The consulting engineers at Integral Group are accustomed to working with clients early in an integrated design process. Working with Kevin Bates, president of Sharp Development Company, was different, however. “The first meeting wasn’t a design meeting—it was a financial meeting,” said John Andary of Integral Group, of a recent project with Bates. “As long as [Bates] was meeting his ROI [return on investment] and capitalization rate he was willing to spend whatever money, even if he was planning to sell the building.”...read more
SPECTRUM NEWS VIDEO: The city of Rochester is moving forward with its initiative to create more jobs for people who live in Rochester's most challenging neighborhoods. The city's Market Driven Community Corporation announced it's first startup business Wednesday...watch here
As policymakers around the U.S. continue to consider how to support entrepreneurship in ways that generate widely shared wealth across all lines of race, class and gender, many have been eyeing worker cooperatives...read more
ENEROC LLC—the inaugural business of the Market Driven Community Corp.—has entered into an agreement to be a subcontractor for an LED lighting installation project at Rochester General Hospital...read more
A year ago, city officials said they'd help to create worker cooperatives in some of Rochester's poorest neighborhoods. At these businesses, employees could become partial owners — and when the company profits, these workers would share in the rewards...read more
Donald Trump will not be president forever, but in his time in office he can do substantial damage in many areas of American life. As one donor told us, "We risk having 40 years of progress in community development unraveled in the next 18 months."
Principally, that’s because the new administration, along with Republican congressional leaders, is targeting federal spending on social programs and community development — a major bulwark against the consequences of generational poverty and ever-growing wealth inequality. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at risk.
Philanthropy, which awards about $60 billion in grants annually, cannot possibly meet this shortfall. But it can help ensure that when the political winds change, as they inevitably will, the pieces are in place for a progressive agenda. One key way to do this is to support innovative local and regional programs that can be expanded nationally when the opening occurs.
A Yes Special Report...In the poorest region of the nation’s poorest state, a tiny government program keeps money flowing through mom-and-pop financial institutions in the Mississippi Delta—changing lives....read more
Although the Trump administration’s recent budget proposal offers only a look at expenses, with no numbers on revenue, it won’t be long before massive cuts to corporate taxes are on the agenda, as Trump has promised. Before the noise machine ramps up on that issue, it’s an apt time to stop and consider the unintended consequences such tax breaks could have. The hidden danger in broad cuts to the corporate tax rate is this: these cuts would blunt the effectiveness of key policies designed to support communities and an inclusive economy...read more
When large institutions like universities and hospitals agree to hire and spend locally, they can transform neighborhoods hardest hit by poverty and unemployment...read more >
When large “anchor institutions” agree to hire and spend locally, they can transform neighborhoods hardest hit by poverty and unemployment....read more
The economic and racial divides that drive health disparities within communities are stark and widening. Twenty-two percent of children in the United States live in poverty, a percentage that has remained relatively unchanged since 1960. The number of Americans living in concentrated poverty has doubled from 7 million to 14 million since 2000...read more
“Opportunity doesn’t trickle down; it cascades out and up,” writes PolicyLink’s CEO Angela Glover Blackwell in this new article published in the Winter 2017 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Using the transformational success of disability activists in the 1960s and 70s as an example, Glover Blackwell describes how programs designed to benefit the most marginalized groups often end up yielding considerable benefits to society at large,. She applies this principle to addressing income inequality, noting that programs that build the wealth of the most vulnerable will create greater prosperity for all residents.
"Trudging in from the cold and dark after long days at work, students settle in on stackable chairs around folding tables in a room austere but for a whiteboard and a lonely plastic Christmas tree...."read more
Stat news highlights the importance of the Hospital toolkit as shows how "providers can channel their $340 billion annual purchasing power into disadvantaged communities. Currently, only about 2 percent of that money flows to businesses owned by minorities and women." ...Read More
