Philanthrocapitalism_ How Giving Can Save the World - Matthew Bishop [55]
I am especially proud of two other LISC efforts using AmeriCorps volunteers and helping communities damaged by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Since 1994, LISC has enlisted one thousand AmeriCorps volunteers in eighteen cities from Boston to Los Angeles. In the hurricane-affected areas, it has already provided more than $100 million in loans, grants, and equity, repaired 610 homes, assisted 1,000 evacuee families, raised $7.5 million for community development, and started building more than 2,400 homes.
When he resigned as treasury secretary to return to private life, Bob Rubin became chairman of the board of LISC. In the White House and at Treasury, Bob supported my initiatives to encourage more investment in low-and moderate-income communities. These efforts helped almost eight million Americans to move from poverty to the middle class—after twelve years in which poverty rates had increased. He’s still doing that with his partners at LISC.
If you’re an investor who wants a proven model for doing well by doing good, you should contact LISC for opportunities. If you don’t have that kind of money but want more productive investment in your community, rural or urban, you can get involved with your local Community Development Corporation. Community Development Corporations have been around since the first one was established in 1967 in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section with the support of Senator Robert Kennedy. As more and more community activists saw how the development corporations could be used to develop safe, decent housing and new jobs, they spread across America. There are more than four thousand Community Development Corporations today, with a wealth of experiences to be shared. They are really just investment vehicles that can be used to meet whatever the most pressing needs are. If your city or town doesn’t have one, you can set one up as a charitable 501(c)3 corporation, decide what you want to accomplish, and contact LISC about opportunities to work together.
The Urban Enterprise Initiative is a much smaller example of community development that focuses on helping new and established small businesses in Harlem. The UEI grew out of conversations I had with leaders of the small-business community after I opened my foundation office there. They told me that even long-established businesses were having a hard time because of rising rents, competition from large chain stores, and rapid changes in consumer markets.
My office contacted Reggie Van Lee, a senior partner at Booz Allen Hamilton, who took the lead in putting together a set of pro bono teams of Booz Allen consultants, graduate students from New York University’s Stern School of Business, and partner organizations including the National Black MBA Association.
Since 2002, UEI teams have supported thirty-five businesses in Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, donating more than fifty thousand hours of services worth more than $12 million. The teams work with their clients for a year, first conducting a thorough assessment of their financial condition and business practices, then developing specific strategies to address the problems and expand the opportunities, and finally testing the plan with the business owner, adjusting it as appropriate, and developing systems to measure performance and sustain progress after the consulting period is over.
Sometimes the plans have involved simple changes like converting month-to-month leases to year-long ones, improving inventory management, or just computerizing operations. One team helped an African-American-woman-owned architecture firm develop a long-term growth strategy to boost day-to-day efficiency. Another