Lincoln Community Foundation
Lincoln, NE
Challenge
The South of Downtown neighborhood of Lincoln, Nebraska has long been a welcoming haven for immigrants from around the globe, including Latin America, and refugees from Iraq and Sudan. However, the community was strained by high crime, unequal access to opportunity in employment and income, and an unstable residential base. With its proximity to the booming downtown district, residents and businesses were in danger of being displaced by a wave of investment and development. A community profile and revitalization plan provided in-depth data about the community’s assets and challenges but did not include a strategy for what to prioritize and how to implement the recommendations. To turn the plans into a strategy, Lincoln Community Foundation contracted with Consilience, led by Sandy Wiggins, former president of the US Green Building Council and advisor for environmentally, socially and economically sustainable communities.
Approach
Consilience convened a team including Ellen Shepard at Community Allies, bringing expertise in neighborhood commercial district revitalization and community development organization governance, and James Johnson Piett of Urbane Development, leading developer of community assets that spur wealth creation in historically disinvested communities. Our goals were to provide implementation strategy, support a community-driven implementation process, and help inform governance for a new 501(c)3 community-led economic development agency. We spent an intensive three days on the ground, walking the district and meeting with dozens of local leaders and community members, including residents groups, business owners, economic development agencies, schools, elected officials, educational institutions, anchor institutions, funders, and developers. We designed questions to identify common themes, illuminate assets that had gone unrecognized, and draw connections between institutions that could be leveraged to ensure that neighborhood improvements built wealth and opportunity for current residents.
Results
Through our conversations, and with our experience in other cities, we provided a recommendations document that identified five key strategies to stabilize the current resident and business population, improve the neighborhood for the benefit of current residents while attracting new investment, celebrate and preserve the diverse immigrant cultures, and resource a community-driven organization to oversee the work long term. The South of Downtown Community Organization has gone on to create lasting, meaningful, resident-driven change through its Collective Impact Lincoln initiative and its acquisition of a large site with the potential to be a transformative project for local residents including affordable housing and commercial space to host subsidized health, social, and educational services.
Put Community Allies to work for you
Share this story: