Private foundations and community development: differing approaches to community empowerment

Abstract

Comprehensive community change through focused, place-based is gaining traction among private foundations and public partners frustrated with the lack of systemic change in poor neighborhoods. As they work to engage low-income residents, private foundations often describe their work as “bottom-up” participation. However, “bottom-up” approaches to empowering communities vary in their strategies, implementation and outcomes. We use an “outcome-based” and a “process-based” approach to explain the tension of two private foundations engaged in revitalizing two Southern California neighborhoods. Our findings suggest that the variation between approaches to community engagement is centered in the response of strategies to the political, organizational, programmatic, political, and cultural context of communities, as well as the foundation's mission and values.

Keywords:

• community development
• community engagement
• private foundations
• urban revitalization

Acknowledgment

Initial funding for this research was provided by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Notes

1. The data collected for this study is part of a larger research project funded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy examining place-based philanthropy and its role in community development.

2. A new date was set in 2011. The organization intends to sunset in 2030.

3. JCNI recently applied for state funding to begin construction of several hundred units of affordable housing adjacent to the trolley stop.

4. The Urban Village is 10-block area anchored by a 108,706 square foot shopping center that cost a total of $30.7 million. It contains restaurants, retail, a bank, and a major supermarket. The Urban Village also contains a police substation; the Weingart public library that was built with a $5.25 million grant from the Weingart Foundation; the recreation center with tennis courts, a swimming pool and tot pool; the Mid-City Continuing Education Center which opened in 2000 across the street from the library; 115 townhomes that opened in 2003 with a Head Start facility on the ground floor; and the six story City Heights Center, the tallest structure in the neighborhood that houses nonprofits and social service agencies, as well as offering meeting rooms for the community.

5. Retrieved from: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/abx1_26_ bill_20110629_chaptered.html.