Getting it Done: Southwest Chicago, NCP Seen as Model

The paint had barely dried on the new UIC forum at the University of Illinois at Chicago when, this past March 26 and 27, people from 24 Chicago neighborhoods and 56 cities across the country gathered there for a packed schedule of workshops, tours, roundtables, and even late-night neighborhood outings. The bevy of events comprised LISC/Chicago's first national conference for community development practitioners and GSDC's first chance, as a community development organization, to share our successes and challenges with a national audience.

Overall, the conference was infused with a sense of urgency, passion and innovation, a sense conveyed by everything from its title-"Getting it Done: New Tools for Communities"-to its hosts-the 14 lead agencies of the inventive New Communities Program (NCP). GSDC, as one of the hosts, contributed much to 17 fast-paced hours of programming aimed at spurring dialogue with and offering new tools to communities across the country facing challenges as varied as the current foreclosure crisis, gentrification, and disinvestment.

In fact, the "new" tools offered-engagement, deal making, communicating, leveraging, planning, leading, playing, and evaluating-were not actually new, as NCP Director Susana Vasquez noted. Engagement or organizing, for instance, was developed long ago by Chicagoan Saul Alinsky and has been a tool used by some Chicago organizations for over 40 years. "What is new," she said, "is that after 11 years of learning while doing, we are able to host this conference. There are no outside experts here. Every panel, every workshop and every tour is led by Chicago's very own cutting-edge leaders in comprehensive development, who are eager to share this approach because it is working."

Beginnings

The basis for the conference was a shift towards comprehensive development that began about 11 years ago when Chicago's community development leaders organized what was called the Futures Forum, a series of critical discussions on the direction of the field. The forum confronted the inadequacy of bricks-and-mortar approaches to curing social ills and pointed the way towards going "comprehensive." Going comprehensive meant simply doing more than promoting affordable housing and retail growth; it meant working on those issues and everything from safety, school reform, youth programming, and arts projects to relationship-building between community members.

NCP was born from this shift as an effort to implement a comprehensive development approach across Chicago, and the breadth of NCP tools offered at the conference stands as one testament to the program's success.

Importantly, GSDC and CEO James Capraro have from NCP's beginning emphasized developing relationships as the bedrock for seeking community development, for creating a climate where individual residents and local leaders take initiative and act on their desire to create a livable, connected community. In keeping this emphasis, GSDC has worked closely with the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), a community organizing group in the Alinksy tradition, as a partner lead agency.

Seeking Change at the Grassroots Level

Echoing Ms. Vasquez and the results of the Futures Forum, keynote speaker Jonathan Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation, NCP's major funder, said, "We are meeting at a moment in history that is full of promise…I think we are on the cusp of another era of domestic reform…and we know that energy must come from the neighborhoods and not from Washington, and that community development organizations are the critical drivers of change." Change, in other words, bubbles up from the milieu of experimentation and practice at the community level. As key conference organizer James Capraro put it, community development corporations and community lead agencies stand as "orchestra conductor[s]" in producing the music of reform and development.

These organizations need willing musicians in community partners to play and even to compose the music. Indeed, the NCP effort, officially kicked off in Southwest Chicago in 2003 with a community-driven planning process, has produced a musical score worth sharing because it is working. Neighborhoods across Chicago are being revitalized through specific projects and community mobilization brought about by NCP's comprehensive approach.

Striking a Chord

In Southwest Chicago, NCP has supported, among other things, a comprehensive community quality-of-life plan, a free health clinic and nascent arts center run by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, new community organizations like Healthy Chicago Lawn, a direct service center offering free financial and employment counseling to residents, and school reform through the development of an extended-day school at Marquette Elementary. GSDC and SWOP shared the stories behind these projects in workshops on engagement and planning on the conference's first day, in roundtables on foreclosures, financial counseling, and business retention on the second day, and in conversations with folks from across the country at our display table throughout both days.

GSDC also highlighted the efforts of particular "community heroes" on the southwest side, honoring their contributions to our larger collective effort. Our heroes were our local Ceasefire Team and Holy Cross Hospital CEO Wayne Lerner. The Ceasefire Team of Rafi Peterson, Miguel Arcos, Kenneth Baldwin, Mirna Guzman, Rick Hernandez, and Hugo Siguenza have worked tirelessly to curb gun violence and to intercede in the lives of at-risk individuals. Despite having lost government funding thanks to political wrangling, much of the team continued its work unpaid for several months until an alternative source of funding could be found.

Wayne Lerner has led a charge to stabilize Holy Cross Hospital, the southwest side's second-largest employer and a crucial health care provider. His efforts have helped secure a $9 million modernization of the hospital's overworked emergency room and have improved community-hospital relations.

With each NCP neighborhood similarly sharing its stories and heroes, fellow practitioners from LISC offices and cities across the country looking for development models had much to chew on and much to be inspired by.Learning from other practitioners produced "a lot of energy" for Armeather Gibbs, CEO of United Way of Rhode Island. "You want to go home and do a million things," she said. Judging by responses like this, the conference struck a chord and left folks energized and ready to get things done.

Patrick Barry, Maureen Kelleher, Elizabeth Duffrin, Richard Muhammad and Ed Finkel of LISC/Chicago contributed to this article.