CDCs Invested $918.1 Million in Local Communities in 2019 - The MACDC GOALs Report
We’re proud to release the results of our annual GOALs Survey. Even though 2019 was not too long ago, it feels like the old days! So much has happened over the first six months of 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis. Both crises have, not surprisingly, negatively impacted communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately. Also, we have seen our country re-awake to the issue of racial injustice, spurred by worldwide protests against police violence and all the myriad injustices against Black, indigenous, and other people of color that have made our nation less than it can be, than it should be.
While the story of 2020 has yet to be fully written, we can now tell the story of what our members accomplished in 2019, which demonstrates the prescience of our movement. CDCs place racial equity and justice at the forefront of their work. MACDC’s Strategic Plan – adopted in 2018 - named racial equity and health equity as two of our core priorities, along with advancing economic opportunity.
All these priorities are reflected in the work highlighted in this report. The Community Economic Development Center in New Bedford provided small business technical assistance to 57 entrepreneurs, focused in the Acushnet Avenue Commercial Corridor, the historic Gateway community to new immigrants. Lena Park CDC, in partnership with CodeSquad, trained 10 adults from Boston’s urban core to launch new careers as full-stack web developers. Madison Park
Development Corporation partnered with the MA Census Equity Fund to ensure all residents are counted. Franklin County CDC, as Co-Administrator of the Massachusetts Food Trust, funded 7 healthy food projects across the Commonwealth.
As always, CDCs are also creating and preserving affordable housing: for seniors on the South Shore, families in Western MA, year-round residents on the Cape, and residents at risk of displacement in triple-deckers in East Boston. CDCs are fighting for climate and environmental justice from South Boston, where sea level rise presents an imminent risk, to Lawrence, where Groundwork Lawrence’s Green Team prepared 40 young people for a lifetime of environmental and healthy community leadership.
This report highlights these activities and tallies the collective impacts of CDCs in 2019. Tables on our website show the complete GOALs Survey results.
While these CDC activities are diverse, their underlying principles are similar: economic empowerment, housing stability, health equity, civic engagement, and racial equity. This work has built community resilience and infrastructure that is being called upon as we face new and unprecedented challenges. And while our 2020 results won’t be available until next year, we are already seeing evidence that CDCs are taking their work to yet higher levels in 2020. The work of community development continues.