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Inside a framed peaked-roof house, four people are working. One is laying two-by-fours on the floor to frame a wall; one is using a table saw, and two are standing at the far wall looking at something out of camera view. Out the large doorway (which has no door yet) can be seen a house across the street, and piles of lumber.

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Community Development Field

Are You TED Talk Ready?  The Importance of Conceptual Capital

In the callow youth of the nonprofit sector, you needed two kinds of capital: (1) financial capital, because money does, after all, grease the wheels of change, and (2) social […]

Community Development Field

Turns Out Innovation Is Officially Overrated

Many nonprofits and social enterprises face constant pressure to be “innovative,” whether from funders or charitable business leaders who want to offer their expertise from the world of venture capital […]

Community Development Field

Nonprofit Funding in San Diego Under Threat

San Diego’s sunny beaches and beautiful college campuses can be deceptive. The city's soaring housing costs force university students and low-income families to sleep on couches and to depend on […]

Community Development Field

Scoring Bragging Rights–and Funding

If there is one thing we have no shortage of here at LISC, it’s modesty. When a distressed community rebounds, we happily hand the credit to the residents and local […]

Community Development Field

Defining Language

Comprehensive. Scale. Development. Capacity. Impact. These words (and many others) took on new definitions when I began working at Shelterforce just two months ago. Understanding the jargon of community development, […]

Community Development Field

The Art$, Part II

In my most recent post we started a conversation about some of the differences between very large cultural organizations and, well, everybody else. I pointed out that members of the Cultural […]

Community Development Field

The Art$

I was invited recently by the Municipal Art Society to do a research project called “Who Pays for the Arts.” The goal is to create a tool using data provided […]

Community Development Field

Nine Rules of Engagement for Recruiting and Retaining Community Volunteers

In community development's formative years, it would have been unthinkable for a nonprofit housing organization not to have a grassroots membership and not to have a governing board elected in […]

Community Development Field

Blurring the Lines Between For-Profit and Nonprofit

In my last blog post I spent a good chunk of time talking about the trend toward “complexification” in the nonprofit sector. There are plenty of small, scrappy, neighborhood based […]

Community Development Field

The Complexification of the Nonprofit Sector

Nonprofit sector organizations are getting bigger, operations are getting more tentacled, financial tools are getting wonkier, and budgets keep growing. Don't just take my word for it: check out the […]

Community Development Field

How to Hire a Consultant

Did you ever feel like you need a consultant to help you figure out what you need your consultant to do?  Believe me, you are not alone.  As a recovering […]

Community Development Field

NYC’s Philanthropy Bagel Hole

New York City has everything, just like this bagel. Yum! The secret, as they say, is in the water.  And water, as they say, is life.  But there’s a hole […]