The Democratizing Development Program (DDP) funders catalyze change through collaboration with community stakeholders, addressing systems of inequity to create long-lasting benefits for low-income individuals and communities of color in neighborhoods.
DDP is a space where funders further develop their strategies and analysis to take action and partner with other equity-centered funders with the following focus areas:
- Intersectional approaches and strategies that protect, preserve and produce affordable housing solutions that address gentrification and displacement
- Community development and ownership models that allow residents to influence local decisions and create longer-term benefits for themselves
- Embedding equitable solutions for public infrastructure and other systems that can otherwise negatively impact neighborhoods
- Implementation of peer-learning, sharing best practices, and equity-centered grantmaking approaches
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The Choices We Make:
Democratizing Development in NYC
Across the country, residents and community institutions are coming together and organizing in new ways to create a people-powered alternative vision for housing policy and local development. This vision is not driven by profit, speculation, or the influx of new corporate capital. This vision is centered on self-determined community needs as millions of renters are just one rent increase or eviction away from experiencing homelessness. This vision cuts across philanthropic silos and connects housing needs with income inequality, criminal justice, climate justice, health, immigration, and LGBTQ issues to benefit all low-income and working-class communities.
See an example of democratizing development in this short documentary from Neighborhoods First Fund.
RELATED PROGRAM
Amplify Fund
DDP members helped launch Amplify Fund, NFG's first grantmaking fund. Amplify is a national, place-based, pooled fund with two strategic goals: nurture and strengthen the conditions necessary for Black and indigenous communities, and communities of color, to build power in place, and organize funders so they shift what and how they fund.
Our members also helped launch the Fund for an Inclusive California, a funder collaborative designed to advance racial and economic equity and community health in California’s cities.
