Philanthropy Supports Equity and Smart Growth
By Kalima Rose

Across America, it is increasingly recognized that metropolitan land use and development practices present risks to people, the environment and the economy. Manifestations of these risks include growing traffic congestion, spatial mismatch of jobs and housing, social and economic inequity, concentrations of poverty and the weakening of our public education systems.

As communities attempt to limit sprawl and address these quality of life issues through "smart growth" practices, philanthropy is playing an important role in supporting many innovators in the movement. These innovators have advanced ballot initiatives, new regional governance structures and new state and federal policies. Smart growth proponents have focused on preserving the natural environment and farmlands, urging urban growth boundaries, unifying transportation jurisdictions to improve air quality, expanding mass transit, and making new investments in urban core areas.

While smart growth discussions have been innovative in their regional perspectives related to growth and the environment, the interests of disinvested communities have only recently been represented at the planning and policy tables where smart growth agendas are unfolding. Philanthropy has played a significant role in securing this participation.

Building Blocks for Regional Equity
PolicyLink and the Funders' Network for Smart Growth interviewed philanthropic leaders at 11 foundations that have brought an explicit regional analysis to their grantmaking. Their perspectives encompassed a wide spectrum of grantmaking programs, including land use planning; civic engagement; housing; the environment; civil rights; race relations; children, youth and families; economic development; and workforce development. The interviews revealed common components of effective regional work.

• Strong regional "anchors" or intermediaries are required to build an organized constituency of diverse stakeholders into effective coalitions that advance equity goals. The most effective coalitions bridge urban and suburban constituencies and include community-based housing and jobs-focused organizations, faith-based, transit-oriented, business, and environmental groups.
• Sophisticated technical research and analysis conducted by equity anchors are required to ground successful regional equity work. By documenting and illustrating regional inequities, anchors can enlist new partners to join equity pursuits and build their case for new public policy.
• Strategic public policy campaigns must be built to deliver equity outcomes. Campaign tactics include: identifying specific resources; analyzing the agencies, jurisdictions, and other entities that control these resources; conducting public education through news and public affairs media to shape the debate; and advocating an equitable policy agenda at legislative and administrative levels.
• Outcomes must be implemented, monitored and enforced. Winning a specific regional equity campaign is the beginning of new processes requiring careful monitoring and evaluation. Community oversight provides an ongoing opportunity to revise and improve policy and programs, and enhances the ability of communities to participate in future program design and implementation.

Building Block #1: Strong Regional Anchors
In regions where the dynamic of urban core disinvestment and abandonment continues, racially segregated urban communities must manage a legacy of decaying infrastructure. While these communities work to develop regional solutions to revive their historic central cities, the racial divides between urban core and suburbs can impede the process.

The segregation of urban communities has had the practical effect of giving those communities distinct political representation. In regions where urban growth boundaries or the pressures of traffic and growing economies have stimulated urban infill, this new investment can mean the dilution of political power and displacement of long-term communities of color. Hooper Brooks, Program Director for the Environment at the Surdna Foundation reflected on the dynamic the foundation has confronted in many urban core communities. "There are a lot of things people are unwilling to do out of fear that their agendas will be stolen or co-opted," he said. "There is a real concern by urban African-American communities that if they start working regionally, all the power that they have gained as a Black community will be diluted or lost."

By focusing on regional opportunities, anchors can help coalitions bridge racial tensions. In New Orleans, the Annie E. Casey Foundation funds the Jobs Initiative program. Before the program was launched, community members were asked about barriers to better employment. While many were identified, low-income communities in the region identified racial discrimination as the major barrier. A lead New Orleans anchor, the interfaith Jeremiah Group, convened roundtable discussions with businesses and church-based groups, labor, and community organizations. From these roundtables, the Jeremiah Group organized a coalition of African-American and white business leaders who now advise state officials on job training and workforce development needs.

In South Florida, regional efforts have focused on restoring inner city and coastal communities while halting further encroachment into the Everglades. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation tackled issues of race forthrightly. "Some communities felt the environmental groups would be willing to sacrifice their communities to achieve their environmental goals of Everglades' restoration," said David Harris, Director of Florida Programs. With a commitment to connecting under-represented communities to regional planning, Harris launched a leadership training and neighborhood organizing component, with "undoing racism" training for all participating groups. He brought experienced people of color from national environmental organizations to help local environmental groups plan for diversifying their staff and membership. These processes helped lay the groundwork for joint planning and regional development.

Building Block #2: Sophisticated Research and Analysis
Equity research starts with mapping the region and its people and economy - including infrastructure, investments, jobs, unemployment rates, growth sectors of the economy, racial residency patterns, housing stock, etc.

In the Great Lakes region, the Joyce Foundation supported the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Lung Association, and the Bicycle Federation to do a technical analysis of transportation policy in the Great Lakes region. Together, they developed sophisticated modeling and forecasting of transportation demand that took the needs of low-income communities into account. Armed with this research, the campaign has been able to slow Illinois' infrastructure spending in the Southeast Wisconsin-Chicago-Northwest Indiana transportation corridor until a longer-term transportation agenda that addresses equity concerns is developed.

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation funds race analyses of regions to help anchors define the key parameters of regional inequity. Mott's support of the Institute on Race and Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School helps primarily African-American communities develop more strategic regional plans. "For these communities, their experience of development is a racialized experience," explains the institute's director John A. Powell. "Having their reality acknowledged energizes the communities to work for change."

The Rockefeller Foundation supports the capacity of local advocacy groups to conduct regional labor market studies and closely analyze job quality, concentrations of low-end jobs, and promising sectors for growth. "These groups often provide the only counterweight to commercial interests in debates about economic development," explained Katherine McFate, Associate Director of Rockefeller's Working Communities division. "At their best, such groups are able to link quality analysis to constituency building in a way that involves residents in defining and articulating their own interests and policy choices. Labor market analyses can also be used to identify job growth areas and so direct public training and placement services to sectors of the economy that offer avenues for skill enhancement and upward mobility."

Building Block #3: Developing Regional Campaigns
After the research and mapping have documented the state of a community, it is possible to craft a forward-looking campaign. Successful regional equity campaigns have redirected significant public sector investments and harnessed private capital to create new assets in the community. Funders generally saw this leveraging of larger resources as the primary objective of effective regional coalitions.

Directing Public Sector Resources to Equity Purposes
Targeted campaigns to direct federal, state and local government investments in regions can have huge consequences in relation to equity, sprawl and the environment. Many foundations focused on social equity have supported anchors to educate themselves and their coalition members on the complex web of decisions and leverage points that determine public spending.

Some communities have approached equity campaign development through review and critique of federal programs that have produced unintended consequences of displacement, toxic abandonment and lack of transit access for urban core communities. Atlanta's Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) identified serious problems with the city's plan for federal transportation dollars. EJRC and its partners identified the harm to low-income communities imbedded in the city's proposed plan, and are working to remove the harms while ensuring that the transportation needs of those communities are met.

Similarly, the San Francisco Bay Area's Transportation Choices Forum coalition brought together housing advocates, environmental groups, workforce development proponents and suburban commuters to redirect hundreds of millions of dollars from highways to public transit. These regional transportation advances are possible due to national-level advocacy coordinated by the Surface Transportation Policy Project.

Other regional anchors have undertaken campaigns aimed at changing the priorities of capital expenditures and economic development subsidies by local governments and regional agencies. Across California, community-labor partnerships in San Diego, Los Angeles, the Silicon Valley and the East Bay have established equity criteria to be met by municipalities, redevelopment agencies, ports and airports to mandate living wages, health benefits and residential hiring agreements.

Harnessing Private Investment and Market Forces for Equity
Some anchors have successfully negotiated development agreements that bring new workforce development resources to low-income communities. In Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Alliance won an agreement from the DreamWorks studio over its city-subsidized expansion plan to seed high technology workforce development for South Central Los Angeles residents. The millions pledged by DreamWorks will establish new film, technical and engineering programs at several community colleges in the region.

Another market strategy in rapidly gentrifying urban-core areas is community-held land trusts. Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI) seeks to acquire some of the 30 percent of Harlem land held by the city due to abandonment, back taxes, toxic waste, etc. HCCI is working to assess these properties, put together the financing to acquire appropriate parcels for an HCCI land trust, mitigate the brownfields, develop them into affordable housing and community-run enterprises and utilize the management and utility profits for ongoing community services financing.

Engaging in Public Education and Media Strategies
Philanthropy also plays a key role in public education and media campaigns to garner public support for the application of equity criteria to public and private investments. Peter Beard, Vice President of the Fannie Mae Foundation, works with its grantees to frame messages in ways that capture different interests. While faith-based social equity groups voice the rightness or moral imperative of equity, for other partners, a business strategy may be more effective. "A businessman might want to hear that housing near his business stabilizes his workforce and lowers his costs," said Beard. "For him, it is a sound business imperative. You still accomplish the same result, you just frame the issue using self-interest language."

Building Block #4: Implementing, Monitoring and Enforcing Outcomes
Winning a specific regional equity campaign begins a process of re-orienting development directions. Because it creates new mechanisms for distributing resources, it usually requires new mechanisms or entities to implement the gain. A successful campaign by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) required contractors doing business with the city of Los Angeles to pay their employees living wages. After the enactment of living wage ordinances, LAANE helped the city devise monitoring systems to track public contractors and subsidy recipients. Together, the agency and the anchor built community oversight into the system as a way to continue enhancing civic engagement in regional equity.

Benchmarking Success
As their grantees have become disciplined in advancing strategic work, foundations have identified key benchmarks that demonstrate success in regional equity work. These benchmarks include:

• Achievement of specific constituency or membership gains for regional alliances;
• Meeting specific goals to advance the breadth and depth of leadership representing communities of color;
• Increased ability to frame and accomplish action-oriented research;
• Identification of specific policy targets;
• Engagement in public policy campaigns;
• Increased scope of media work;
• Achievement of policy gains.

While innovative regional equity anchors can make significant gains in these arenas, they still represent only a small part of the rapidly moving field of regional planning and smart growth. The major momentum is still generated by business and development associations, open space proponents and municipal governments. This makes time of the essence. Significant further investments by philanthropy are urgently needed to lay the groundwork for changing the development practices of the last 50 years and to support equitable regional development as our next paradigm.

This article is adapted from Advancing Equity Through Smart Growth: Perspectives from Philanthropy, a report by PolicyLink and the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. Principal author Kalima Rose surveyed grant officers at eleven prominent foundations. These interviews provided the basis for this report. The full report is available online at www.policylink.org.

Kalima Rose is Senior Program Associate at PolicyLink.

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