NeighborWorks® - Newsroom - Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 30, 2002

Contact:
Sally Digges/ Debra Daniels
(410) 962-3181/ (202) 220-2354

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation Develops New Training Program
Designed for Seasoned Practitioners in Community Development Field

WASHINGTON, DC—Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation has developed a pilot series of educational programs especially for senior community development professionals. The initiative, called the Advanced Practitioner Platform (APP), will gather experienced and thoughtful practitioners committed to setting a future course for community development. APP identifies and meets the comprehensive professional development needs of experienced practitioners, and then challenges them to make specific, constructive differences.

"The Advanced Practitioner Platform provides a one-of-a-kind platform to develop senior community development practitioners and significantly increase their effectiveness. Unlike other community development programs, APP will require participants to shape and focus their efforts on challenges that can make a difference in their organizations and in the community development field," said Ellen Lazar, executive director of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation.

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation will launch the first series of APP pilot training programs in August 2002 in collaboration with Harvard University's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. The program, called "Achieving Excellence in Community Development: An Advanced Practitioner Program," offers a selected 45 experienced community development practitioners the opportunity to focus on issues of leadership. Harvard faculty will lead discussions on emerging trends in community development, strategy, leadership, performance measurement, community building, strategic alliances, and other topics.

The selected practitioners are executive directors with an average of 12 years experience and represent the spectrum of community based entities. They head nonprofit housing and community development organizations located in 19 states, in rural and urban communities, and offer a range of community development programs from affordable housing to lending, economic development, neighborhood revitalization, workforce development, and community- based services. The executive directors will tackle issues in their own organizations and communities using the teachings from Harvard faculty, the collective wisdom of their peers in the program, and a consulting team headed by Douglas K. Smith, an internationally known expert on performance, learning, innovation and change.

Other aspects of the APP will be introduced over the coming year. These include advanced clinics taught at Neighborhood Reinvestment's Training Institutes, which will focus on narrow technical topics of interest to advanced practitioners. Participants in the clinics will bring their own cases to the clinic to be discussed by the instructor and peers in the clinic. Another type of advanced practitioner offering will be the contemporary community issues courses, which will explore cutting edge topics. Seasoned practitioners will draw on their own experience and the experience of those outside the community development field to move the topic forward. The results of these contemporary issue courses are expected to become regular course offerings at the Training Institutes.

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation is a national, public nonprofit intermediary created by Congress in 1978 to support and expand revitalization of lower-income communities throughout America. The Corporation founded and supports the NeighborWorks® network of more than 225 community-based nonprofit housing and community development organizations serving more than 2,000 urban, suburban and rural communities nationwide. These organizations revitalize neighborhoods by mobilizing public, private, and resident-led partnerships and tailoring affordable housing, economic, and resident leadership activities to meet specific community needs. In 2001, the network generated nearly $1.4 billion in total direct investment and helped more than 64,000 low- to moderate-income families purchase or improve their homes.