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Lake Street Impact Study

The Midtown section of Lake Street has historically been home to many immigrant small businesses. As the neighborhoods surrounding Lake Street became more racially and ethnically diverse in the 1990s, so did the business community. New Latino and African immigrant businesses began to open, like the Mercado Central, a Latino cooperative business incubator at the corner of Lake and Bloomington. Simultaneously, two large issues were beginning to shape Lake Street. The first was the reconstruction of the entire street by Hennepin County and the second was the redevelopment of two key sites along Lake Street, the old Antiques Minnesota building at the northwest corner of Lake and Bloomington and the empty Sears building at the corner of Lake and Chicago. Within this context, it became clear that these new entrepreneurs and businesses would need increased support and technical assistance to ensure their prosperity and survival.

 

It was at this time that Nexus (then Payne-Lake) Community Partners was formed with a specific program focus on strengthening area asset building strategies, including the support of small businesses owned by communities of color and immigrant communities. With funds from local and national funders, Nexus was able to provide early flexible funding (and later, general operating support) in support of these new businesses and entrepreneurs. Nexus played an instrumental and catalytic role in the start up of two ethnic community development centers (CDCs) - African Development Center (ADC) and Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC). Both organizations had started with community support and were serving the increasing numbers of entrepreneurs opening their businesses along Lake Street and in South Minneapolis. Nexus support helped these organizations build capacity to support and deepen their impact within the African and Latino business communities.

"Nexus' support was extremely important in our start up as a CDC. Their funding validated us to two audiences: first, to our Latino entrepreneurs for whom we exist to provide assistance to and secondly, to the funding community, that we were a needed organization in the field." - RAMON LEON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LEDC

Program highlights (2005-2009)
a. Nexus invested $1,670,000 in building the capacity of CDCs to work with entrepreneurs from communities of color and immigrant communities.
b. Through all of the partner organizations mentioned above, over 1,400 persons or businesses were provided with entrepreneur training or technical assistance, resulting in the creation of 36 new businesses.
c. Organizational partners assisted with the origination of 115 business loans totaling over $3 million.

Impact
a. Resident/Entrepreneur - Entrepreneurs, both new and longstanding, along Lake Street became better aware of and prepared for the reconstruction effort. Results indicate that no businesses was forced to close, though, some did report reduced sales by as much as 50 percent as a result of construction.
b. Organization - ADC and LEDC emerged as two critical organizational entities along Lake Street. Without the capacity of these non-profit CDC partners working to create and build community among the entrepreneurs, the end result may have looked quite different from today. The partnerships formed then continue to exist today, further strengthening current businesses and entrepreneurs.
c. Community - Today, the Midtown section of South Minneapolis is a thriving commercial corridor supporting its surrounding neighborhoods physically, economically and socially. According to the Lake Street Council, the number of current empty storefronts in the Midtown section (14) is similar to that of the West Lake section (11). The addition of the Midtown Global Market as well as modifications by Hennepin County to include more pedestrian friendly space, has brought increased visibility and access to the area, further strengthening its resurgence.

 

 

Read more about our impact on Lake Street here.

 

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Neighborhood Funders Group Annual Conference

The Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) is a membership association of grantmakers who support social justice and social change. They work to improve the economic and social fabric of urban and rural low- and moderate-income communities.

For the past year, Nexus Community Partners has been serving on the planning committee for the 2010 annual conference of the Neighborhood Funder’s Group. This year’s conference will be taking place in Minneapolis September 29th – October 1st. 

A highlight of every NFG conference is the neighborhood tours that allow attendees a glimpse into the innovative neighborhood based work happening in the conference city. This year, Nexus Community Partners is helping coordinate the neighborhood tours in the three places we work; North Minneapolis, South Minneapolis and East St. Paul.  

Additionally, we are contributing a white paper for the conference entitled, “Drowning in the Rising Tide”, that highlights the success of three of our grantees in linking community engagement and asset building strategies together to create targeted benefits for communities of color in the Twin Cities.

 

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Nexus July Investment Actions

On July 20th, 2010 Nexus Community Partners approved our fourth 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:

Casa de Esperanza
Purpose: Nexus Funds will support the East Side Latino Community Engagement Project and the Centro de Informacion y Recursos information kiosk. The work will continue to focus on building and tapping into community connections—social capital—as a tool to support Latino families and the community at large. In addition, based on responses to their community listening sessions, Casa will enhance programming and begin “cross fertilizing” their community engagement programs to enhance the knowledge and skills of their community.

Strategic Fit: Nexus Community Partners is committed to authentic community engagement (CE) as the guiding principle for all of our activities and as a strategy for community members to build and enhance social, physical and personal assets. Our investment in Casa as a trusted community engagement partner has demonstrated great impact to date about how deep engagement in the East Side Latino community builds trust, shares knowledge, increases participation in broader community activities, and builds bridges with organizations and institutions who want to support the Latino community.

East Side Development Company
Purpose: Nexus Funds will be used to deepen and expand ESNDC’s Building Blocks for a Sustainable Future initiative. The goal of this initiative is to change the way ESNDC and the community work together to affect long term change in housing and quality of life issues on the Eastside.

Strategic Fit: A distinguishing feature of Nexus Community Partners is our willingness to support innovative models and programs, often times in their early stages and when no one else will, that build more engaged and powerful communities. Nexus was an early supporter of the Building Blocks for a Sustainable Future program, believing in ESNDC’s vision for the East Side and their ability as an organization to undergo the necessary organizational shifts to make it happen. Building Blocks began as a way for the community to better understand what was happening to their neighborhood in the midst of a foreclosure crisis and has evolved into a multi-faceted, multi-cultural community revitalization initiative. It has also built the capacity of ESNDC and helped them shift their perspective on their work and the role of community in their work.

East Side Family Center
Purpose: Nexus Funds will support the East Side Family Center’s Mortgage Foreclosure Counselors and expand their capacity to provide budgeting services to families in need.

Strategic Fit: In 2008, Nexus Community Partners was an early investor in the East Side Family Center’s Mortgage Foreclosure Counselor position and in 2009 we built further capacity by adding an additional counselor to assist with the growing demand. This support and capacity has allowed the ESFC to assist nearly 100 families, with nearly 50% of those remaining in their homes. Over the course of these two years, the ESFC has seen an obvious gap – budgeting assistance for those who lack the financial understanding and skills to stabilize their finances. Investing in this opportunity supports additional resources, provides proactive foreclosure measures and expands impact. This grant aligns with the East Side Housing Initiatives’ goal to build on existing capacities and fill gaps that exist. There continues to be a strong and growing need for foreclosure prevention services on the East Side and this grant will allow the East Side Family Center to continue providing the services necessary to those in crisis.

Lake Street Council
Purpose: Nexus funds will be used to support Lake Street Council’s Lake Street History Project as a community engagement and asset building project among entrepreneurs and residents in the Midtown section of South Minneapolis and also as part of their larger marketing plan for Lake Street.

Strategic Fit: This grant supports Nexus’ goal of creating effective intersections between community engagement strategies and community development approaches. As we have built the organizational capacity of LSC to improve the Lake Street commercial corridor over the past several years, we have also intentionally requested that LSC continue to connect and maintain ongoing relationships to the surrounding neighborhood’s organizations and their residents. This strategy by Nexus ensures that there will be a greater link between neighborhoods and commercial corridor entities and that these relationships will continue to build and result in greater community impact.

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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.

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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, look at the Impact Study here.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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 resid ents 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.

 

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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.

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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.

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[1] “Building Family Economic Success:  Centers for Working Families”, Annie E. Casey Foundation http://www.aecf.org/upload/PDFFiles/FES/fes_cwf.pdf, 2005.

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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.

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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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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