A Native strategy. An aspirational training plan. Listening to the network and finding the programs that will help the most. With the start of a new year, NeighborWorks leaders look at some of the plans and goals in store.
NeighborWorks' commitment to Native communities
Mel Willie, NeighborWorks America's director of Native American Partnerships & Strategy, says that in 2023, the national nonprofit focused on developing a five-year Native strategy. "Now we're focused on launching it."
"We're looking at strengthening our network partnerships with tribal communities," says Willie."That's the key component. And leveraging our resources in a meaningful way to meet housing needs in tribal communities."
In the next year, he expects to see a lot more engagement with both the network organizations that are doing the work and their tribal partners."We heard from the network clearly: The way they want to work is ‘Nothing for us without us.' That means when we do this work, we need to include network organizations as well as their tribal partners."
His hope is that when NeighborWorks provides resources, including Native Partnership Grants, those resources would include both the network organization and the tribes they're working with. Resources, Willie says, will help strengthen these partnerships.
A plan to transform professional learning
"In 2023, demand for professional NeighborWorks training surged back to pre-pandemic levels," says Douglas Sessions, senior vice president of Training. "We are taking that as a mandate. Our ambition is to advance the profession of community development and affordable housing in America."
In doing so, he says, the goal is to renew NeighborWorks' reputation as "the premier provider of professional learning for the community development and affordable housing field."
As part of the Training division's plan to transform professional learning, staff will focus on reviewing the course catalog, updating courses, creating new ones, and making sure all its courses can be offered both in person and online, in effect "futureproofing" NeighborWorks' entire professional learning catalog. This will ensure all courses are accessible, should circumstances once again make it difficult to be together in-person, and it will also allow practitioners who want the coursework but are unable to participate in person due to cost or travel constraints.
"We also want to significantly increase participation and the impact of NeighborWorks professional learning on the challenges that face the country," Sessions explains. In Fiscal Year 2023, the organization gained a lot of momentum, with course enrollment of 17,470, which surpassed the goal of 10,000. The organization also awarded 15,568 certificates. Sessions expects that momentum to continue in the year ahead.
NeighborWorks' leadership and board fully supports the training strategy, which will accelerate in 2024 and continue for an additional three years, Session says. In 2024 alone, 75 courses will be reviewed and revised and 37 will be converted to be available online."In addition, 15 wholly new courses will be designed and developed. That will proceed over the next four years until we've completed the job."
Sessions sums up the plan like this:
- Pillar 1: Audit, review and revise NeighborWorks' entire catalog of courses and other resources.
- Pillar 2:"Future proof" NeighborWorks' professional learning by making sure courses are available online and in person.
- Pillar 3: Enhance peer learning across the NeighborWorks network by applying new technologies.
- Pillar 4: Digitally organize, micro-credential and badge all NeighborWorks' certificate-bearing courses, making it easier both for participants to find the courses they need and show that they completed them.
Real estate: Staying current and offering support
"You can't talk about real estate without mentioning how dynamic real estate is," says Lisa Getter, vice president of National Real Estate Programs at NeighborWorks America.
"NeighborWorks America is best positioned to support network members with real estate lines of business by positioning ourselves to be as responsive and as dynamic as possible, in terms of how we support them."
Getter's division will spend part of the new year evaluating their existing programmatic efforts but, most importantly, will spend time engaging network members to identify not only where real estate programs are hitting the mark but where they're missing it. Available resources will be a key driver in determining the immediate path forward, but this exercise will better position the team to optimize impact year over year, and will establish a framework for how to"stay current" with their real estate programmatic efforts and correlating criteria, on an ongoing basis.
NeighborWorks has engaged a consultant to capture information to inform new grant and program opportunities in strategic ways to better support the full spectrum of size and need in this space, Getter says.
At the same time, she hopes to ramp up collaboration with the Field Operations team. Real estate is not a desk job, so the team will be getting out more to engage with organizations in the communities that they serve, which would further inform their decision-making and priorities .
In 2024, expect to see a continued focus on multifamily portfolio/asset health. Additionally, the team will continue to evaluate how to evolve in their support of network members that do affordable single-family development, a space that is particularly challenging in the current environment and fundamentally tied to homeownership, another NeighborWorks' priority.
Getter also anticipates that 2024 will deliver pathways to opportunity, like funding and grant opportunities related to climate resilience. Climate impacts all of us in so many ways, Getter says. "Natural disasters are becoming more intense and more frequent. That impacts physical structures, and it also impacts the cost of insuring properties against loss. The current insurance crisis is top of mind for everyone, nonprofits, for-profits, lenders, regulators, the government-sponsored enterprises … everyone. Insurance companies will charge what they need to charge to stay profitable and in business."
The team will work across divisions to identify ways to" support the network through this current crisis and most importantly, put strategies in place to hopefully better weather the next crisis, which is inevitable."
For Getter, the new year still brims with potential and unknowns for the real estate team and the network members that they serve. "I'm excited about new ideas, new people, new conversations and new opportunities to support the creation and preservation of affordable housing through the amazing efforts of the network. The work that they do is never easy, which makes the work that we do so important."
Moving forward with Black Wealth and Asset Building
Over the past few years, NeighborWorks America's Black Wealth and Asset Building Group has remained attentive to the voices within NeighborWorks and among network organizations. They have been actively engaging with ideas and programs centered around a common objective: to alleviate the wealth gap that persists due to barriers and inequities, disproportionately affecting Black residents and showing little improvement.
"We created the Black Wealth and Asset Building workgroup to be cross-divisional and include network members who have implemented intentional programming in response to increasing assets and wealth in Black households and communities," says Leon Gray, one of the founding members."The work of the group will help inform and guide NeighborWorks, providing an opportunity to leverage and build upon core strengths, existing programming, staff experience, resources, and align with the greatest needs."
In 2024, the group, led by founding members (Gray, Sheila Anderson, Donna Wright, Ramona Johnson and Michael Williams) will unveil a comprehensive plan with a roadmap dedicated to Black wealth and asset building.
"This year, we'll align our efforts with current initiatives and develop new initiatives and forge closer collaborations with network organizations operating in this domain," Gray says."The primary aim is to document and develop best practices, particularly those that are replicable across various contexts."
The group also plans to host learning labs during the upcoming NeighborWorks Training Institutes (NTI). "At the NTI next month, our emphasis will be on homeownership, and real estate empowerment, two core pillars of our plan," says Gray.
The objective is to present programs that can be replicated across the network, providing organizations associated with the Black Wealth and Asset Building Group with an opportunity to delve deeply into their programs, sharing insights with other community development and affordable housing practitioners. At the Virtual Training Institute in May, the emphasis will be on programs that can be replicated in the area of financial empowerment, another core pillar. Persistent challenges, such as appraisal bias, will be addressed, recognizing the impact of devaluing homes based on the racial composition of the neighborhood. The NTI in Pittsburgh holds special significance for NeighborWorks' Black Wealth and Asset Building Group as the birthplace of Dorothy Mae Richardson's efforts with her neighbors to unite stakeholders and save their neighborhood from disinvestment.
Gray acknowledges the enormity of the challenge, emphasizing the need to document existing efforts across the network supporting Black homeownership and wealth building. The group, currently comprising 11 network organizations, aims to expand its reach in 2024 by including additional organizations, particularly in rural areas to diversify the group's expertise.
The overarching goal? Remains to confront systemic issues and provide NeighborWorks network organizations with innovative avenues for advancing in the realm of Black wealth and asset building.
"I've been with NeighborWorks for 25 years, and this initiative holds personal significance," Gray says."I am pleased that NeighborWorks is taking a proactive stance, committing to addressing Black wealth and asset building."
Broadening reach through new affiliates
This year, NeighborWorks anticipates affiliating up to five new network members to its network of nearly 250 organizations. The current network reaches every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The process of affiliating new members is a long one and the program is highly competitive, says Colette Pozzo, vice president, Field Operations."Filling gaps in our geographic and programmatic service areas are top priorities."
NeighborWorks received more than 50 applications by the summer application deadline. From there, a team of reviewers narrowed the list and then settled on five finalists who are now preparing for site visits and reviews from NeighborWorks' Organizational Assessment Division (OAD).
"We're really encouraged," Pozzo says."It's an exciting group. The applications that came in are from great organizations addressing critical issues in their local communities."
Because of the lengthy review process, Pozzo expects announcements of new affiliates in early fall, near the end of NeighborWorks' fiscal year. She says the new affiliates will complement work the network already does and will fill some new spaces besides.
"Sometimes we have multiple affiliates in a community, but if we do, it's because they provide different services or serve different populations," Pozzo says."The need is so great. As robust as our network is, it's a drop in the bucket to meet the needs of communities across the country. Our priority is to address service gaps – both geographically and programmatically. With our potential new affiliates, we're able to do that."
Priority will be given to applicants that align with NeighborWorks' strategic plan goals, with special attention to organizations serving underserved markets, Native or tribal lands, rural areas and communities of color.
Applicants are expected to:
- Take a collaborative approach to the work, including partnerships with local organizations, state associations and national intermediaries.
- Have an intentional focus on issues of race, equity, diversity and inclusion in the organization and/or communities served.
- Include resident and stakeholder engagement as foundational to the design, implementation and evaluation of work.
