A New Wave of Nonprofit-Based Social Policy

It was a little more than a year ago that Barack Obama, then a presidential candidate, promised to implement a new urban initiative in 20 neighborhoods across the nation if he was elected. He pledged to devote billions of dollars each year to the effort.

Obama made good on his campaign promise earlier this year when he began to roll out the new proposal, called Promise Neighborhoods. Implemented properly, Promise Neighborhoods could substantially affect the provision of social services at the neighborhood level throughout the nation. As the program is expanded beyond the initial group of 20 neighborhoods, the initiative could be truly groundbreaking.

The Alliance for Children and Families and United Neighborhood Centers of America (UNCA) have quickly asserted themselves as leaders on this initiative. Our joint public policy office in Washington, D.C., is working closely with the administration, members of Congress, and Alliance and UNCA members to support and improve the initiative in ways that could significantly benefit our neighborhood-based members.

Harlem Children’s Zone Model

Obama is modeling the Promise Neighborhoods initiative on Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), a nonprofit organization that runs an interconnected network of social programs for an estimated 10,000 children living in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. The project was launched in 1997 by Geoffrey Canada.

 HCZ programs include Baby College, a nine-week course for parents of children ages 0-3, and Harlem Gems, an all-day prekindergarten program. Others include five Promise Academy charter schools, several after-school programs, and a college success office to help high school graduates apply to, and succeed in, college.

HCZ is based on several underlying concepts; these would be replicated nationally as part of Obama’s Promise Neighborhoods initiative.

Conveyer Belt. The conveyer belt concept attempts to overcome the shortfalls of episodic service delivery through a continuum of services that address a child’s needs from birth to college. Some studies of other programs, such as Head Start, suggest that the benefits of these programs may fade after participation has ended; benefits may be negated by subsequent exposure to poor schools and other environmental factors. HCZ programs attempt to reconcile this with services that continue through college.

Tipping Point. A second concept is the tipping point theory that was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in a book by the same name.

Paul Tough, author of Whatever It Takes, a book about HCZ, explains the concept this way: “[Canada] believed that in troubled neighborhoods there existed a kind of tipping point. If 10 percent of the families on a block or in a housing project were engaged in one of his programs, their participation wouldn’t have much influence on their neighbors, and the children who did enroll would feel at best like special cases and at worst like oddballs. But if, say, 60 percent of the families were on board, then participation would come to seem normal, and so would the values that went with it.”

According to HCZ’s own materials, “Children’s development is profoundly affected by their environment. The most important part of that environment is, of course, the family and the home. But it also matters greatly what children face once they step outside their home. Will their role models be drug dealers loitering on the corner or neighbors in business attire walking to the train every morning to go to work? Will children jump rope in safe playgrounds or congregate in vacant lots?”

Silo-Busting. This third concept addresses silos that exist between social service programs. These silos can prevent neighborhoods from reaching their tipping points. Created by separate government programs, increased professional specialization, and isolated casework focused on narrow populations and problems, these silos have undermined a more comprehensive approach to social issues that considers people and communities as a whole.

Breaking down these silos and integrating existing services within communities is vital to community success. It is within the nonprofit arena, a place where entrepreneurial organizations stitch together a myriad of government programs and funding streams, that this becomes possible.

Promise Neighborhoods

In its proposed budget for fiscal year 2010, the Obama administration confirmed its commitment to create Promise Neighborhoods based on these three concepts. The budget proposed $10 million for planning grants for community-based nonprofits, which was included in the budget for the U.S. Department of Education.

The proposal is not perfect, however. Its location within the Department of Education, for example, is troubling. Education is critically important, but it is only one issue affecting urban neighborhoods. Focusing solely on education would turn Promise Neighborhoods into another siloed federal program.

Either through collaboration or full integration with other programs, Promise Neighborhoods should address multiple interrelated issues affecting children, their families, and the communities in which they live. Promise Neighborhoods must also be multigenerational, and address people and neighborhoods as a whole.

Our office is working to improve and support the proposal in a number of ways. We have published our own analysis and recommendations, created a blog and e-mail list to keep members and the public updated, and joined with 13 national organizations to support the proposed $10 million for planning grants.

The Third Wave

The history of U.S. policy affecting urban neighborhoods is mixed. The first wave of federal policies in the 1950s and early 1960s focused on urban renewal that, in many cases, did more harm than good.

The second wave, beginning with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, was a distinct improvement. It focused more on people living in neighborhoods than the physical structures located there. But it left us with the patchwork of siloed programs that exist today.

If Promise Neighborhoods is implemented properly, it could be more. It could become the crest of an emerging third wave of connected and comprehensive social policies that, at long last, could bring real and enduring change to our nation’s urban neighborhoods.
 

This article is adapted from “Tipping Neighborhoods to Success,” an analysis of Promise Neighborhoods, authored by the joint Alliance and UNCA public  policy office. Find the full analysis at magazine.alliance1.org.

Patrick Lester is senior vice president for public policy for the Alliance and UNCA. He has a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University. His past experience includes director of public policy for United Way of America, aide for President Bill Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council, senior policy analyst for the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, and legislative director for the Coalition of Human Needs. He can be reached at 202-429-0400, ext. 15, or by e-mail.

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Alliance Magazine 09-3 Captiol Connection.pdf