MACDC Strategic Plan 2010-2012

“Building From Strength to Sustainability”

 The Massachusetts Community Development Field has a proud history. Starting in the late 1960s, community residents of low and moderate income communities organized themselves into effective and powerful community based organizations that have demonstrated the ability to build affordable housing, create jobs, start and grow businesses and transform communities in ways that respect, include and empower local residents. First in Boston and then spreading across the state, the CDC model has achieved and sustained success over the past 40 years, making Massachusetts a key leader in community development for the entire country. The success and impact of the field has continued in recent years. Since MACDC launched its Growing Opportunities Assets and Leaders Initiative (GOALs) in 2002, our members have accomplished the following:
 
  • engaged over 1,700 community leaders each year;
  • built or preserved over 7,800 homes;
  • created or preserved over 11,500 job opportunities;
  • assisted over 6,000 entrepreneurs;
  • supported over 120,000 families; and
  • attracted over $1.3 billion in investment to our communities.
 
This history of achievement provides a solid foundation for the field as we tackle the challenges of today and the coming years. We believe that MACDC, our members and the larger community development field will continue to play a critical role in neighborhood revitalization and our collective efforts will help our communities and our state recover from the current economic recession. As a field that was created to spur change in distressed communities, we must embrace the changes occurring in our field and our country and prepare for a future that will likely look very different than our past.
 
Two overarching themes are at the core of MACDC’s Strategic Plan for 2010 – 2012.
 
First, the need for innovation and adaptations has been clear to our members and to MACDC for several years. While change is ongoing, significant and dramatic changes have occurred during the current recession shaking confidence in the CDC business model. Many of our members are financially vulnerable and are managing high levels of risk as real estate deals are increasingly more difficult and less profitable given current market conditions. MACDC will encourage innovative and adaptive strategies to increase the productivity and sustainability of our member organizations and strengthen the broader community development network, and we will advocate for greater levels of public and private resources to fund community development work.
 
Second, MACDC’s membership has diversified in recent years to include associate members that are engaged in community development activities, but that are not defined as CDCs. And among our long-standing CDCs we see growing diversity in size and focus. We expect that this trend will continue as more place-based non-profits in other sectors employ community development strategies that align with those of CDCs. MACDC will determine how to better adapt our model and practice to effectively broaden our membership base. We see great opportunity here.
 
Our strategic plan includes “stretch” goals; we have purposefully set ambitious targets. MACDC will guide, support and lead our field through the many changes, transitions, adaptations, innovations and collaborations that have already begun and will continue. This process will enable our field to build on our past strengths and to involve a greater diversity of community development organizations to create a sustainable community development sector that can continue to build and sustain communities of opportunity across the Commonwealth.