NeighborWorks Community Building and Organizing Initiative

NeighborWorks Community Building and Organizing Programs launched its membership program in June 2005 with 25 participating groups.Today, the program has grown to include 82 member organizations, and is reaching dozens of additional organizations through its work on resident leadership development, Gulf Coast rebuilding, and green initiatives.

During 2007-2008, Community Building and Organizing (CB&O) Programs supported grassroots groups in the Gulf Coast in their efforts to rebuild after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Member organizations and their volunteers took part in promoting green activities at the neighborhood level through peer sharing and offering CB&O's first-ever green neighborhood project grants.

CB&O also worked with the NeighborWorks Training Division to train resident leaders through Community Leadership Institutes, (CLIs) a Community Organizing Symposium, and a new “train-the-trainer” resident leadership training curriculum.

Membership Program

Members of CB&O Programs are NeighborWorks affiliates who are committed to resident leadership development, community building, and supporting or creating resident-led groups that work for positive community change. They have dedicated staff or volunteers assigned to this work, a CB&O work plan, and strategies for excelling in this work. Many member organizations also carry out advocacy, community organizing campaigns, youth development and organizing, community planning and other activities that bring residents together to revitalize their communities.

» View our membership list

» View our most recent annual report

» View snapshots from the field.

Each member organization has access to specialized technical assistance geared towards strengthening their CB&O work, opportunities for peer sharing with other CB&O members, and other timely information and resources. In exchange, they report quarterly on CB&O activities and outcomes, enabling CB&O Programs to aggregate data at the national level.

Membership Program Results

From 2007-2008, a total of almost $119 million in direct investment was made in organizations, community improvements and development projects as a direct result of our member groups’ community building and organizing activities. These investments included:

major real estate development projects ($86 million);
new community programs and services ($23.3 million);
grants received by CB&O member groups to carry out their community development work ($9.5 million).

An additional $6.7 million in economic value was created through hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours contributed during 2007 and 20081 (more than 195,000 hours in FY07 and 163,000 in FY08 for a total of over 358,000). All this was accomplished via an annual investment of approximately $37,000 per organization per year, a total over the two years of approximately $3.23 million across our membership. This relatively small investment in CB&O work was multiplied by a factor of 39: nearly $126 million in total economic impact was generated by community building and organizing for communities in 29 states and Puerto Rico.

» View the 2007-2008 CB&O Annual Report

» View the 2005-2006 CB&O Annual Report

Community Building and Organizing in the Gulf Coast


NeighborWorks Gulf Coast CB&O Partners
»	Boat People SOS, Biloxi, MS
»	Broadmoor Improvement Association, New Orleans, LA
»	Dillard University CDC, New Orleans, LA
»	Gulf Coast Latin American Association, Biloxi, MS
»	Housing 2010, Moss Point, MS
»	IRD/Gulf Coast Community Service Center, North Gulfport, MS
»	Lafayette Restoration Center, Lafayette, LA
»	Mary Queen of Viet Nam CDC, New Orleans, LA
»	NHS of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA
»	United Houma Nation, Matthews, LA
»	Visions of Hope. Biloxi, MS

In 2007 and 2008, CB&O Programs provided grant support to 10 community-based organizations in Mississippi and Louisiana. Our objective was to support organizations that would ensure resident voice in the rebuilding process. NeighborWorks CB&O Programs brought together staff and residents of these groups five times over this two-year period to learn new skills, share with their peers, and take time to re-energize in face of the sometimes overwhelming challenge of rebuilding.

Together, our 10 Gulf Coast partners have provided leadership training to 687 residents. They have engaged over 4,300 residents and an additional 6,600 out-of-town volunteers in rebuilding efforts, pouring over 122,600 volunteer hours into fixing damaged homes, holding community fairs, and other forms of community building and service.

Other Gulf Coast partner organizations work with low-income Latino, Vietnamese, African-American and other communities, providing leadership training, asset-building programs, advocacy and other support. Together, these organizations are ensuring that historically disenfranchised residents throughout the Gulf are integral to regional efforts to build more inclusive, equitable communities.

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Green Neighborhoods

Volunteers work on an access ramp as part of New Directions' Repair Affair 2008 CB&O Programs began to explore green opportunities in 2008 by hosting a sharing session among organizing staff of our member organizations. Information gathered at the first national green discussion among CB&O members informed the launch of a new twp-day course, “Taking Green Action in Your Community,” now being offered at NeighborWorks Training Institutes.

Many of our CB&O members have engaged in “green” activities for many years. They are organizing for improved public transportation and clean up of toxic waste sites; building community gardens; starting recycling programs; and training low-income residents to educate their neighbors about how to reduce energy usage in their homes.

The “Fairmount Fellows” at Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation (Boston, MA) engaged resident volunteers in documenting traffic counts as one step in addressing air quality issues. LaCasa of Goshen (Goshen, IN) participated in a community sustainability project that sponsored farmers markets. NeighborWorks Salt Lake (Salt Lake City, UT) organized more than 400 residents to participate in a successful campaign to ensure that a new light-rail train best served their Westside neighborhood.

With support from the Home Depot Foundation, in 2008 NeighborWorks America awarded Green Neighborhood Project Grants to 18 organizations. These grants include:

Chelsea Neighborhood Developers (Chelsea, MA) to link volunteer trash cleanup with increased recycling;
NHS of Southeast Wisconsin (Racine, WI) to build an outdoor classroom at a local elementary school;
Durham Community Land Trustees (Durham, NC) and Homewise (Santa Fe, NM) to work with resident associations to distribute home energy conservation kits to their neighbors

See complete list [PDF].

View NeighborWorks news releases:
NeighborWorks Distributes $530,000 in Green Grants
NeighborWorks America Invests $230,000 into Green Residential Rehabilitation Projects that Focus on Energy Conservation

Visit nw.org/green

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Resident Leadership Development
Residents in Lowell, Mass., turn out in large numbers to show their support for development of affordable housing CB&O Programs also provides training to more than 1,000 resident leaders every year through Community Leadership Institutes and on-site technical assistance and coaching. CB&O Programs believes that community building and organizing are continuous, self-renewing efforts led by community residents engaged in collective action aimed at relationship-building, problem solving and building a stronger community. Community building and organizing are processes that bring the talents, resources and skills of people in a community together to increase their collective power to transform themselves and their community, and work for social change.

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