by Kevin Jones
Patrick Covington helps lead a small foundation in Houston that’s beginning to switch to a place-based approach, as opposed to focusing on specific issue areas like education or health. Being focused on a place helps a local foundation see the connections between what can otherwise be siloed approaches and focus on root causes more easily in the evolving local situation.
An increasing number of foundations are taking that approach; it’s far easier to take a systems approach to their work when it is place-based. The links between housing and economic mobility and health become clearer as a set of interdependent complex nested systems. Some of the big CDFI’s like the Reinvestment Fund have also seen that a local, place-based approach lets them be more creatively responsive with their investment dollars than a siloed approach, so they have shifted their approach to good effect. The Rockwell Fund, Covington’s foundation, wants to move about half of their annual funding, around $2 million, and deploy it annually in a specific neighborhood of Houston
I was able to tell Covington that Neighborhood Economics will have a session with several foundations with a local focus; these foundations are going to explain their approaches. The Irvine Foundation’s Lesley Payne, focused on a 8part of Southern California, will be in conversation with Alison Clark of MacArthur Foundation which, while a large national foundation, couples that with a deep focus on their local Chicago community and Andrew Biedeman of the Chicago-based Pritzker Traubert Foundation. In addition, Santhosh Ramdoss, of the Colorado focused Gary Community Ventures has said he is coming.
There are also a few local foundations based in San Antonio that are considering shifting their approach to place-based instead of funding category-based. Some of them will be having private sidecar convenings, so there will be a lot of interest in that topic.
We at Neighborhood Economics have seen that the shift from a siloed, category-based funding approach to a system-friendly, placed-based approach is a growing movement. We plan to convene around that increasingly in future conferences.
Covington liked that answer. But he wanted to address two more issues.
“We work with the Black church a lot in Houston because they are so central to the community we work with,” he said.
Neighborhood Economics had two great answers for that focus. Our deep partners, RootedGood, will be leading several sessions on creative, community-building approaches to church assets in transition (studies say that between 50,000 and 100,000 churches will close nationally in the next five years). And specifically on the Black Church, the Rev. Sidney Williams will be bringing his Oikos Institute program. Oikos helps Black churches excise out the bad theology that often keeps them from recognizing their rights when it’s time to sell or find an alternative use of church property, to replace bad theology with good theology that helps them realize they can be asset owners. We also gather several faith-based institutional economic development funds, including the UCC church building and loan fund, the Cornerstone Fund, Crossing Capital, and Trinity Church Wall Street who often engage with faith-based efforts around housing and shared and mix use of church space in the city where we convene after the conference is over.
He liked that answer, too. But he had a third area of concern. “We do affordable housing, but only have $600,000 and that’s just two houses.”
Neighborhood Economics had an answer there, as well. Hellojust in both Austin and San Antonio is replicating the successful model piloted by Gary Community’s Dearfield fund, which uses $40,000 in catalytic philanthropy as downpayments to enable people to become homeowners. These are people who can afford to pay a mortgage but have little chance to accumulate the down payment to get that mortgage. So that $600,000 Covington referenced could result in a dozen new home owners, if they replicated that model.
He was sold, and he’s coming to San Antonio.