NeighborWorks America (NWA) is dedicated to resurrecting housing, hope, and community partnership in blighted neighborhoods. They believe in re-empowering people for sustainable, community uplift. They deliver strategic, tactical, educational, and financial resources to troubled communities in conjunction with coaching and developing cadres of neighborhood leaders. NWA partnered with TAGA for assessment, strategic planning, and executive coaching assistance.

Challenge | Opportunity
Blighted, disenfranchised communities, housing disarray, soaring crime, and crumbling neighborhood infrastructures do not just magically transform themselves into healthy human habitats. It takes leadership, strategy, substantial resources, and the collective resolve to push through decades of challenges to create genuine revitalization. Disinvestment, over time, creates its own downward spiral. Hope dissipates. Communities strain to believe again –in themselves or that anybody in established authority really cares. Activists may come and go. Proposals may promote attractive, re-empowering possibilities, but they often flounder before there is meaningful fruition. Meanwhile, streets choke cluttered, crimes go unaddressed, paint peels, city services fall by the wayside, residents complain, financial institutions cast suspicions and continue to disinvest, city planners and government officials find new ways to grumble.  Too many neighborhoods stagnate this way or spiral downward –not for lack of internal leadership or legitimate complaint.

Solution
Vibrant communities depend on authentic partnerships: Ultimately, community resident leaders, city government planners and officials, and finance institutional leaders must transcend multi-decades of mistrust and flawed activity to rebuild and reinvest jointly for growth. Toxic, past practices must be faced –acknowledged and harvested for their painful lessons. New commitments and resources must be reintroduced and brokered equitably. New working groups, new strategies, and new synergies must be forged. To this end, TAGA provided NWA with leadership solutions, change strategy, training, coaching, and evaluation services:

Results
Nationwide: Hundreds of communities and thousands of citizens re-established their sense of pride and purpose to resurrect themselves, to re-empower themselves, to transform their housing infrastructures and the quality of their lives. Business/Resident/ Municipal Government rifts healed. New partnerships created the new commitments, resources, and resolve to change the blight to brighter, better, and more beautiful neighborhoods. Invest or spiral towards less. NWA chose to reinvest. TAGA ensured that NWA achieved its vision.