Collaborative Community Building Projects

To date, Fellows have completed seventeen collaborative community building projects. These are some examples.

Neighborhood Counts
Working closely with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Pittsburgh Civic Improvement Association (PCIA), Neighborhood Planning Unit V, and community residents, five Fellows began a strategic planning process for expanding affordable housing options while improving the economic vitality of this historic intown neighborhood. The Fellows completed a housing inventory to identify affordable housing opportunities, a public benefits survey to assist efforts to advance family self-sufficiency, and drafted a survey to ascertain residents’ concerns and interests that final plans must address. 

Edgewood Community Survey, Whitefoord Community Program
The Edgewood neighborhood, located just East of Emory’s campus, is experiencing rapid change as new residents and investors move into the area. While there are benefits to this new investment and interest, long term residents often struggle to remain in their homes due to increasing rents or homeowner taxes.  The Whitefoord Community Program, along with many other community leaders, is committed to serving the Edgewood residents, both new and long term.  A team of Community Building Fellows worked with residents of the Edgewood neighborhood in east Atlanta to design and implement a community survey of approximately 350 households.  The results of this survey were used immediately by the Board of Directors in their strategic planning efforts, creating new programs and ensuring existing services are tailored to the needs and concerns of the current Edgewood community.

Metro Atlanta Women of Color Initiative (MAWOCI)
The AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta, SisterLove, AID Atlanta, and Aniz first collaborated with four Fellows to develop MAWOCI, a comprehensive HIV/AIDS outreach program for women of color in metro Atlanta. In the first year, a team of three Fellows created a database to support a seamless continuum of care for women of color. They also designed two innovative magazines about prevention and treatment options. In the second year, a new group of Fellows helped move MAWOCI from an effort to an organization. They drafted and implemented an outreach plan that placed HIV/AIDS in a holistic health context. Through focus groups and strategic planning, the Fellows created a template for presenting health fairs customized to the unique interests of women in a target community and tested it by staging two successful fairs.