| Repository: | Western Reserve Historical Society |
| Creator: | Cleveland Neighborhood Progress |
| Title: | Cleveland Neighborhood Progress Research Collection |
| Dates: | 1987-2020 |
| Extent: | .40 linear feet (2 containers) |
| Abstract: | This research collection is comprised of documents, articles, and reports related to Cleveland Neighborhood Progress compiled by Robert Jaquay in his duties as the Associate Director of the George Gund Foundation. Included with the documents, articles, and reports are an introduction, timeline, and bibliography created by Robert Jaquay. |
| MS Number | MS 5477 |
| Location: | closed stacks |
| Language: | The records are in English |
Historical sketch courtesy of The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History:
Neighborhood Progress Inc., now Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, is a non-profit corporation created in 1988 by Cleveland Tomorrow, Cleveland Foundation, George Gund Foundation and Standard Oil of Ohio to pool corporate and foundation resources for a coordinated, strategic and scaled approach to rebuilding Cleveland neighborhoods. As engaged city government, the corporate community, local foundations and dozens of community development corporations, the organization was seen as a prime example of Mayor George Voinovich's concept of "public-private partnership."
Neighborhood Progress concentrated on supporting community development corporations (CDC's) to rehabilitate existing housing and commercial retail districts during its earliest years. Later, in response to Mayor Michael White's 1991 call to build new, market-rate housing at a scale sufficient for Cleveland neighborhoods to become regionally competitive communities of choice, Neighborhood Progress concentrated resources in a number of ways. New housing production capacity became a major criterion for determining which community development corporations received general operating support grants. Neighborhood Progress used New Village Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary created in 1990, to work on land assembly, environmental remediation, financing and other critical technical aspects of Cleveland housing developments of scale. Village Capital Corporation, another Neighborhood Progress subsidiary, was established in 1992 to create and manage below-market rate financing vehicles to attract conventional investment to Cleveland development projects. Between 1990 and 2000, in Cleveland neighborhoods where Neighborhood Progress made concentrated investment in new construction, property values rose (measured by percentage) at higher rates than in most suburbs in Cuyahoga County.
The mortgage foreclosure crisis and Great Recession that began to affect the neighborhoods in the early 2000s wiped out many of these gains in value. However, Neighborhood Progress stood in middle of numerous collaborative efforts to ameliorate the harshest impacts of the crisis and re-calibrate the community development system for positive impact post-Great Recession. Three major initiatives in the area were: the formation and staffing of the Vacant and Abandoned Property Action Council by Neighborhood Progress to coordinate responses by local government and non-profit organizations to increased foreclosure and vacancy rates in Cleveland; establishing, with the City of Cleveland and the Cleveland Urban Design Center of Kent State University, Re-Imagining Cleveland which encouraged citizens to creatively utilize vacant parcels for side yards, gardens, orchards, rain gardens, pocket parks, common bicycle and walking paths - all to strengthen the physical fabric of the neighborhoods; creating, with Cleveland Housing Network, Enterprise Community Partners, the City of Cleveland and others, a Cleveland LIHTC Project Stabilization and Preservation Initiative to address particular major challenges, especially the right-sizing of bank debt, on 25 CDC-sponsored projects (882 units total) set to mature from 2011-2015.
In 2012, Neighborhood Progress and its many community stakeholders adopted a more comprehensive vision for community development in post-recession Cleveland. Housing remained significant, but in recognition of market realities, rehabilitation was emphasized over new construction. Also, placemaking - a vision of neighborhood development viewing quality design and accessibility to public space as equally important with private housing and retail properties - was incorporated into the plan. Facilitating opportunities for residents to build wealth (for home-ownership, education, starting a small business or meeting a household emergency) was also part of the more comprehensive approach to neighborhood revitalization.
In 2013, the Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition and Living in Cleveland Center merged with Neighborhood Progress. Since then, the merged organization has been known as Cleveland Neighborhood Progress.
Since 2017, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress has championed a process of racial equity awareness not only within the local community development industry, but throughout the broad civic community. As of mid-2019, over 3000 individuals have experienced training by the Racial Equity Institute. Many Cleveland organizations, public and private, as a consequence of the training, are working to develop concrete, practical ways to be more inclusive, equitable and just.
Five individuals have led the organization since inception: Tom Cox (1988-1990); Eric Hoddersen (1990-2011); Linda Warren (as interim President in 2011), Joel Ratner (2011-2020), and Tania Menesse (2020-Present).
Click here to view The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Neighborhood Progress Inc.
The Cleveland Neighborhood Progress Research Collection, 1987-2020 consists of external communications, memorandum, published articles, and reports related to the non-profit Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. Included with the documents, articles, and reports are an introduction, timeline, and bibliography created by Robert Jaquay.
This collection of materials was gathered and preserved by Robert Jaquay the Associate Director of the George Gund Foundation. Researchers interested in community development, neighborhood revitalization, community projects, and Cleveland non-profits will find this collection useful. Those interested in collaborative efforts among local corporations, businesses, philanthropies and local government to improve the community will also find useful information in this collection. Note that in the annotated bibliography created by Robert Jaquay in folder 1 of this collection, there is one document listed that is not part of the collection. The numbered document not included is as follows: 11. Investing in People: A Human Resources Plan for Promoting Excellence in Cleveland's Neighborhood Development Industry 1993. Additionally, in the annotated bibliography in folder 1, document number 13 "Hamilton Rabinovitz and Altshuler, Building a Sustainable Housing Production System for Cleveland's Neighborhoods," has an updated title in the collection box list. The updated title is "New Resources For Community-Based Development In Cleveland" by Hamilton Rabinovitz & Altshuler, Inc."
Intellectual property rights (copyrights, trademarks, patent rights) connected to many of the documents in the collection continue to belong to the authors and not the Western Reserve Historical Society.
None
Related MaterialThe researcher should also consult MS 5075 Arthur J. Naparstek Papers; MS 5237 Cleveland Foundation Records, Series III; MS 4821 George Gund Foundation Records, Series II; MS 5038 George Gund Foundation Records, Series III; MS 5296 George Gund Foundation Records, Series IV.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5477 Cleveland Neighborhood Progress Research Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of the George Gund Foundation in 2020.
Processed by Kristin Silvestro in 2021.
Cleveland Neighborhood Progress Research Collection 1987-2020 |
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| Box | Folder | ||||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Introduction, Annotated Table of Contents, Timeline, and Bibliography by Robert Jaquay March 6, 2020 | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | "Report to The Cleveland Foundation: A Strategy for Neighborhood Revitalization" James Pickman and Benson Roberts August 13, 1987 | |||||||||
| 1 | 3 | "Cleveland Tomorrow: Building A New Foundation" by Cleveland Tomorrow January 1988 | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Published Statement on the George Gund Foundation's Support of Neighborhood Progress, Inc. 1990 | |||||||||
| 1 | 5 | Articles of Incorporation of New Village Corporation 1990 | |||||||||
| 1 | 6 | Articles of Incorporation of Village Capital Corporation 1992 | |||||||||
| 1 | 7 | "Operating Agreement for Coordination of NPI (Neighborhood Progress Inc.) and LISC (Local Initiative Support Corporation) Operations in the City of Cleveland" June 1995 | |||||||||
| 1 | 8 | "New Resources For Community-Based Development In Cleveland" by Hamilton Rabinovitz & Altshuler, Inc. September 3, 1997 | |||||||||
| 1 | 9 | "Building Community Development Capacity in Cleveland: A Report to the Ford Foundation" by Jeffrey S. Lowe December 1998 | |||||||||
| 1 | 10 | "Report to The Cleveland and George Gund Foundations" on the Community Development Planning Project prepared by Angela Lowder 1998 | |||||||||
| 1 | 11 | "Community Development Planning Project of the Cleveland and Gund Foundations: Initial Feedback from the City of Cleveland and Cleveland Tomorrow" including notes by Jay Talbot 1998 | |||||||||
| 1 | 12 | "Community Development Industry Performance- Cleveland, OH" by Mark Weinheimer and Chris Walker July 1999 | |||||||||
| 1 | 13 | "Building Healthy and Competitive Neighborhoods and Community Change Project" by Margaret L. Murphy 1999 | |||||||||
| 1 | 14 | "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Community Development Intermediary Organizations" Conference Session Proposal Summary and Accompanying Select Bibliography of Web-based Resources by Robert Jaquay and Pamela George 2001 | |||||||||
| 1 | 15 | "A Decade of Development: An Assessment of Neighborhood Progress, Inc." prepared by OMG Center for Collaborative Learning 2000-2001 | |||||||||
| 1 | 16 | "The Community Development System: Urban Politics and the Practice of Neighborhood Redevelopment in Two American Cities From the 1960s to the 1990s" Doctoral Dissertation by Jordan S. Yin August 2001 | |||||||||
| 1 | 17 | "Stimulating Revitalization Through Strategic Investments" by Robert Jaquay 2002 | |||||||||
| 1 | 18 | "Community Development Corporations and their Changing Support Systems" by Christopher Walker December 2002 | |||||||||
| 1 | 19 | "National Support for Local System Change: The Effect of The National Community Development Initiative on Community Development Systems" by Christopher Walker, Jeremy Gustafson and Chris Snow December 2002 | |||||||||
| 1 | 20 | "Clustering Cleveland Neighborhoods. Prepared for Neighborhood Progress, Inc." by Kennard T. Wing October 2003 | |||||||||
| 1 | 21 | "From Improvement to Recovery: The Next Frontier for Cleveland's Neighborhoods and for Neighborhood, Inc." by Tony Proscio November 2004 | |||||||||
| 1 | 22 | "Cleveland at the Crossroads. Turning Abandonment into Opportunity. Recommendations for Prevention, Reclamation, and Reuse of Vacant and Abandoned Property in Cleveland" by Allan Mallach, Lisa Mueller Levy and Joseph Schilling June 2005 | |||||||||
| 1 | 23 | "Shifting to a New Strategy: An Assessment of Neighborhood Progress, Inc." by Basil J. Whiting October 13, 2006 | |||||||||
| 1 | 24 | "Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland: Citywide Strategies for Reuse of Vacant Land" ca. 2008 | |||||||||
| 1 | 25 | "Re-Imagining a More Sustainable Cleveland: Vacant Land Re-Use Pattern Book" April 2009 | |||||||||
| 1 | 26 | Materials from Sessions on Capacity Building for CDC (City Department for Community) Collaboration and Alliances 2009 | |||||||||
| 1 | 27 | "Village Capital Corporation, Business Plan for 2010" April 15, 2010 | |||||||||
| 1 | 28 | PowerPoint Presentation by Thomas Burns of Strategic Exercise with Neighborhood Progress Inc. 2009 | |||||||||
| Box | Folder | ||||||||||
| 2 | 1 | "Re-Imagining Cleveland: Ideas to Action Resource Book" January 2011 | |||||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Village Capital Corporation Strategic Plan" prepared by Adina Abromowitz and Susan Newton-Rhodes 2011 | |||||||||
| 2 | 3 | "Neighborhood Progress, Inc., Organizational Assessment: External Role, Relationships and Impact" Mark Joseph, Mark Chupp and Robert Fischer January 2012 | |||||||||
| 2 | 4 | "Re-Thinking the Future of Cleveland's Neighborhood Developers: Interim Report" by Norman Krumholz and Kathryn Hexter March 2012 | |||||||||
| 2 | 5 | "Building Financial Security for Cleveland Families and Neighborhoods: Strategies for Asset-Building and Financial Empowerment" by Ida Rademaker, et al. May 25, 2012 | |||||||||
| 2 | 6 | "Toward a New Vision of Community Development: Neighborhood Progress, Inc. Strategic Plan 2013-2016" 2012 | |||||||||
| 2 | 7 | Amended and Restated Articles of Incorporation of Neighborhood Progress, Inc. and Resolutions of the Boards of Trustees June 5, 2013 | |||||||||
| 2 | 8 | "A Best Practice Guide: Strategies for Successful Transition of Maturing LIHTC Projects" Cleveland LIHTC Project Stabilization and Preservation Initiative 2015 | |||||||||
| 2 | 9 | "Cleveland Neighborhood Progress: External Role, Relationships, and Impact: Organizational Assessment" by Mark Joseph and Mark Chupp December 2015 | |||||||||
| 2 | 10 | "Cleveland Climate Resilience & Urban Opportunity Plan" September 28, 2018 | |||||||||
| 2 | 11 | 'The Progress Index' neighborhood data tool ca. 2018 | |||||||||
| 2 | 12 | "Slavic Village: 2017-2020 Strategic Investment Initiative Year I Progress" May 31, 2018 | |||||||||
| 2 | 13 | "Cleveland Collaborative of Community Development Funders Seeking a Proposal for Funding Renewal from Neighborhood Progress, Inc., dba Cleveland Neighborhood Progress" 2018 | |||||||||
| 2 | 14 | "Proposal to the Cleveland Collaborative of Community Development Funders" Grant Renewal and Appendix [1 of 2] 2019 | |||||||||
| 2 | 15 | "Proposal to the Cleveland Collaborative of Community Development Funders" Grant Renewal and Appendix [2 of 2] 2019 | |||||||||
| 2 | 16 | Memorandum to Cleveland Neighborhood Progress: Advancing and Measuring CNP's Racial and Equity Inclusion Work, Phase I Findings and Recommendations by Frontline Solutions International LLC, 2019 | |||||||||
| 2 | 17 | Key Measures for Analyzing Financial Vitality of Cleveland Community Development Corporations by Jeanine Colozza and Joanne Montagner May 2019 | |||||||||