Requirements and Benefits

The NeighborWorks Community Building and Organizing Initiative launched its membership program in June 2005 with 25 participating groups. Today, the initiative has grown to include 84 member organizations, and is reaching dozens of additional organizations through its work on resident leadership development, Gulf Coast rebuilding, and green initiatives.

Members of the CB&O Initiative 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 receives three years of operating grants, 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 the Initiative 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.

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