Building effective partnerships was the focus of a Neighborhood Leadership Forum in New Orleans on 5 April 2008. CSRI Director Jane Nelson co-facilitated the meeting entitled “Increasing Community-Level Resources and Impact through Cross-Sector Alliances.”
Neighborhood leaders have played a crucial and inspiring role in the difficult process of rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and many of them exemplify the best in social entrepreneurship. The goal of the Forum was to support and learn from these leaders and social entrepreneurs by sharing best practices in identifying, building, and maintaining successful partnerships. Forum organizers encouraged participants to share their experiences in developing partnerships with companies, universities, foundations, faith groups, and other neighborhoods, and thereby contribute to the development of tools and guidelines that can be more widely used by other communities around the world, especially those recovering from conflict and natural disasters.
Outstanding neighborhood leaders share their experiences and lessons
The event included presentations from four neighborhood leaders highlighting the variety of roles that partners have played since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in September 2005. LaToya Cantrell of the Broadmoor Improvement Association described the network of corporate, foundation, and university partners her community has developed from the Clinton Global Initiative to Deutsche Bank, AT&T, Digitas and the Carnegie Foundation to undertake numerous revitalization projects including restoration of its community center and library, and the creation of a Community Development Corporation.
Patricia Jones of the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association spoke about her work partnering with organizations such as the Good Work Network and the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership of the Gulf Coast to provide training, loans, and other assistance to help low-income entrepreneurs start and maintain their businesses.
Pam Dashiell of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association shared of her efforts to bring together many small neighborhood groups into a stakeholder coalition. The coalition has partnered with universities and environmental groups to restore a cypress swamp that serves as a buffer against storm surge.
Kevin Brown of the Trinity Christian Community Center described his organization’s partnership with AmeriCorps, which has deployed 100 volunteers to support community rebuilding efforts.
Two of the characteristics of partners that neighborhood leaders said they value most are flexibility and entrepreneurial thinking. For example, before the hurricane, improving youth literacy was the primary focus of AmeriCorps members working with the Trinity Christian Community Center. After the hurricane, most youth had left New Orleans and schools were closed. Before literacy could be a focus, the community had to be physically rebuilt. AmeriCorps broadened its mission to include community restoration and increased the number of volunteers ten-fold.
Mobilizing business support
Large corporations played an important role in the immediate response period after Katrina, but there is still a great need and opportunity for more innovative alliances to be built between companies and neighborhood organizations in a range of areas, from education, after school programs and youth development, to housing, environmental restoration, and small enterprise development.
Generous support for the Neighborhood Leadership Forum series was provided by Shell Oil Company and Walter Shorenstein, among others. |
