Nonprofits
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Unlikely Partners: How Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Came to Be
In the 1970s, anti-redlining movements were in full swing and the idea that activists, lenders, and elected officials could share power to revitalize communities and advance homeownership felt like a reach. But that was exactly my charge.
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#OMG: Is the #NPO Sector Tech Averse?
I was speaking with a friend of mine who works at a very large nonprofit organization (very large as in over $100 million in annual revenues). They serve thousands of clients every year with job development, alcohol and other drug abuse treatment, affordable housing, psychological counseling and a variety of other supports. As a result […]
Election Polling, Big Data, and Movement Building
There is a data geek Internet flame war going on between Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium and Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com over 2014 election projections. Evidence of the confrontation can be found here, here, and here. My research interests (such as they are) tend more toward demographic analysis, and I am far from […]
Keeping the Jobs in House
Humboldt Construction Company, a subsidiary of a Chicago CDC, has been providing local employment for over 30 years. But it hasn’t been easy.
Let’s Talk About Jobs—And Ownership
Community economic development is not just a matter of helping some households to get jobs and pay their bills. Done thoughtfully, it’s about . . .
Bonus: Diversifying the Public Sector
This is a sidebar to “On Board,” an article about making a community development organization’s board welcoming to residents and low-income members. CDC boards can be a first stop for […]
The New Dawn of the Nonprofit Merger
It used to be that the idea of one nonprofit taking over another was simply anathema. Nonprofits didn’t, you know, do that to one another. Mergers and acquisitions were the territory of national banks, energy companies and pharmaceutical giants with oversized ambitions and possibly malevolent intent. Nonprofits weren’t motivated by “creating efficiencies,” particularly at the […]
Tips for Getting Your “Innovative” Project Funded
In her July Rooflines post on the idea of “disruptive innovation,” Miriam Axel-Lute addressed how innovation has been over promoted in the nonprofit and public sectors. She focused on the difference […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]