Community LIFT is taking applications for its new CDC capacity building fund, made possible by investments from the City of Memphis Division of Housing and Community Development, Assisi Foundation, Hyde Family Foundations, and the Kresge Foundation.
The fund, the city’s only dedicated source of funding solely for community development corporations, will help with revitalization efforts in blighted neighborhoods.
Founded in 2010, Community LIFT. assists communities through strategic investments in human capacity-building and economic and community development that result in sustainable communities.
The fund was created after Community Lift’s 2015 State of the Memphis CDC Industry Report identified the local CDC sector as severely underfunded and operating with limited capacity.
“The creation of this fund confirms that we are resolute in our simple premise: When invested in, nurtured and operating with sufficient capacity, CDCs can deliver and support measurable community transformation to impoverished neighborhoods that have languished for decades,” said Community Lift president Eric Robertson in a statement.
“Increased investment toward building CDC capacity will enable them to take on projects that will support housing, commercial and recreational redevelopment in their respective communities.”
Local CDCs are nonprofit, community-based organizations focused on the community engagement, physical and economic revitalization of the areas in which they are located.
These typically low-income, underserved neighborhoods that have experienced significant disinvestment, and CDCs fill a need in furthering housing development, economic development, neighborhood planning, infrastructure, and the development of community facilities.
The total funds awarded from the new fund will not top $500,000, according to Nefertiti Orrin, Community Lift Grants Director. Grants are expected to range from $700 to $30,000 depending on the current capacity of the organization. Orrin is not sure the total number of grants that will be awarded as this is the first year of the fund.
Only CDCs can apply. The grant application period closes on February 17.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.
Michael Waddell is a native Memphian who returned to Memphis several years ago after working for nearly a decade in San Diego and St. Petersburg, Fla., as a writer, editor and graphic designer. His work over the past few years has been featured in
The Memphis Daily News,
Memphis Bioworks Magazine,
Memphis Crossroads, the
New York Daily News and the
New York Post.
Contact Michael.