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The Final Phase:
Investing in New Capacity and Strengthening the Infrastructure
Posted December 13, 2007
- A grant in March 2007 to the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence to create The Rockefeller Foundation Redevelopment Fellowships. This program provides support for 24 mid-career development professionals to be placed in 17 organizations working to rebuild the city, and is already manifesting tremendous benefits. Fellows will work through March 2009, will attend two days of classes a week at the University of New Orleans, and are provided professional mentors.
- Working closely with Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF), the RF has helped create the New Orleans Community Revitalization Fund (CRF). To date, national and local foundations – including the Gates, Hilton, Kellogg and Surdna foundations – have committed to provide funding. By year end, we expect that the CRF will have secured $15 million toward the three-year goal of $25 million. The CRF will be a critical ingredient to building the long-term capacity needed to implement the UNOP. The plan is for GNOF to spend down the CRF in five years, focusing on housing and community revitalization activities that seek to create – or are a part of – a working system that generates inclusive housing and community development. Collaborating funders will meet three times each year to highlight the issues that are central to the recovery of the built environment.
- The RF is providing strategic support for professional staff at the two government agencies – The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and the Office of Recovery Management – that have responsibility for implementation of the UNOP. Both agencies will engage in land assembly, redevelopment financing, and disposition and marketing of development sites to a wide variety of nonprofit, public and private concerns.
- Through a series of grants to national organizations – including Local Initiatives Support Corporation and Enterprise Community Partners – the RF has leveraged their expertise to aid New Orleans on a variety of issues. These include training and technical assistance on historic preservation as a redevelopment tool, assistance in development of land use systems and model processes for land reclamation and strategies for redevelopment financing.
- The RF is supporting community-based organizations, strengthening their capacity to promote ongoing citizen participation in planning and development processes, as well as strengthening citizens’ ability to advocate for the adoption of rational planning and land-use systems and policies. The RF is also supporting two local organizations that are collaborating with for-profit developers to rebuild public housing complexes into safer and mixed-income developments.