Connected Communities and Purpose-Built Communities

 One of the initiatives begun by RMAPI is a project they call connected communities. It is a project to revitalize the Beechwood and EMMA neighborhoods of the City of Rochester "utilizing the proven principles of the Purpose-Built Communities framework" These principles include" the need for mixed-income housing, cradle-to-career education, community health and wellness, and long-term economic development, and ultimately reduce poverty."  The principles stated on the Connected Communities Web Site are identical with those of Purpose Driven Communities As with the collective impact model I think the evidence for these "proven principles" is limited and at best ambiguous. Moreover, it represents principles driven by foundations with a corporate agenda not necessarily in the best interests of the community and especially the poor.

 We should look beyond the fancy marketing and rhetoric and take a closer look at what the Purpose-Built Community framework is and what is the main source of its claims to success.

Purpose Built Communities is a foundation concerned with Urban redevelopment originally started by well-known financial magnate Warren Buffet. hedge fund manager Julian Robertson and real estate magnate Tom Cousins. Its aim is to replicate the so-called success of the East Lake project started by Cousins. It might give the reader pause to reflect on whether a foundation started by these men who have made so much of the financial sectors necessarily has the interests of the poor in mind. 

The East Lake project which is the underpinning of the claims involved a transformation of the East Lake neighborhood in Atlanta by Cousins twenty years ago.  In the 1990's it was one of the worst neighborhoods in the area with high crime poverty and a rundown public housing project. Cousins came in and bought the golf course in the neighborhood and put a lot of his own money into the project. 

Under Cousins direction the housing project was replaced by mixed income housing. Not all residents of the older housing were allowed back. There were strict requirements on the new housing. Felons for example were excluded. As a result 75% of the residents of the project left the area. Local public schools were replaced by Charter Schools, but here too students were cherry picked. The best ones attended the charter schools while the rest ended up in depleted public schools. Cousins also used pressure to get members of his new exclusive iteration of the golf club to give donations to the foundation he set up.

 Cousins initiatives had some success, crime went down considerably, and educational results seemingly improved, but at what cost. His plan did not revitalize the neighborhood as much as inducing a forced gentrification and resettlement program which improved the makers of the neighborhood through gentrification. 

A study led by Georgia State University Sociologist Deidre Oakley concluded that despite some marginal improvements, possibly caused by a soft rental market there, was no real change in the situation of those displaced by the East Lake project. She notes that that, at least statistically, the communities in which those homes are located are only marginally better than the old AHA projects: They still have high rates of violent crime, are overwhelmingly poor and are racially segregated. Instead of doing away with pockets of poverty, GSU's study indicates that the elimination of the housing projects simply caused most of those pockets to reform elsewhere. Pockets of poverty were simply displaced. Thus, the evidence of success that purpose built proponents cite is somewhat shaky, More recently Oakley I cited s in another article detailing the decrease in affordable housing in the Atlanta area, This will put more pressure on the displaced poor.

 Purpose Built community initiatives have not always been welcome with the alacrity shown in Rochester. A 2012 initiative proposed in Chattanooga brought widespread criticism from residents who objected to forced resettlement when housing projects would be torn down. There was little consultation with the community and little sense of how they viewed their own problems according to these critics.

 

IBM and collective impact or always follow the money

In a previous blog I discussed the collective impact model in order to discover exactly what the term describes and discuss some of the weaknesses according to critics. Here I want to ask another question. How did this model get adopted in Rochester. When you are looking at a political or policy decision of this sort it is often helpful to ask who has the power in this situation to get policies established. Power doesn't always mean just persuading or coercing someone to do what you want. It often means the ability to set the agenda for a project. If a person or group gets to set the rules they have the power to direct a process or project. How was the decision made to follow a collective impact model? It certainly wasn't the case that community partners and social work agencies got together to adopt, the impetus came from outside the community,

I mentioned that much of the impetus for the adoption of collective impact models came from foundations who were quick to adopt these models. In the case of RMAPI it seems that an IBM Smart Cities grant was the source of the initiative. IBM has given these grants to United Ways in places like the research triangle in North Carolina when they adapt the collective impact model of community services. In 2015 the Rochester United Way also got an IBM Smart Cities Challenge Grant. As part of this grant the IBM foundation seeks to find ways to get cities to address the future by making unban services more efficient. Sometimes these grants  concern ways to create greener and more sustainable cities. In other cases, like Rochester, they concern improving social services. As part of the grant IBM "contributes the skills and expertise of top IBM talent" to study critical challenges facing communities. They made a three week visit to an area and meet with "key stakeholders" to determine areas in which the RMAPI project is held back. You can imagine who the key stakeholders were. They were most likely political and business leaders, not the people effected by poverty. Most of  these recommendations have to do with questions  of efficiency and implementation of collective impact principles. Their recommendations are detailed in the report Rochester, New York Smart Cities Challenge Report.

The first thing you notice about this report is its technocratic approach. Poverty is addressed the same way a business might approach a supply problem. There is little in the way of poltical economic or sociological analysis of problems. It never assumes that power asymmetries or forms of domination have anything to do with poverty. Rather, it assumes that the current arrangements are suitable to solve the problems of poverty. Thus, the problems of poverty have to do with misalignment between services. The report claims that Rochester has sufficient social services, the problem is the way they are delivered. Thus, using the same type of principles used by collective impact. the problems of poverty are going to be addressed through a reorganization of social services using a notion of central organization. Data services like those provided by IBM will give us a greater idea of where services can be developed more efficiently, and proactive services will address populations before problems arise rather than after. This means providing support and services. to support those seeking jobs like daycare and other services to make sure that there are fewer barriers to get jobs. Using data services, the they will not only be able to share services but be able to measure results with data and guide decisions on poverty.

Let's think about this project for a minute. It certainly seems to be a top down project that essentially imports a business/technological model onto a complex social problem. It assumes that we can measure al aspects of poverty with a common measure. But what if the problems causing poverty  are not just technical but poltical. Poor people notoriously are not well organized and not effective politically. They often have a limited understanding of poltical processes not because of any inherent ability but lack of access. They have little chance to set agendas or exert influence. What if the aim of a nonprofit aims to make people better more effective citizens who have political impact. How do you measure that with a data set? This raises a more general problem with the collective impact approach which emphasizes quantitative measures of impact. It is an open question whether a one size fits all approach to data driven solutions can measure all the impacts. Nor is it clear that if we subordinate all groups to a central czar and imposed common measures, that we will not lose some of these other goals values and impacts which are not measurable in the way collective impact theories propose.

There is a second set of related concerns that revolve around the sources of poverty. For some collective impact theorists, the problems of poverty stem from system complexity and not from the organization of social power. That is they stem from problems of coordinating an economy that has many segments and elements. Addressing poverty also is a problem of coordination to address the problems of complexity. OF course, the idea of recasting poltical problems as issues of systems complexity without looking at problems of power has little chance of succeeding on the scale that RMAPI suggests. If for example an unregulated market economy in which power is distributed unequally will always generate a degree of poverty, then it is hard to see how questions of coordination help us avoid poverty. Mostly the collective impact programs stress individualized solutions to poverty. But if larger poltical economic forces continue to generate poverty then how does greater coordination of services make an impact. What is really needed are redistributive processes that counter the concentrated power of some groups in our economy,

In America today, good jobs are at a premium. Wages are stagnant and job growth has often been in low wage jobs. Work has become increasingly casual and contingent with few benefits or health. care. Some analysts have adopted the notion of precarity or precariousness to characterize the new economy. It is no longer possible to Increasingly the worker is one her own with fewer of the social supports that we had just a generation earlier. Some economists and conservatives like to see this as giving the individual freedom she needs to cope with a rapidly changing economy. For most however, it just leads to greater insecurity. The gap between the rich and the poor is greater than it has been for a century. These are not really system problems of complexity but poltical ones.  I don't see how we effectively deal with the continuing generation of poverty without addressing these larger problems.

 

Following the Wrong Map

Rochester's anti-poverty initiative RMAPI (Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative) is in the news again. In a story in the December 31 2017 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Internal Documents reveal early challenges for Rochester anti-poverty initiative, reporter Patti Singer details some of the struggles RMAPI has had clarifying it's program and aims and in implementing them. Almost three years after the initiative was announced in Jan 2015 there are few if any results. Poverty in Rochester has declined 1% in the past few years but is still among the highest in the nation. Although City officials and RMAPI claim this as a success there is no real evidence that would lead us to conclude that this small amount of decline is the result of RMAPI programs or other factors like a steady if slow growth in the economy in the Obama years.

Many in the community have begun to wonder just what RMAPI does and where the money has gone. And as the title of the article indicates the exact nature of the RMAPI program remains unclear. Investigative journalists like Rachel Barnhart have attempted to find out exactly how RMAPI operates, how much money it gets and where it goes. These and others are important efforts to shed light on processes that are hidden behind layers of an organization that is not especially transparent.  What we also need however, is critical analysis of the aims of RMAPI programs.

In light of this questioning RMAPI director Leonard Brock tried to clarify the role of RMAPI.  It is not a social service agency that is it does not carry out any social work or other activity. Nor does it distribute money. It is not a 501(c)(3) corporation and does not administer funds although it has an influence over funding. According to Barnhart's research it does not even have a bank account. RMAPI is closely allied if not a part of the United Way. much of the grant money seems to go through the United way. Because it is not a nonprofit however it is not accountable to the public.

RMAPI understands itself more as an operating philosophy than a social service agency. Put another way it is an organization that aims at implementing an operational framework across a variety of agencies.  It is the tool of that policy. According to Brock that policy is something called collective impact It brings together stakeholders who he defines as leaders from business education and government to address the problems of racism and poverty.

Thus, the idea of collective impact is at the core of the RMAPI project. When we understand how collective impact operates we will more clearly understand what RMAPI does. But what is the idea of collective impact? Does it in fact provide such a powerful organizational vision that we should adopt it as the model to address poverty. Brock seems to think so. He says the RMAPI project is to be the model for all of New York State. Like other managerial catchphrases such as TQM and best practices, however.  their actual  meaning has to be unpacked carefully

The notion of collective impact is a relatively new organizational philosophy. It was first introduced in a 2011 article by John Kanis and Mark Kramer in Stanford Social Innovation Review. Collective Impact was a method of collaborative organization that is meant to address complex social problems. According to the authors it is "the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem" Collective impact is meant to be an organizational tool for bringing about change in sectors where older methods have proved ineffective. Thus, while the idea in its most direct form seems to be much like older forms of collaboration the authors argue it is a more intensive and organized form of collaboration. "Unlike most collaborations, collective impact initiatives involve a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants." This sounds a lot like the ideas behind RMAPI. They state that all agencies and stakeholders like government and business be linked under a central directive or coordinating agency behind a common goal. It is supposed to be the centralized infrastructure to serve as what the authors call the "backbone agency."

The Collective impact outlook is based in diagnosis of the problems of social service and social change agencies in a neo-liberal era. The shrinking of state services has often lead to the outsourcing and privatizing of social services. This leads on the one hand to a fragmentation of services in isolated groups who are not coordinated or connected. On the other hand, it leads to a competition in which winners and losers are designated and governments and foundations try to guess what agencies will be best to carry out these functions. Critics of outsourcing and privatizing in the non-profit sphere have been quick to point out the destructive effects of these policies. Not only does the constant competition for funding take up an inordinate amount of time, they also change the goals of the social service sector to serve the demands of the funders who often serve more middle class and elite aims. These “reform” are ways of disciplining and shaping social service providers so they don't get too progressive or too out of line and they limit their social justice agendas. The neo-liberal outsourcing of services then can't be seen independent of certain poltical aims. Power is employed to change the goals of social services. It takes power away from groups that often have more direct grass roots contact with the poor and from justice projects and transfers it to funding agencies which often have quite different more middle-class concerns.

The collective impact outlook understands itself as an alternative to this fragmenting process, but critics are not sure that it really makes a meaningful change. The aims are not changed, just the process. Collective impact is a way of making the operation of social services more efficient and more effective. Even if we were to grant its claim that it is a better way to organize services, (something I will dispute later) it does not really have a lot to say about the goals of social services. And this is crucial. If as critics say neo-liberal policies have changed the ability of nonprofit to define these goals how does it achieve a change in goals. Further should we assume that the social problems that collective impact theorists want to address are really the result of fragmented or uncoordinated social services. Collaboration is a good thing when done correctly but it is hardly a panacea absent a clear notion of the processes and goals of social change.

Despite these questions the wave of collective impact has taken the nonprofit sector by storm. The authors promoted it extensively through their own consulting business. It has become the next big thing in the nonprofit sector. It is, however largely a top down business model. Governments, educational institutions and others have adopted it as way of organizing projects. Many foundations now require that applicant formulate a collective impact plan before getting a grant. So, no doubt this influence has trickled down to the RMAPI program. The savvy grant applicant quickly learns the latest buzz words and perhaps even believes them. This is unfortunate because as critics point out the evidence for the effectiveness and success of collective impact was based on a slim thread of two small case studies not even carried out by the authors. More recent studies have found collective impact of more limited effectiveness. Hardly the kind of robust support an idea sweeping non-profit sector would seem to require. One of the cases, an obesity reduction program in the state of Massachusetts hardly seems relevant. it focused on the changing individual behavior of students to get them to reduce their level of obesity. Perhaps in this example the focus on individual behavior can work to an extent, but it is difficult to see how a primary focus on the individual is going to be very effective in addressing the two-headed beast of race and poverty. From low wages to inaccessibility of good jobs to housing shopping and financial sector issues, not to mention structural racism, individuals face barriers that are embedded in institutional rules and practices. The individualizing approach which stresses personal qualities and responsibility is more a feature of neo-liberalism than progressive change.

Other critics of collective impact like Tom Wolff have pointed not only to its slim evidential base but to many flaws in its basic approach. It ignores years of evidence that practitioners in the field have accumulated regarding collaboration and community development. Some of these criticisms are pretty telling. First, the decision-making process that is proposed is a very top down one. It audience is the social and poltical elite who they assume are the crucial policy makers more than the community. Kramer and Kanis focus explicitly on these leaders and social service agencies as the members of their collaborative group. One practitioner claims that collective Impact is about bringing “CEO-level cross-sector leaders together”

 We have seen this problem at work in RMAPI too. Community members were included only after pressure. However, the inclusion of a few community members does not a democratic process make. A related problem with the centralization of power concerns the ability to set rules and set agendas for all. Collective impact theory tends to ignore the experience of past collaborative efforts by community organizers, Rules and agendas can often be set in a top down almost technocratic way. Just as in the neo liberal model, the top down procedure tends to exclude or discount this set of insights and act more to discipline groups.

The model of collaboration used by collective impact theories then tends to favor the status quo over change. The members of governments and businesses have interests in retaining certain elements of the status quo, or to develop leaders who follow a top down approach. While a collective impact approach tends to be limited to efficiencies with the system, the social justice component found in much traditional social work is limited. A social justice perspective is normative, or value oriented it deals with an end or goal like social equity. THat is why the problem of measuring progress is not always cut and dried. The measurement of such a value is not independent of the goal.  True social justice approaches seek social change by changing policies and process to make them more responsive and more open to problem of injustice.

Too often the kind of foundation support that is the backdrop for these efforts is sponsored by elite groups with their own agendas. Some of the foundations that have been mentioned by RMAPI have been formed by hedge fund managers who for example have interests in gentrification. While not every foundation grant is suspect, this reinforces the conception that the agenda for collective impact projects like RMAPI are driven by external interests with their own agendas.

 The biggest problem with the collective impact theory is that leaves out the major group effected by impact the people themselves. In contrast to collective impact theories community development theories look to organize and empower those who are affected by problems. They not only have to have a seat and the table they must have to power to act to set agendas and propose alternatives. Genuine collaboration also means allowing existing social service groups to make authentic contributions and contribute their experience without having their ideas rendered moot by a clumsy central agency. Collaboration must be a fair process. Wolfe and his cohorts have recently stated this clearly "We believe that efforts that do not start with treating community leaders and residents as equal partners cannot later be reengineered to meaningfully share power. In short, coalitions and collaborations need a new way of engaging with communities that leads to transformative changes in power, equity, and justice."

Taking the D And C article at face value it appears that some of the problems critics raise about the collective impact have come home to roost in RMAPI. More than 2 years after its formation the top down centralized authority seems to have great difficulty getting all groups on board. Older groups according to Brock seem unwilling to buy in to the RMAPI version of collaboration but this could just as easily be an example of the leadership disregarding the past experiences of existing groups with collaboration, The social justice issue arises in conflicts with County Executive Cheryl DlNolfo. She seems unwilling to accept the idea that structural racism exists or should be addressed by RMAPI.  Questions of efficient services and collaboration will however, not get very far without a value consensus that collaborative impact theories do not address.