Inspiration from New Orleans

By Alexandra Chaikin,
Online Media Project Manager

For the past four days I’ve been very lucky. I have been working in the vibrant, complex city of New Orleans at the NeighborWorks Training Institute, meeting many of the people who make positive social and economic change possible in communities across this country.

Every day I’ve heard new stories of success and transformation – turning superfund sites into urban gardens, empowering residents to build anew after Katrina, partnering with banks to stem foreclosures, the list could go on. What’s been most striking to me is the accumulated knowledge of the conference attendees and their willingness to share that knowledge, and receive knowledge from others, in service of the greater good.

I also saw with clarity the importance of NeighborWorks training division staff in making this exchange of ideas possible. I believe passionately in the value of online media (hence my title!), but it is the in-person conversations that often inspire new or improved courses of action. I applaud our staff for their work behind the scenes organizing the classes and meetings in a way that enabled these discussions.

For those of you who could not attend, or who want a quick reference for inspiration, here were some of my favorite quotes and photos:

Photo by Chad Klawetter via Instagram

“Our city is not in a rebuilding phase; it is in an opportunity phase.”
–Brian Lawlor, director of housing policy, City of New Orleans at resident leadership symposium

 “The Community Building and Organizing program has already surpassed its goal of developing 7000 resident leaders.”
–Eileen Fitzgerald, CEO of NeighborWorksAmerica at CB&O dinner

“The challenge is to constantly expand ordinary people's self confidence.”
–Marie Kennedy, keynote speaker at resident leadership symposium

The photo and quotes were submitted via Twitter. You can see more on our Storify page. You can also visit the Leaders for Communities site for materials and discussion related to the May 9 symposium on resident leadership. To learn about all of NeighborWorks' efforts in the Gulf, visit our website.

Getting Out the Vote for Starbucks' Vote.Give.Grow.

By Alexandra Chaikin,
Online Media Project Manager

As you may have seen on our NeighborWorks Twitter and Facebook pages, we are pretty excited about the results of the Starbucks Foundation Vote.Give.Grow. contest. Nine NeighborWorks organizations participated, and they raised a combined total of $125,000. Not too shabby.

First, a little background. Vote.Give.Grow. is a new initiative which allowed Starbucks cardholders to vote every week on how the foundation should allocate funds among 124 nonprofits nationwide. The best part? Every nonprofit selected for the contest is guaranteed to win at least $5000! That said, the object is to get the most votes, because more votes could mean thousands more dollars – up to $50,000 to be exact.

To find out how our network members succeeded in getting out the vote, I interviewed Matt Miller, communications and marketing director of Community Housing Initiatives (CHI) in Iowa. Matt explained that Starbucks first contacted them in March about the April contest. At first, they thought it was too good to be true, but, after doing their due diligence, they realized the magnitude of this opportunity. However, there was a big challenge, namely a competing nonprofit in Iowa with more than eight times the number of employees.

Matt, being the entrepreneur he is, went straight to the local Starbucks and worked with the store managers to hand out the Vote.Give.Grow. coasters he’d received from Starbucks Foundation (see image at right). Next, he did the same thing at libraries and the local hospitals. Then he jumped into digital media with a weekly email campaign and a big sign on CHI’s website.  His favorite marketing tool though? Social media. Twitter and Facebook allowed him to easily spread the word to local government and other nonprofits. CHI even made their main Facebook image include information about the contest.

In the end Matt helped CHI win first place in Iowa and a grant of $15,000, which they will use to fund an Eviction Prevention Program this summer. I haven’t had a chance to learn how all our other member organizations will use their funds, but I’m confident they will use them wisely, and I hope they will share their stories too. Feel free to send me an update at achaikin[at]nw.org or to post directly to the NeighborWorks America Facebook page.

LEEDing the way with the Home Improvement and Energy Conservation Laboratory

By Jim Paley, executive director,
Neighborhood Housing Services
of New Haven

The vision for NHS of New Haven’s Home Improvement and Energy Conservation Laboratory (Lab) came to us around 2004. We had been looking for a place to hold classes on homebuyer education, maintenance, and energy-conservation, and we wanted the facility to reflect the lessons being taught. The dilapidated old grocery store on 24 Hudson Street was chosen because it was close to our office and in the middle of the communities we serve.

24 Hudson Street, from dilapidated grocery to LEED-certified Lab

Applying to the Kresge Foundation for a $175,000 Challenge Grant motivated us to think of LEED® certification for the Lab. After all, part of our organizational mission is to support sustainable building and we wanted our application to Kresge to be as competitive as possible. The rest of the story, as they say, is history. Our director of design and construction, Henry Dynia, started us off with his design skills and knowledge about technical systems and recycling opportunities; our rehabilitation specialist, Kathy Fay, kept the LEED certification process moving with her diligence, analytical and writing skills, and perseverance; and our consultant, Deb Lombard, kept us headed in the right direction with her experience, technical expertise, and familiarity with the LEED process. 

The Lab has now been awarded LEED certification at the Platinum level through the US Green Building Council, and is one of only three LEED Platinum commercial buildings under the LEED for New Construction and Substantial Rehabilitation program in Connecticut. Through this certification we achieved a standard of excellence that makes me extremely proud of my staff. We created a model facility that aligns well with the part of our mission that emphasizes energy conservation and sustainability. I couldn’t think of a better place to teach and demonstrate basic home maintenance and energy-conservation techniques to homeowners.

More information about this project is available in the April 19 press release.

3 Ways to Avoid Loan Modification and Foreclosure Rescue Scams

Despite the housing market decline, owning a home is still a cornerstone of the American dream and a key step to building wealth. But did you know that homeowners have lost over $57 million to modification and foreclosure rescue scams since 2009?* 

With Financial Education Month upon us, it’s a perfect time to remind homeowners how to protect themselves from scammers . The Loan Modification Scam Alert campaign has successfully educated millions of Americans about the signs of scams and helped over 22,000 homeowners report scams in the Loan Modification Scam Prevention Network database.  

The trouble is that new programs like the Independent Foreclosure Review and the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, give scammers even more ways to lure vulnerable homeowners with phony promises of assistance. Need evidence?  See this recent warning from New York Attorney General Eric Schneider.  

Do your part to get the word out. Scam tactics change often, but the ways to spot a scam remain constant. Below are the top three ways to spot a scam according to Loan Modification Scam Alert. Please share this information with your partners, family and friends and via email, Facebook and Twitter.

*Original loan modification scam complaint information is compiled and housed in the national Loan Modification Scam Prevention Network Database, which is maintained by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, located in Washington D.C.

Evaluation in Action: Demonstrating Results, Measuring Impact and Informing Change in Financial Capability

By Deborah Visser and Daria Sheehan, Guest Contributors

Deborah Visser is director for Success Measures, investments and partnerships at NeighborWorks America and Daria Sheehan is senior program officer at the Citi Foundation. This post is also available on CFED's Inclusive Economy blog.

The financial capability field is always looking for better, more rigorous ways to demonstrate results of financial coaching, financial education, housing, credit counseling and asset-building efforts on the lives of individuals and families. To address this need, the Citi Foundation joined a small group of funders and practitioners to collaborate with the Success Measures program (www.successmeasures.org) at NeighborWorks America to develop and field test a comprehensive set of financial capability outcome indicators and data collection instruments.

We are excited by the prospect that these new tools will make it easier for practitioners to measure changes in low- and moderate-income consumers’ financial status, attitudes, behaviors, resilience and more. To encourage the financial capability sector to embed outcome measurement as a standard practice, The Success Measures Financial Capability Indicators and Tools are now available to the field free of charge.

What makes these tools distinct from other traditional measures that gauge the effectiveness of financial capability efforts is the inclusion of behavioral tools that address concrete things people do, as well as the strategies they employ to manage financial change over time. Data collected from The Success Measures Financial Capability Indicators and Tools can be tailored by community-based organizations to conduct structured conversations with clients on financial issues, inform changes in program design, and communicate results to a wide range of stakeholders. Financial capability funders, researchers and policymakers can analyze client data across multiple organizations working toward the same outcomes with the same set of shared, tested metrics to identify best practice, improve their understanding of factors that impact financial stability and promote innovation through public policy reform.

This collaborative field-building effort has already gained considerable traction. For example, the Youth Financial Empowerment (YFE) program in New York City has used the new tools to determine attitudes and behaviors regarding financial practices of youth in its program and is continuing to track changes over time. This will enable YFE to better help its clients cultivate a mindset about saving money that would support the transition from foster care to independence. In Oakland, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation has been able to make use of the tools to help its clients begin to learn how to reduce their debt, while also beginning to accumulate savings.

To sustain the momentum of these and similar efforts, a two-year, $5 million grant from the Citi Foundation is supporting a scaling initiative aimed at delivering state-of-the-art financial education and coaching needed to enable families to build their savings, reduce debt and better manage their finances. As an important component of the initiative, 31 organizations are receiving training and technical assistance to use the Success Measures Financial Capability tools to conduct real-time evaluations of how the financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of their clients change over time.

We welcome your feedback on these new financial capability outcome evaluation tools and look forward to learning how practitioners are using them in their asset-building work. Check out the tools in the Citi-funded publication here: www.successmeasures.org/fctools.html.