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Hard Lessons about Philanthropy & Community Change from the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative
In 1996, the Hewlett Foundation embarked upon an ambitious, multiyear, multimillion dollar initiative designed to improve the lives of residents in three disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Bay Area.
Ten years, the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative, as it came to be known, is an acknowledged disappointment. While the initiative did improve life in the three neighborhoods, its impact did not reflect the large investments of financial and human resources.
What went wrong? How can the Hewlett Foundation and its colleagues in the community and philanthropy learn from the experience of the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative? Those are the central questions the Hewlett Foundation sought to answer in a new report called Hard Lessons about Philanthropy and Community Change from the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative, by researchers Prudence Brown and Leila Fiester. Read more by clicking here.
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This large-scale, multiyear revitalization effort was designed to improve the physical, economic, and social conditions in two areas in the San Francisco Bay Area: Mayfair in east San Jose and central East Palo Alto.
The work of the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative was based on the idea that the most effective way to promote and sustain neighborhood revitalization is to work with the community to address the interconnected problems of unemployment, deteriorating physical infrastructure, and the limited supply of affordable housing.
From 1995 to 2006, the Foundation invested more than $17.5 million in the Initiative and leveraged more than $27.4 million in both public and private resources to promote improvement in neighborhood-level services, supports, and infrastructure to increase their responsiveness to community needs. Hewlett funding provided support for the Initiative's key elements:
- Community visioning and planning
- Site administration and monitoring
- Technical assistance and training
- Reallocation of funds for neighborhood projects
- Creation of data collection and project tracking systems
- Documentation and six-month and annual site evaluations
The NII had six specific goals:
- Coordinated and effective programs and services that improve the quality of life of residents
- Improved operational and financial capacity of community-based organizations to carry out neighborhood projects
- Improved capacity of Bay Area community foundations to support neighborhood revitalization
- Increased resident involvement in neighborhood planning and improvement efforts
- Increased public- and private-sector investment in the neighborhoods
- Improved neighborhood-level outcomes, including but not limited to financial self-sufficiency, educational attainment, physical blight, and crime and safety
Although each Initiative site pursued a diverse set of activities aimed at community revitalization, each site’s approach was informed by a common set of strategic principles:
- Resident-driven with broad community involvement
- Leveraged and integrated investments with other funding to achieve critical mass and visible impact
- Sustainable community revitalization through institutional and community capacity infrastructure development
- Strategic partnerships among community-level, public, and private stakeholders to restore the physical, economic, and social fabric within the targeted areas
- Asset-derived revitalization strategies