970s and 80s, suffered from disinvestment and abandonment as entire communities were written off by banks, developers, and even the government. But these neighborhoods were not written off by their residents.

The community residents who started Los Sures were responding to this epidemic of abandonment, and to the property owners who were trying to vacate their buildings in order to intentionally change the ethnic composition of the neighborhood. Under David’s leadership, Los Sures fought back by promoting community-based control of housing, through both management and ownership. In 1975, Los Sures became the first community-based organization to enter into agreements to manage City-owned properties. A few years later, it was one of the first groups to undertake large-scale rehabilitation.

Today, Los Sures is regarded as a pioneer in both the management and development of affordable housing. As the neighborhood turned around, for-profit developers started speculating that the improvements that neighborhood residents had fought so hard to achieve could be a springboard for gentrification. In response, Los Sures dedicated itself to educating and organizing tenants facing displacement pressure.

Ramon Peguero, the Executive Director of Los Sures, remembers David this way:

I worked as David’s Deputy Director for five years, and I always looked forward to our early morning conversations, before staff started to trickle in. He was a wealth of information, and I wanted to absorb as much as possible knowing that he planned to retire and may not be as available to me later on.

The one thing that David always said that stuck with me was, “I’d rather have 10% of something than 100% of nothing.” That opened me up to the understanding that dialogue, communication and relationships were extremely important to move the organization forward. It taught me that we were not going to win every single fight and get everything we requested, but as long as we were moving forward, we were on the right path. I interpreted those words to mean, negotiate and create common ground with others; to look beyond your differences and focus on the things you could agree on to bring about positive results.

David was a mentor and a friend who will be dearly missed.

A wake for David Pagan will be held on Thursday, September 22^nd, from 4:00 PM – 9:00 PM at the Arlington Benson Dowd Funeral Home, located at 83-15 Parsons Blvd, in Jamaica, NY.

The funeral will be held on Friday at the Calverton National Cemetery.