It Takes a Village: How Coalition Work is Transforming Lives in Detroit - NationSwell

A new program in a Philadelphia neighborhood is offering opportunities for locals to curb gentrification. Gentrification occurs when outside developers come to an area and change it without leaving room for locals to remain. The nonprofit Jumpstart Germantown provides training, mentoring, and loans to community members who want to learn to develop their own neighborhoods in an inclusive and sustainable way. So far, 235 people have graduated from the program, and the model has inspired other Philadelphia neighborhoods to start similar programs.

A "near-peer" mentoring program offers a promising model for similar initiatives working to prevent "summer melt" for low-income students in the summer between their graduation from high school and arrival at college. College-age mentors provide in-person coaching and respond to texts about financial aid and other concerns.

New grassroots efforts often struggle to get off the ground due to lack of funding. In Baltimore, a group called CLLCTIVLY aims to fix this problem for black-led non-profit organizations by offering a $1,000 prize every month for a year through its Black Futures Micro-Grant program. CLLCTIVLY has also launched an asset map to connect these smaller efforts to each other.

In New York, non-profits like Eat Offbeat, Emma's Torch, United Tastes of America, and more are working to connect American-born citizens with refugees from other countries, using food as a way to spark conversation while also providing employment and job training opportunities. So far, these organizations have helped welcome refugees while also creating cultural awareness.

Career Advance, and the Warren Village, are two anti-poverty programs built on the “two-generation model,” which “focuses on providing coordinated, high-quality services to both children and their parents under the umbrella of one program.” Prior efforts only focused on children. The approach seems to be a successful study. The Career Advance program found that sixty-one percent of participants earned a post-secondary credential after one year in the program, compared to just 3 percent of those in the control group.”

Chattanooga, once called the dirtiest city in America, was later dubbed a Tornado of Innovation by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Now, the city is hub for the tech industry. Despite its rag to riches story, the city’s gap between the rich and the poor has increased dramatically over the past ten years. 1 in four people live in poverty. Nonprofits and activists have been helping, but they need city leaders and elites to listen before it's too late.

La Ciudad de Las Mujeres or the City of Women was built by displaced women in Colombia. They are the survivors of violence from the Colombian war. “Today the neighbourhood has its own infrastructure, housing almost 500 people with a school, all built by the women.” The organization has also established a credit fund for micro-enterprises, a brick factory, a community restaurant, and a childcare center.

Hundreds of immigrants in Houston often have no access to any social aid. One community, East Aldine, exemplifies this. It lacks sewers, water, or trash collection. But, with the help of one nonprofit residents are bypassing the city, and getting the help they need.

Investments into the arts serve as significant economic catalysts. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, legacy foundations like the Heinz Endowments, Benedum Foundation, and Richard King Mellon Foundation pooled their resources to create the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which supports art and culture in the city’s downtown districts. By purchasing and refurbishing existing real estate, as well as lending support to smaller initiatives like the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, PCT’s investments have served as an engine of growth for the city.

A non-traditional program called the Family Independence Initiative (F.I.I.), uses a radically different approach from the traditional American social service model to empower entire families alleviate themselves from poverty. The results in multiple states thus far have been so striking, that this model of self-sufficiency may be able to have a significant impact reducing poverty nationwide.