What is Blueprint Communities?

Blueprint Communities, a new initiative to help community leaders plan for and carry out effective and comprehensive community revitalization efforts, was launched in September 2005 by the FHLBank of Pittsburgh and 16 funding and program partners.

The Blueprint Communities initiative involved 22 urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania during 2005, with the future prospect of expanding the program to communities in Delaware and West Virginia. The initiative is designed to serve as a catalyst to revitalize older communities and neighborhoods by fostering strong local leadership and collaboration, focusing on planning and goal-setting strategies, and building local program capacity to sustain community growth.

The initiative emphasizes a team approach to community development. Each participating team is comprised of a banker, developer, community representative, local elected official and two additional representatives. Youth participation was encouraged.

The initiative is designed to encourage communities to approach revitalization holistically, taking into account physical, economic and social needs. No community can rationally expect to grow if only certain areas of development are pursued. All aspects of development – including housing, infrastructure, economic stimulation and healthy, safe surroundings – must be addressed in community planning.

Mission

The mission of the Blueprint Communities initiative is to serve as a catalyst to revitalize older communities and neighborhoods.

Objectives

  • Fostering strong local leadership, collaboration and development capacity in older communities.
  • Serving as a catalyst for revitalization based on sound local and regional planning that includes a clear vision for the community and a comprehensive implementation strategy.
  • Encouraging coordinated investments in targeted neighborhoods by public and private funders.

Benefits for Participating Communities in 2005

Those participating in Blueprint Communities received 5 days of intensive training that is complimented by additional assistance. Each Blueprint Community team received:

Further, because the training is recognized by the state's major housing and community development funders (program partners), communities may gain access to additional funding from state and federal resources to implement their plans once training in Blueprint Communities is complete. The FHLBank will target its housing and community development resources, affordable housing grants and loans to small businesses to participants in the Blueprint Communities initiative.

Focus

The community revitalization training will provide the educational component necessary for communities to begin developing long-term, comprehensive community plans. Focusing on such fundamentals as leadership, capacity, goal-setting and strategic planning, the revitalization training will provide the necessary base for communities to begin growth.

Outcomes

By training completion, communities will have developed a vision, a draft community plan, a process to measure outcomes and a timeline to move their process forward. Blueprint Communities will build capacity, momentum and trust among community stakeholders, as well as provide the basis for developing and implementing practical, achievable strategies in participating communities.

The FHLBank has contracted with Mary Ohmer and Associates to provide a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the Blueprint Communities Initiative. Ohmer and Associates will track the progress of each Blueprint Communities participant for one-year following completion of the training.

2005 Selection Process and Training Schedule

The FHLBank, aided by program partners and an advisory group, used a Request for Proposal process to select communities for participation. One of the first steps in the selection process for the community revitalization training is the analysis of the community and the preparedness of the stakeholders. The community must be at a point where it would derive benefit from the training and have an opportunity to sustain a comprehensive development approach.

Training for eastern Pennsylvania communities was held at the Willow Valley Resort in Lancaster, PA September 15-16 and December 13-14. Training for western Pennsylvania communities was held September 7-8 and December 7-8 at the Hidden Valley Resort near Donegal, PA. All 22 communities participated in housing development training on October 19, 2005 at Hidden Valley.

Technical Assistance Network

A unique feature of Blueprint Communities is the development of a network of six currently confirmed universities and colleges with community development curriculums throughout Pennsylvania. This network is available to provide technical assistance to 22 participating Blueprint Communities, and it currently includes:

The network will be expanded to include additional universities and colleges, as well as private consulting firms. Access to the network, which includes faculty and student involvement, provides teams with support throughout the training process and for one to two years after the training (depending on funding). The Nonprofit Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) has organized the network, and serves as the primary point of contact with the participating communities. The Nonprofit Clinic, which is covered under the University of Pittsburgh' s 501(c)(3) status, will match the assistance needs of a community with the appropriate resource within the network. Refer to the attached brochure and operating procedures for additional information about the Technical Assistance Network.

Comprehensive Neighborhood Development

This section is an excerpt from the FHLBank's Comprehensive Neighborhood Development (CND) report, which was the basis for the development of the Blueprint Communities initiative. To frame the discussion relative to CND, it is first important to set the context:

What is CND?

Why is it important?

What does it take to be successful?

Comprehensive neighborhood development is not new. In fact, the notion of CND dates back to the 1960s. Over the years, the federal government has worked to redevelop distressed neighborhoods. From the 1960s through the 1990s, a variety of programs — War on Poverty Programs, Urban Renewal, Model Cities, Community Development Block Grant and Enterprise Zones/Empowerment Communities — have set out to improve neighborhoods. The Community Development Corporation (CDC) movement of the 1960s and 1970s emerged in reaction to the federal programs and a desire to rebuild communities from within. Although CND has taken many forms and titles over the last 40 years, the core concept of taking a holistic approach to neighborhood change is the common thread.

Distressed communities are neighborhoods or places that have been left behind. They contain many symptoms of despair and neglect. Poverty, dysfunctional networks, physical blight and a cadre of social problems generally characterize distressed communities. These conditions are chronic. Unfortunately, many urban and rural communities in the FHLBank of Pittsburgh's region are distressed. In places like the Mon Valley, parts of larger urban areas (Philadelphia, Erie and Wilmington), the Lehigh Valley and many communities in West Virginia, the condition of distress is severe.

Often, these distressed communities were once the thriving places the FHLBank projects in its vision statement. Over time, conditions in these communities changed. Economic conditions such as plant closings and the depletion of natural resources were the impetus for decline. Poor leadership, lack of appropriate interventions (both private and public), failure to recognize this change, and poor coordination among the residents all contributed to further decline. Eventually, those who could leave these places did, and those who remained generally were of lower income with greater social problems. These factors further exacerbated the situation and resulted in a lower local tax base, deteriorating property conditions and, above all, a drain on local leadership.

Comprehensive neighborhood development seeks to transform distressed communities through an integrated rebuilding strategy. It seeks to replace piecemeal approaches with broader efforts to strengthen connections among economic, social and physical needs. CND strategies attempt to coordinate human, neighborhood and social capital through the guiding principles of comprehensiveness and community building. CND is not a science but, rather, an art. While the core parts for success are relatively consistent, the required strategy and action takes a unique form in each neighborhood.

Elements of a Comprehensive Strategy

It is important to understand the basic elements of community or neighborhood planning in order to establish a context or baseline for additional discussion of issues relating to the comprehensive strategies, which the Blueprint Communities training seeks to foster.

The Blueprint Communities training focuses on the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to community revitalization. The training offers a step-by-step process that will guide participants in developing their own comprehensive strategy.

A comprehensive strategy includes a holistic approach to revitalization, taking into account physical, economic and social needs. It addresses all aspects of development, including housing, infrastructure, economic stimulation and healthy, safe surroundings. It attempts to coordinate human, neighborhood and social capital through the guiding principles of comprehensiveness and community building. It is not a science but, rather, an art. While the core parts for success are relatively consistent, the required strategy and action takes a unique form in each community.

A comprehensive community strategy is a plan that includes a clearly articulated vision, with clearly identifiable goals and a process for implementation. It should seek to change not only the physical environment, but also the perception of the community among residents and those outside the community. The strategy should help an investor answer the question, "Why should I invest here?"

Creating community revitalization is a very complex, time-consuming and challenging process. The greater the level of a community's distress, the more daunting the revitalization process becomes. Real community revitalization takes the dedication of neighborhood residents and organizations and a host of institutions outside the community.

In places that have strong markets, private demand sustains a community or local economy. Unfortunately, in many places in the FHLBank's district, the conventional markets have broken down or do not exist at all. Strategic interventions are necessary to fill the gaps in the market, the details of which vary from place to place. It takes a keen understanding of the local economy and community assets to make the right interventions. A comprehensive, holistic approach to planning helps communities understand what needs to be done and by whom, with the ultimate goal being to create self-sustaining, thriving communities.

The information provided below is based on a review of training materials employed by both the Development Training Institute and The Enterprise Foundation as part of their respective community development training programs. However, it must be noted that local planning is more art than science. It typically reflects local situations and characteristics that are constantly evolving. As such, community planning is "...best understood and practiced as a continuous process, not as a one-time, up-front linear activity."

An effective community planning process typically has the following elements:

  1. It is based on a shared perception of the community, which may be based on perceived problems and/or opportunities.
  2. It involves a systematic and comprehensive consideration of key community characteristics as the basis for developing specific strategies.
  3. It results in an articulated vision for the future of the community.

It is also typically an "active" process, meaning that it should involve the participation of a broad range of stakeholders in the targeted community if it is to be successful. Community planning done in isolation by local municipal officials or planning experts, who then present their vision for the community in "take-it-or-leave-it" fashion, has long been discredited as an effective approach.

The process of community participation could easily be viewed as a process within the larger planning process and is considered critical to the success of that larger process. The participation process can take a variety of forms, ranging from simple community surveys to detailed group planning exercises. It is here that the whole issue of community leadership comes into play. An effective leader or leaders must emerge in order to organize and push the participation process. A key objective of this process is building and maintaining consensus within the community. It is that consensus that really drives the planning process.

The planning process, in a sense, overlays the participation process which is an ongoing activity. For purposes of this discussion, planning could be described as a series of steps. However, it is important to note that, in actual practice, these steps are not necessarily successive and may require retracing from time to time to ensure that all relevant issues are considered and adequately addressed. The goal for the planning process is to build consensus around both the conditions and possibility for specific actions in the community, to develop workable objectives in support of those actions and to specify mechanisms for implementation.

The basic planning steps identified by The Enterprise Foundation are as follows:

  1. Collecting information — Information is gathered from a variety of sources in order to develop an accurate profile of key community characteristics (i.e., demographics) or to document issues (i.e., crime, unemployment, housing conditions) that provide the basis for action.
  2. Identifying issues — The analysis of the information collected will determine the direction and focus of the planning process. This important step in the process will result in prioritizing what are often competing needs.
  3. Visioning the community — A common vision of what the community would look like or how it would be different after the issues identified are addressed provides an effective basis for the development of specific goals.
  4. Setting goals — Goals need to be general statements of intent that correspond to the issues identified and the vision established for the community. Too often, communities start the planning process here and back into the vision and issues, which leads to a very narrow, less effective approach to the issues.
  5. Developing alternative approaches — As part of the ongoing consensus building process, there needs to be recognition that goals can be met in several different ways. Consideration should be given to alternative approaches, and criteria for choosing among them should be established, that again reflect the issues and vision established for the community.
  6. Articulating the plan — While there is no one best format as far as content is concerned, a typical plan might consist of a description of existing and desired conditions in the community, goals describing what needs to be done based on the conditions described, general strategies for how to get it done and specific actions that need to be taken in support of the goals and strategies.
  7. Designing and implementing plan activities — To quote one of The Enterprise Foundation's training manuals: "Plans do not implement themselves." In a sense, the articulation of the plan is really the easy part of the process; the real work lies in its implementation. Most plans fail because the implementation is not adequately considered in the planning process. The commitment of stakeholders to the planning process must include a "substantial and tangible" responsibility for the resulting implementation activities that bring the plan to life. The classic questions of "who, what, where, and when" need to be answered regarding the actions specified in the plan, either as part of the plan itself or as a separate implementation agreement.
  8. Monitoring, evaluating and updating — Some mechanism for measuring the effectiveness of the planning process, particularly with multi-year planning efforts, is essential to determine the ongoing viability of the plan. This mechanism also provides the basis for making periodic adjustments to meet changing conditions and circumstances. It is important that the criteria for monitoring and evaluation be defined before, and not during or after, implementation. That way the measurement is based on what was desired and not merely on what actually happened.