Cross-Sectoral

RESEARCH RESOURCES

Center for Community Capitalism, University of North Carolina
www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/KI/commCapitalism/index.cfm
The Center for Community Capitalism conducts research on the role of CDCs and CDFIs, with a focus in three areas; 1) Exploring ways to leverage electronic banking technology to create new markets for financial services and savings accumulation opportunities for residents of underserved communities; 2) Supporting community wealth-building through home ownership; and 3) Documenting the business potential of America's urban and rural emerging markets.

COMM-ORG
http://comm-org.wisc.edu
Founded in 1995 and hosted at the University of Toledo, COMM.ORG has evolved into a community of scholars, community organizers, community development workers, and others that looks at a broad array of community wealth building strategies. The web site includes a wide range of scholarly articles and links to many other related sites of interest.

Demos
www.demos-usa.org
Founded in 1999, Demos is a multi-faceted research and advocacy organization that focuses on issues of democracy, the health of the public sector, and the creation of a public realm of debate and ideas. It also has an economic opportunity program that focuses on promoting new ideas in the areas of higher education, income and asset-based policy as means of building wealth among people of low and moderate incomes.

Insight Center for Community Economic Development
www.insightcced.org
Formerly known as the National Economic Development and Law Center, the Insight Center has restated its mission as “Helping people and communities become, and remain, economically secure.” The group works across sectors and has had a perspective of race to its work, including a project to expand the impact of experts of color in the savings and asset building field, as well as innovative research that will help strengthen minority- and women-owned businesses.

Institute for Local Self-Reliance
www.ilsr.org
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance takes a comprehensive approach to community building. Its “New Rules” project provides a wealth of practical examples of local legislation that has supported local community wealth-building efforts and can be used as templates for similar efforts in other communities. The ILSR web site also contains many publications on efforts to develop environmentally sustainable businesses as part of a community wealth-building strategy.

Our Native Circle
www.ournativecircle.org
Our Native Circle serves as an online community and resource where Native and non-Native community economic development practitioners could come together in force to share, inform, learn and connect. Site members include Native CDFIs (Community Development Financial Institutions), tribes, Native organizations, individuals, foundations, social entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, trainers and others working in and supporting Native community development.

Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED)
www.picced.org
PICCED helps advance public policy that supports sustainable, equitable, community-led development. PICCED’s research and advocacy efforts have included the promotion of inclusionary zoning, support for mutual housing associations, publishing oral histories of community development corporations, and participation in the successful effort to establish an affordable housing trust fund in New York State.

Poverty & Race Research Action Council
www.prrac.org
Founded in 1990, the Poverty & Race Research Action Council aims to generate, gather and disseminate research on the relationship between race and poverty, and to promote policies and practices that alleviate conditions caused by the interaction of race and poverty.

Restoring Poverty Initiative: The Brookings Institution
www.restoringprosperity.org
The Brookings Institution’s Restoring Prosperity Initiative is a research project that looks at ways to restore prosperity in America’s struggling cities, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest, by directing states and cities to adopt policies that will support urban community wealth building. This initiative will focus on strategies in six states (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut), as well as in some large cities in the Northeast and Midwest outside those states, such as Baltimore.

Vital Communities Toolbox
www.tompkins-co.org/planning/vct/
Maintained by the Planning Department of Tompkins County (Ithaca and environs) in upstate New York, this web site contains an “A-Z” listing of different community wealth-building tools, ranging from business incubators to community land trusts to transit oriented development, to name just a few of the topics.