BLOG
Engaged Evaluation
For the past several months, Nexus has been hard at work co-creating an evaluation system that better captures our work and the work of our grantees. As an intermediary, Nexus relies on our grantees’ data to show our work is producing positive results in our geographic areas. We know that our data is only as good as theirs and their ability to capture it. Typically, organizations that provide funding, determine the information they need and then tell their grantees to collect the information. This process often adds unnecessary levels of work and stress to already resource-strained organizations.
Frustrations often cited by community organizations include:
· Organizations don’t know they need to be collecting certain data at the time the grant is approved.
· Different funders will have different interests and therefore ask for very different types of information, creating the need for multiple data collection tools and processes.
· Questions funders are asking, or data they’re asking organizations to collect, aren’t the relevant questions or the relevant data, leaving organizations to feel that there is a lack of understanding about their work and the broader context within which that work takes place.
· Organizations lack the capacity – staff and/or systems – to collect and report on the data.
As Nexus proceeded to build an evaluation system and tools, we didn’t want to add layers of work to our grantees and we wanted to ensure our evaluation was reflective of their work and relevant. Nexus’ primary focus was on the development of a new Grant Request and Grant Reporting form along with an online database to better enable our grantees to capture and communicate their work. Before we began drafting these new forms, we invited our grantees in for a series of conversations. We divided our grantees into our two focus areas – Community Engagement and Asset and Wealth Building.
Our first meeting with our grantees was to talk about evaluation broadly. We wanted to share Nexus’ intention and goals for 2010, but also to learn more about our grantees’ evaluation process and procedures. During the meetings we discussed organizational values around evaluation and how those values are reflected in their evaluation process and procedures. We also heard from the organizations what they believe is the relevant information to track in order to capture the true nature of their work and the work of community building.
The grantees came back a week later to meet with our evaluator. In this meeting we discussed the types of information they are currently capturing and what information might be missing. The organizations agreed to complete an online Evaluation Survey detailing the information being captured, so that Nexus could build on their data and identify areas where additional capacity and information might be needed.
Based on this information, our evaluator began drafting Nexus’ Grant Request and Grant Reporting forms. During the meetings with our Community Engagement grantees the discussion focused on creating a Community Engagement survey – a tool that could capture the rich and complex work of engagement. Our evaluator agreed to take the information the groups provided and draft a Community Engagement Survey that each organization would implement.
We are excited by the response we’ve received from our grantee partners and for the ongoing development of evaluation tools that will bring added value to the work of our grantees, Nexus and the field of community building and community development more broadly.
Northside Achievement Zone
“Now we all should seek to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
This quote summarizes what I felt while sitting with 50+ people at the latest gathering of the Northside Achievement Zone. In the room were politicians, community residents, organizational leaders, social workers, journalists, academics and more. Everyone in the room was in agreement that we can no longer accept in North Minneapolis academic failure for our kids. Instead, we are coming together, working together, struggling together, to create a new future for youth and families living in North Minneapolis.
The Northside Achievement Zone will, over time, create a new normal in North Minneapolis, one that celebrates the success of our youth in achieving their academic and life goals.
Failure is not an option. Not for our kids, not for our future, not for these efforts. The NAZ and its’ partners are committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that all kids living in the Zone graduate from high school college ready. That is the mission of the Northside Achievement Zone.
Our meeting began by reading aloud the names of all the victims of homicide in the city of Minneapolis thus far in 2010. I took a deep breath as the name of the young man, only 16 years old, who was shot on my block the day before Martin Luther King Jr. day. As we reached the end of the list, we all took a moment of silence to remember those who have passed.
And in that collective silence, I heard something. I heard outrage. I heard frustration. Together, as we paused in silence, I heard a group of people acknowledge that no longer will this to be the storyline for our kids in North Minneapolis, and instead we will create a new storyline that begins in the cradle and extends into and beyond college.
The Northside Achievement Zone is an innovative effort that continues to grow as a powerful collaborative poised to create significant change for youth and families in North Minneapolis. Nexus Community Partners has been connected to the NAZ from its’ earliest stages. To learn more about NAZ visit their website at http://www.northsideachievement.org . To learn more about Nexus partnership with the Northside Achievement Zone click here.
Nexus May Investments
On May 18th, 2010 Nexus Community Partners approved our third round of grants for 2010. The grants represented work being done in two of our three geographic areas; South Minneapolis and East St. Paul.
Below you will find a brief summary of the grants:
American Indian Family Center – East St. Paul
Purpose: Nexus Funds will support the American Indian Family Center to explore the development of culturally specific homeownership programming for the American Indian community on St. Paul’s East Side. At the end of this grant, the AIFC will have completed a comprehensive assessment and analysis of homeownership readiness and resources for the American Indian community on St. Paul’s East Side, and a recommendation for culturally specific homeownership related programming for the AIFC.
Strategic Fit for Nexus
Nexus Community Partners supports approaches that result in asset building and wealth creation within communities of color in our three geographic areas. This grant aligns with the East Side Housing Initiatives’ (ESHI) goal to build on capacities that currently exist in the community and to provide support where there are gaps. Homeownership is a key asset building strategy that helps to stabilize families and communities, but the majority of the American Indian community has not taken advantage of this opportunity. The AIFC is determined to find ways to understand and remove whatever barriers exist, and to provide appropriate skills and supports to their community to be able to take advantage of homeownership opportunities.
This planning project will serve as a platform for developing comprehensive and culturally specific homeownership programming for the American Indian community on the East Side of St. Paul, and inform our work in South and North Minneapolis. Supporting the AIFC’s efforts to develop homeownership programming adds a missing piece to the housing infrastructure ESHI has helped put in place.
Casa De Esperanza – East. St. Paul
Purpose: Nexus Funds will support staff time to provide culturally relevant financial tools and resources to Latinas experiencing domestic violence. These financial tools and resources will promote economic stability and help build strong foundations for the future, including home ownership.
Strategic Fit for Nexus
This grant aligns with the East Side Housing Initiatives’ (ESHI) goal to build on capacities that currently exist in the community and provide support where there are gaps. There is a demonstrated need for financial skills and resources for Latinas experiencing domestic violence. This population often exists under the radar of many service agencies and community organizations and their unique needs are often unmet. Nexus supports organizations who intentionally engage communities often overlooked by traditional or mainstream organizations. These organizations understand their communities and their unique strengths and challenges and are best equipped to address them.
This project will have impact at the residential level – addressing the need for financial skills and support for Latinas experiencing domestic violence; at the organizational level – building the capacity of staff to provide financial literacy and counseling services; and at the community level – linking with and better equipping organizations who want to work with the Latina/o community.
Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network – South Minneapolis
Purpose: Nexus funds will be used to support the continuing work of the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network’s Immigrant (MIFN) Leadership School (ILS) model with Latino residents in South Minneapolis. Earlier this year Nexus provided a grant to MIFN in support of their initial engagement activities with Latino residents in South Minneapolis. These activities resulted in identifying a core group of 10 families and 12 youth, cultivating their leadership skills while addressing issues that they self-determined were important in their lives. Through this work, the residents determined that they were interested in learning root causes of key community issues and strategies to impact systemic change, particularly in the education and immigration system.
Strategic Fit for Nexus
This grant supports Nexus’ goal to fund community engagement strategies that link engagement to broader community and economic development efforts. The proposed activities will help deepen the core leadership and knowledge of the immigrant residents participating in this project. Core group members will be able to practice decision-making, do planning, take action, learn about US systems, analyze their collective experience and the root causes of challenges facing their neighborhoods and come up with group solutions to help improve their lives and that of their families. This work will also complement the asset building work that Nexus has long supported in South Minneapolis with efforts to create more human and social capital among residents.
Community Connect Through Technology Project
In 2009, Nexus implemented “Communities Connect Through Technology (CCTP)” a one year pilot project layering technology, community engagement, and asset and wealth creation. By providing immigrant families in two of our three geographic areas a free laptop, computer accessories and a year’s worth of internet access, Nexus anticipated their social networks would be enhanced and assets would be built. Nexus partnered with two organizations, East Side Neighborhood Development Company (ESNDC) in St. Paul and Project for Pride in Living (PPL) in Minneapolis in the development and implementation of CCTP. A total of 24 families, 13 from Minneapolis and 11 from St. Paul attended monthly trainings and additional one on ones with staff as part of this year long pilot project.
With the project complete, a formal evaluation is under way in contract with the evaluation firm Copeland Carson and Associates. We are excited to share some of the initial findings thus far:
- Overall, CCTP participants have a high level of satisfaction with the project.
- CCTP participants improved their computer and internet skills, with many indicating that they have email accounts and use their laptops and the internet on a regular basis. The report found that the most common uses for the laptops and/or the internet are email (96%), searching the internet (91%), learning English (87%), school (87%), and getting a job, buying a house or getting training (74-83%).
"Before enrolling into the computer training class ... I couldn't even turn on or off a computer, let alone use it for any purpose. At the level I am at today, I can not only check emails, send emails to my children's teachers, and connect with my family; I can write documents and save them on the computer and be able to use internet for job searches, homes, and general research." - Minneapolis Participant
- CCTP helped participants and their families improved their asset building skills, particularly for employment searches. While no participants reported finding a new job while part of the program, most participants (70%) said they have used the internet to search for jobs.
- CCTP participants expanded their levels of community engagement. Many participants shared examples about how CCTP improved their quality of life and opened up a new world of knowledge to them. All participants reported sharing their computer, internet access, and/or knowledge with others, suggesting that CCTP has impacted a wider community.
“I have skills that actually make my life easier. For example, before I used to always take the bus or drive to my children's school in order to check up on them and talk to their teachers about the progress. I only could do that face to face because I did not know how to use the computer. Now, all I do is just send an email and instantly I know where my kids are at in school.” St. Paul Participant
We are excited by these early findings and we plan on publishing a full report later this summer along with a lessons learned guide for practioners as well. Stay tuned for this final report!
First Step Next Step
One hallmark of Nexus is our willingness to support new ideas and take chances where others may not. These experiences always teach us something, and every once in a while take us places we didn’t expect.
Our grant to Employer Solutions, Inc. wrapped up on December 31, 2009. I spent the first quarter of 2010, checking in with the multiple partners that made the First Step-Next Step (FSNS) such a success. What made this so rewarding for everyone was the unintended benefits of the Community-Based Workforce Development Program. When Nexus, ESI and representatives from cultural communities first designed this component, we knew we were creating something new. We asked agencies who wanted to refer their clients to the FSNS training to provide on-going support to their client throughout the training and into job placement. All too often, people are referred to job training programs and for a variety of reasons, sick child, car trouble, etc., they aren’t able to see it through. If the referring agency was able to stay in close contact with their client, then they could address any challenges that arose. We were looking for agencies that had a relationship with the participant.
Not all organizations that wanted to refer participants had the capacity to provide the ongoing support. So what happened? Job training organizations and community groups formed new partnerships and worked together in ways they hadn’t before. They created a web of support for each person accepted into the training program. For example, if a participant was having some financial trouble they were referred to the Centers for Working Families. If the Cultural Wellness Center knew of a community member who would be the right fit, but they didn’t have the staff capacity to provide the support, they connected them to Goodwill Easter Seals who could.
Each organization involved saw the difference it made for the training participants when they had the ongoing support services. They also saw the benefit of working together differently and the potential for strengthening workforce development programs for the East Side.
Learn more about our partnership with Employer Solutions Inc., and the First Step Next Step Program on our impact page here.
3 questions with the City of Lakes Community Land Trust
The City of Lakes Community Land Trust (CLCLT) is a community-driven organization, affordable homeownership organization serving households seeking to purchase homes affordably and responsibly in the City of Minneapolis. Specifically, the CLCLT:
· Creates opportunities for low-income households who otherwise might not able to purchase a home to be able to do so;
· Ensures that the homes remain affordable for future households in the event the first household decides to sell, and
· Provides ongoing support (post-purchase trainings, events, community information) to homeowners ensuring successful homeownership
We recently asked Jeff Washburne, CLCLT’s executive director, to respond to a couple of quick questions regarding their work for our blog.
Nexus: What’s the easiest way for someone to understand how the land trust model works?
Jeff: The CLCLT makes affordability investments (ranging from $30,000 to $100,000 – depending on household income), assisting low-income buyers move into homeownership. In consideration for this investment, homeowners agree to return the investment and to share a percentage of any increase in property value if and when they decide to sell. The resulting agreement has the effect of creating and perpetuating housing affordability now and into the future.
Nexus: Three years ago you coined the term “homeowner centric” to describe your thoughtful and strategic approach to homeownership? Can you describe this?
Jeff: For CLCLT, viewing every aspect of our work through a homeowner-centric lens acknowledges that successful homeownership goes beyond the homebuyer closing and the physical structure they purchased. While housing production and preservation are essential components to community development, CLCLT believes that a people focused approach to housing will best strengthen neighborhood recovery efforts and advance social, economic and racial equalities in Minneapolis.
This unique approach, one of the only kinds in the country, is a win-win-win for the homeowner, the community, and for the CLCLT.
Nexus: There are a lot of ideas about how “housing recovery” should look in the Twin Cities as we look to come out of the recent foreclosure and economic crisis. Why won’t the “same-previous-housing-crisis-response-fits-all” approach work today to rebuild neighborhoods devastated by the housing crisis?
Jeff: We need a people-approach to solving housing problems versus a housing approach to solving people issues.
For all too long, housing policy has applied old ways of doing things to familiar problems -such as distressed housing markets - without getting to the root of the problem. Community Land Trust homeownership not only provides affordable housing to low-income households, but does so in a way that provides a keystone of stability in communities through a “homeowner centric” approach to housing that assures the community that the home remains an asset of the community and that residents will be involved, owner-occupants. The CLCLT has and will continue to take a homeowner centric approach to creating perpetually affordable housing that advances the social, economic, and racial equity disparities that exist across the neighborhoods of Minneapolis.
To learn more about the work of the City of Lakes Land Trust, you can visit their website at http://www.clclt.org or visit their Facebook fan page here.
Nexus March Investments
On March 22nd, 2010 Nexus Community Partners approved our second round of grants for 2010. The grants represented work being done across our three geographic areas; North and South Minneapolis and East St. Paul.
Below you will find a brief summary of the grants:
Community Neighborhood Housing Services (CNHS) – East St. Paul
Purpose: CNHS will build on their work with the Cultural Wellness Center, using their experience and lessons learned, to develop programming aimed at increasing the financial and homeownership skills and knowledge of the African American community on the East Side of St. Paul.
Outcomes: This project builds upon the work of a 2008-09 pilot with the Cultural Wellness Center and CNHS. One key learning from the partnership was that within the African American community there exists a need for both foundational financial education and literacy and more mainstream homeownership classes and opportunities. By continuing to fund both the Cultural Wellness Center and CNHS, Nexus is helping create a “homeownership continuum” for the African American community on the Eastside.
Hmong American Partnership (HAP) – East St. Paul
Purpose: Assist HAP to further develop their housing program while providing culturally- and linguistically-appropriate housing education, outreach, and counseling services that are needed to address the urgent housing needs of Hmong community members on the East Side of Saint Paul.
Outcomes: As HAP continues to address the growing housing needs of its community, this grant provides space for the Director of Housing and Economic Development to strategically guide the expansion of their housing program, while building its internal capacity to respond to the housing needs in their community.
Lyndale Neighborhood Association (LNA) – South Minneapolis
Purpose: Support the pilot year of the Lyndale Women’s Leadership Program (LWLP), whose purpose is to develop Latina and Somali women in the Lyndale neighborhood as community leaders.
Outcomes: This program presents an opportunity to fund place-based community engagement efforts with two cultural communities, occurring through a traditional neighborhood organization. LNA’s efforts will build a skilled leadership base of Latina and Somali community members working towards equitable neighborhood revitalization goals in their neighborhoods.
Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) – North Minneapolis
Purpose: Support the outreach, resident engagement and leadership development strategies of the Northside Achievement Zone.
Outcomes: NAZ creates a coordinated, strategic and long-term approach to address the challenges and opportunities of North Minneapolis. This strategy represents an opportunity to enhance the quality of life of residents in this area by bridging community engagement strategies with asset building strategies centered on education.
Neighborhood Development Alliance (NeDA) – East St. Paul
Purpose: Support the marketing and outreach efforts of NeDA’s expanded services in the areas of credit, debt management and bankruptcy counseling.
Outcomes: A core component of our work is the support of approaches that result in asset building and wealth creation within communities of color in our three geographic areas. There is a demonstrated need for financial counseling services, particularly credit repair and debt management for the Latino community, and a clear gap. This grant will enable NeDA to expand its outreach and visibility on the East Side, thereby providing greater access to needed credit counseling and debt management services to a rapidly growing Latino population in the neighborhood.
Center for Working Families
From the foreclosure crisis to the current recession, the Twin Cities is seeing new gaps and challenges in our collective work of revitalizing communities. The Twin Cities is home to a diverse community with large immigrant populations and historic communities of color where there is a high percentage of working families that are unbanked and live at or just above federal poverty guidelines. These families are at greater risk of using wealth depleting tactics such as check cashers, payday lenders, and pawn shops.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s, “Building Family Economic Success” fact sheet,
-
Up to 20 percent of all American households do not have an account with a bank or credit union, meaning they must pay for services like check cashing and bill paying, and they are unlikely to accumulate savings.
-
Take-up rates for work supports, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Food Stamps and child care, are well below 100 percent, and many are below 50 percent.
-
Forty percent of all white children and 73 percent of all black children grow up in households with zero or negative net financial assets.
-
Few low-income workers are advancing to higher paying jobs: one study found that only 27 percent of workers who earned less than $12,000 a year from 1993–95 were consistently earning more than $15,000 six years later.[1]
To address this gap and to help families build assets, the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, MD developed the Center for Working Families (CWF). The CWF is a convenient neighborhood location that helps low-income families who are already attached to the workforce increase their earnings and income, reduce their financial transaction costs, and generate new wealth for themselves and their communities through a comprehensive coaching strategy.
Since 2006, Nexus Community Partners and Twin Cities LISC have been supporting CWF models in the Twin Cities located in South Minneapolis with Project for Pride in Living and on the East Side of St. Paul with Lutheran Social Services (Common Bond Communities also operates a CWF site in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis).
By investing in long-term relationships, providing strong financial coaching and access to a bundled set of financial services and education, these organizations have been able to provide individuals a new set of supports and resources to increase economic stability and independence.
Going forward, these organizations, Nexus and Twin Cities LISC have come together to begin a strategic conversation about how we might work together to create a collaborative and regional approach to providing a new model of financial services that better meets the needs of Twin Cities residents. This network will expand and increase the impact of the CWF model, working together to increase the asset building skills and wealth of Twin Cities residents in East St. Paul, North Minneapolis and South Minneapolis.
[1] “Building Family Economic Success: Centers for Working Families”, Annie E. Casey Foundation http://www.aecf.org/upload/PDFFiles/FES/fes_cwf.pdf, 2005.
Defining Community Engagement
In the spring of 2008, Nexus Community Partners convened a multi-cultural group of community engagement experts from St. Paul and Minneapolis to help Nexus better define and create a framework for community engagement and to discuss Nexus’ potential role in this field. The ensuing conversation was incredibly rich and helped guide Nexus’s work, which holds community engagement at its core.
One of the most memorable moments for me came when Lupe Serrano, former executive director of Casa de Esperanza, said that community engagement was not just about transformation within the community, but also about an organization's willingness and ability to be transformed itself. Wow, I thought. In her observation I found my definition of community engagement. Community engagement is not about input, it’s about participation, and it’s about power. If we are engaging the community than we are listening - we’re listening for and helping to raise up the community’s voice, their ideas, their values. And if we are listening than we are responding.
How many of us, dedicated to the practice and process of community engagement are willing to have our organizations transformed by it? As we engage the community, are we willing to share ourselves, our power and our resources? Are we open and willing to change how we do our work and maybe even our work?
In 2008, we didn’t know that in two short years everyone from the NCAA to politicians to news organizations would be using the term community engagement. Community engagement can mean so many different things to so many different people. For me, I always return to Lupe’s observation and use it as my definition and my guide.
The Evaluation Process
For the past few weeks Nexus Community Partners staff has been immersed in evaluation work in partnership with a number of our grantees and our consultant Copeland Carson and Associates.
The process itself has been formative for Nexus staff and a few key thoughts has emerged for me regarding the role and function of evaluation.
It seems as if too often evaluation ends up simply being about the validation of a particular program. Does it work or doesn’t work? In our meetings it was insightful to hear from organizations that see their evaluation as being about more than just measuring effectiveness, but as a method and tool to display the values that drives the work of the organization. Success is measured first by the organization, which then helps to inform the broader community. This lead me to think that if fully embraced as a philosophy and practice by an organization, evaluation can be a very valuable method of helping organizations learn about themselves as well as how they relate and/or are perceived by the broader community around them. This then helps shift evaluation into a practice and not just a function within an organization.
Yet we know that developing this culture of evaluation can be quite a shift given the daily demands of an organization’s work. And as with any cultural shift, the implementation of this work is the harder and more challenging task. As Nexus has learned for itself and from what our grantee partners have shared with us, implementation needs to be done slowly but intentionally so that organizations can simultaneously learn from the process while engaging in the hard work of shifting the culture of evaluation within their organization.
In the next month, Nexus hopes to emerge with a set of key evaluation questions that will inform how we collect data and demonstrate community outcomes. We also plan to create a database that will collect this information. In our work of building the field of Community Engagement, we hope to develop a survey with our grantee partners to capture what and how community residents feel about their neighborhoods and quality of life. Lastly, Nexus will continue to build organizational capacity of our grantee partners around the value and practice of evaluation.
As an interesting resource check out six common myths of evaluation here.
Doors
Every month Nexus Community Partners staff selects a piece of research, an article or some other selected work to read and discuss together as a team. This month we read an article by Xavier de Souza Briggs, acting secretary for policy development and research at HUD and assistant professor of public policy at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The article was entitled, “Doing Democracy Up-Close: Culture, Power and Communication in Community Buildin
The article was a great read and served as a good jumping off point for discussion related to our work at Nexus and community building in general. Our conversation floated from issues of culture and power to specific thoughts on how to better build more engaged and powerful communities.
As a staff we discussed the critical difference between going through the “empty ritual of participation”, as Briggs states, “to sharing power in real ways that affect the outcomes of neighborhood revitalization processes”. We also acknowledged how sometimes organized efforts to engage residents can have the opposite effect of marginalizing community voices rather than creating authentic points of participation. And that one key way to avoid that unintended consequence is to be focused on building long term relationships of trust and mutuality that weaves into communities a strong fabric of social capital and collective efficacy.
Near the end of our time we began utilizing the symbol of a door to speak to the points of entry that need to exist inside of organizations and communities where community members can authentically be a part of shaping their neighborhoods.
We challenged ourselves to examine which doors to our work are wide open, and which are closed, and to reflect on how Nexus lives out our mission and values in the communities that we work in.
-
Are we as an organization being respectful of culture and power and all of the nuances that go into authentic community building efforts?
-
Are there places of improvement for us in our own work?
-
If community members were interested in knowing what activities Nexus was a part of in their community, could they find an entry point, an open door in which to ask questions or participate?
All in all, another fantastic time learning together as a staff.
Click here to link to the article.
Prosperity Campaign: Envisioning a prosperous East Side of St. Paul
For three years the Prosperity Campaign brought together 64 organizations to build relationships and to share their vision for an engaged, prosperous community. During that time, the organizations created momentum for collaborative social change and kept alive the dream of community prosperity in spite of the fragile economy. When the Prosperity Campaign ended in 2008, the commitment to the process remained and the momentum for change was strong.
During the final meeting of the Prosperity Campaign in November 2008, approximately 15 individuals volunteered to serve on the East Side Planning Group. The multi-cultural, multi-sector group of leaders accepted responsibility for shaping a community vision and long-term action plan for the East Side. They agreed to meet monthly over a period of 6 months to determine how they will combine their unique perspectives and contributions to advance social and economic prosperity on the East Side of St. Paul.
Although these organizations and individuals had been together at the Prosperity Campaign table for 3 years, this process asked them to work together in a different way – more intentionally and more collaboratively with a shared plan of action. The goals for the 6 months were ambitious, but the individuals at the table were all deeply committed to the process. During their brief time together, the East Side Planning Group made significant progress, including the drafting of an initial vision document that broke down into four issue areas. Those areas are:
-
Community Wealth and Prosperity
-
Community Voice, Belonging and Action
-
Community Health and Wellness
-
Community Education and Learning
Nexus’s role has been to ensure the voice of the community is infused in the vision and subsequent plan. Nexus is partnering with several culturally based organizations, such as Casa de Esperanza, the Cultural Wellness Center, and the American Indian Family Center, all of whom place community engagement at the center of their work.
A lot of work still needs to be done, but the groups are deeply committed to the process and realizing our goal. Nexus will continue to be at the table providing strategic thinking and guidance as they explore innovative ways to better serve communities and realize a vision for the East Side of St. Paul.
Buildng Blocks for a Sustainable Future
Nexus Community Partners focuses its work in two areas: Community Engagement and Asset Building Initiatives. We know that alone neither focus area will result in building more engaged and powerful communities. However, by bridging these two areas we can help create an actively engaged community that has greater power over and responsibility for the decisions that shape their community and is in a better position to take advantage of various asset building opportunities. With the end goal being the achievement of more equitable and sustainable neighborhood revitalization.
Building Blocks for a Sustainable Future is an excellent example of how community engagement has strengthened the housing work on the East Side of St. Paul and fueled a larger neighborhood revitalization effort.
In 2008, with support from Nexus Community Partners and Invest St. Paul, East Side Neighborhood Development Company (ESNDC) embarked on an ambitious community engagement program called “Building Blocks for a Sustainable Future”. The program was created to engage with the community and to help them take control of their mutual self-interest in stabilizing the residential areas of the neighborhood hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. ESNDC targeted 20 city blocks within the Payne Phalen neighborhood. This area has the second highest number of foreclosures in the State of Minnesota and is weighed down by more than 100 vacant and/or foreclosed residential properties.
To date the “Building Blocks for a Sustainable Future” program has successfully brought over 100 renters, homeowners, and rental property owners together by employing a system of culturally and linguistically relevant outreach, organizing, and engagement. Many people confessed to never having attended a community meeting before and just as many stated that they didn’t even know their neighbors. Through a series of community planning workshops the community created a housing “Quality of Life” plan. ESNDC staff and resident leaders presented the housing “Quality of Life” plan to City officials, neighborhood organizations, community development entities and other decision makers and interested organizations. This outreach attracted the interest of numerous community development partners and City staff who wanted to work with a community that is engaged and invested in its future.
In 2010, ESNDC will deepen its work within the African American, Latino and Hmong communities, while bringing together the residents and the business community to develop a broader vision of long term community prosperity. This is a pivotal time for St. Paul’s East Side. In many ways, each challenge brings with it an opportunity for the community to reframe its future. But this can only happen if the community comes together. The residents, business people, property owners, organizations, and institutions must be brought together in all of their diversity to express the desired changes through a collective vision. This is a model and a lesson to be shared throughout our area.
Why Asset Building?
Since our inception Nexus Community Partners (formerly Payne Lake Community Partners) recognized that asset building is key to helping communities and neighborhoods thrive for future generations. Originally, we saw this work as building small businesses, building employment and training opportunities with larger businesses and institutions and by increasing homeownership amongst immigrants and communities of color.
Through our initial support of key cultural CDC’s like African Development Center (ADC) and Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) we helped build the capacity for small businesses to start and grow in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
We were also able to partner with others to bring the successful Center for Working Families to the Twin Cities, bringing support to workers through the provision of bundled financial services, career laddering assistance, coaching and income enhancements.
Lastly, with support of a $2 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Nexus Community Partners created the East Side Housing Initiative (ESHI). This initiative works to increase homeownership rates in East St. Paul by providing a unique framework centered around readiness (preparing and educating potential homeowners), access (ensuring proper products when residents are ready to buy), and success (preventing foreclosure).
Over time, Nexus has expanded our definition of asset building to include investing in the development of more responsive and responsible asset builders, developing greater levels of social and human capital in neighborhoods and leadership development. Our asset building strategies are a strong compliment to our community engagement strategies, together both help build more engaged and powerful communities.
To learn more about some of the impact of our work visit our Impact or Resources Page.
A Year of Exciting Changes
It's been another year of exciting change at Nexus Community Partners (formerly Payne Lake Community Partners), leading most notably to our new name and identity.
In 2009 we made a breakthrough in clarifying our niche, representing a culmination of a strategic re-thinking process begun in 2007. By building on lessons learned, a review of grants and thought leadership, and a comprehensive strategic planning process, Nexus Community Partners has emerged with a more focused mission and strategy.
Nexus recognizes that to achieve equitable and sustainable revitalization we must effectively link building the social, human and cultural capital of a community with the development of its physical and economic capital. As a result, our current activities focus on two key community-building strategies: asset building and community engagement.
As a community building intermediary Nexus specializes in strengthening the social and human capital of the region’s most excluded communities—pre-developing community capacity to take advantage of the opportunities provided by established housing, economic and business development intermediaries and other organizations.
Nexus Community Partners utilizes a toolkit of revitalization strategies, including convening diverse community residents and leaders; acting as a cultural mediator between grassroots residents and mainstream funders and developers; community outreach and engagement; promoting civic participation; community organizing; as well as incubating model asset-building initiatives in the areas of workforce development, successful homeownership, digital technology access, and financial literacy.
This toolkit positions us as a community building specialist focused on strengthening the social and human capital of a community, including its capacity for collective problem-solving, mutual aid and assistance, and the development of a shared sense of identity. While Nexus has a history of community building programs, in 2009 community building became our primary mission and focus.
We’re excited to launch our new website and encourage you to learn more about the work of Nexus Community Partners.