Double Down on ‘Local’ to Empower Families and Communities

By Denise Scott, LISC President

Over the past few years, we have seen great energy around community development investing, with new funders and investors joining the work to address pressing problems of economic insecurity, health disparities and more. But we’ve also seen ambitious social investment programs falter, finding themselves too far removed from people they are meant to serve.

This illustrates a critical, yet often overlooked point: it is nearly impossible to achieve significant gains unless there are people on the ground, in our communities, who have the expertise and deep local relationships required to catalyze progress.

This has been central to my work for 40 years, and it has always been an essential aspect of community development finance. But our recent experience has reminded me that these core tenets aren’t necessarily intuitive for those outside our field. Many are eager to help advance good housing, businesses, health and jobs. They want to support pandemic relief and address systemic racism. But the truth is that without investment in the local expertise and capacity to create and sustain opportunities, those efforts can fall short.

In other words, success is as dependent on a strong social infrastructure in communities as it is on the dollars that flow through it.

For LISC, this is a foundational idea, and it’s one we have doubled down on in recent years. Our $27 billion portfolio of investments in housing and economic development is built on the firm belief that local organizations and residents can transform their communities if they have access to the right kind of capital and support. It is why we have staff on the ground working with local leaders in 38 metro areas and rural collaborations that reach 2,000 counties. It is how we connect the dots from capital to programs to people.

But this is about more than just LISC. The primacy of “local” is embedded in the experience of the community development field, writ large.

It’s why residents in Duluth’s Lincoln Park pursue different strategies than those in Newark’s Lincoln Park, even though both are working to create more inclusive, more dynamic local economies. It’s why the Southeast Alabama Self-Help Association may have different priorities than the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, even though both are fueling new opportunities for rural residents. And it’s why the assets being leveraged on the south side of Phoenix are different than those being lifted up on the south side of Chicago—even though both areas are steeped in a rich cultural history, with similar hopes for a vibrant future.

This conversation is particularly relevant for state and local governments because it has a direct impact on their ability to efficiently deploy resources. As we’ve seen over the past two years with efforts like the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), national plans don’t become “localized” just by flowing through municipal agencies. Those agencies still need the right on-the-ground partners and strategies to successfully reach at-risk residents—especially those that might otherwise be overlooked because of health, language or literacy barriers. Without trusted in-community connections, even the most robust public and private investment programs can be too slow or ineffective, and funding may be reallocated to other places where it can have a deeper, more rapid impact.

It is a clear message for the future—invest in the social infrastructure of communities or lose high-impact opportunities for stability and growth.

In another way, LISC’s work in East Buffalo also makes this point. Our local staff has been working and investing in Buffalo for more than two decades, collaborating with community leaders and residents on ways to build for the future.

And then came May 14. The murder of Black shoppers at a neighborhood supermarket was an alarming act of pure evil and, at the same time, a sobering reminder of the violent reality of racism…still, again…in the 21st century.

In the intervening weeks, we have been able to put our grief into action—precisely because we have been engaged in Buffalo and our staff have relationships with local leaders who know us as neighbors and friends, as well as grant makers and investors. We asked what they needed from us in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. And we talked about how to connect urgent responses to long-term efforts already underway.

From those conversations, we formed The Soil Fund and began making?Groundswell Grants ?to Black-led nonprofits and businesses in the area—prioritizing those that improve access to food, housing, transportation, and cultural and historic assets. LISC seeded the fund to get it off the ground, and we have been offering it as an opportunity for others to put their funding to work in a highly targeted way, even if they don’t have local relationships in place to act directly.

Those connections points are possible because we are part of this community. We already support deeply engaged local organizations. We know much more needs to be done, and we are ready to up our game even further. We will tailor our investments with local residents, not just for them, as we work together to address acute inequities in access to quality food, health care, housing and more.

I hope funders and investors take that real-world perspective to heart, because a strong, responsive local infrastructure is vital. To support just and resilient communities, we must invest in the capacity of place-based organizations to plan, execute, measure, adjust and sustain community development gains.

Local leadership is the foundation for a stronger future.

This blog was originally posted at https://www.lisc.org/our-stories/story/double-down-on-local-to-empower-families-and-communities/