A Curriculum for Bringing People, Place, & Systems into Planning for Comprehensive Community Development Comprehensive, place-based, and resident-led efforts are essential to building strong cross-sector partnerships, and this complex work requires intentional, data-driven approaches to maximize community impact. In collaboration with more than 30 organizations across the NeighborWorks Network, NeighborWorks America has developed a capacity-building curriculum designed to equip organizations seeking to expand or launch comprehensive place-based initiatives. This framework centers community history and local systems, elevates resident expertise and relationships, strengthens partnerships and collaboration, and embeds data-driven inquiry to guide decision-making. We will share more about how communities are utilizing this framework to deepen impact and share tested, practical tools and strategies. Communities across the country are applying the NeighborWorks America framework for comprehensive community development to deepen their impact, using tested tools and practical strategies to drive meaningful, resident‑centered change. This session will introduce participants to the curriculum that guides this work, emphasizing the capacity‑building and technical skills needed to launch and sustain a place‑based initiative within a defined geography. The session will walk participants through a core learning arc, which includes modules such as “Inquiry into Place,” examining the historical forces and systems that shape current conditions; “Thinking Spatially,” which builds foundational skills in geographic and spatial analysis; and “Ecosystem Mapping,” which emphasizes the intentional inclusion of resident experience and expertise. Together, these components connect people, place, and systems to support coordinated, long‑term change. Grounded in a comprehensive community development lens, the framework is anchored in key principles: establishing a strong backbone organization, cultivating cross‑sector partnerships, aligning holistic, multidisciplinary strategies, and coordinating layered investments. This session will highlight how these principles operate in practice and offer actionable insights for organizations looking to strengthen or launch place‑based work in their own communities. Aligned with the theme “Community Currents,” this session gives insight into the practical application of community development practitioners as navigators helping neighborhoods interpret the forces around them, chart resilient paths, and harness collaborative momentum.
Session presenters, referred to here as CWR and SJS, have navigated change together across diverse community development contexts. The presentation will focus on their interactions in creating and sustaining the Community Development Network of Maryland (CDN), a statewide network of rural and urban organizations advocating for thriving communities and secure housing. CWR and SJS brought different lived experiences as well as engagement with neighborhood-based, city-wide, and state-wide nonprofits, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and a University of Maryland branch to their pivotal roles at CDN -- as founder, board chair, staff person, consultant, researcher, and executive director.
The Maximize [My Community] Journey™ is a practical playbook that has proven to help community leaders, residents, and organizations navigate local challenges and opportunities by working better together. To strengthen regional alignment throughout a primarily rural area, this strengths-based approach is being leveraged to inventory and map community and leadership development programs through stakeholder engagement across sectors and several jurisdictions. The resulting resource map will outline how each supports shared priorities, reduces duplication, identifies service gaps, and help leaders find the right programs at the right time for themselves and their teams—ultimately strengthening collaboration and catalyzing progress.
This presentation examines a process model of cross-sector collaboration centered on public libraries, based on case studies of two municipal libraries in Japan. It explores how libraries function as connective hubs linking government, schools, welfare agencies, private actors, and community organizations through collaborative governance and co-production. By analyzing everyday practices such as participatory workshops and inter-organizational partnerships, the study highlights the potential of public libraries as social infrastructure that supports trust-building, coordination, and inclusive community development.
The Transportation Education and Safety Youth Ambassador (TESYA) program empowers immigrant and refugee youth to become community safety leaders and transit educators through a cultural liaison and train the trainer model. Youth gain knowledge about transportation options, bike and pedestrian safety, mobility justice, and climate conscious travel, and share this information within their communities. TESYA ambassadors also support DMA Play Streets by helping transform neighborhood streets into pop up spaces for intergenerational play, physical activity, and social connection. Through these program activities, TESYA strengthens neighborhood safety, increases transit literacy, and builds youth leadership that supports long term community development and safer public spaces.
This paper presents an initial, mixed-methods assessment of water efficiency in Coastal Georgia. Funded by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, this study utilizes stakeholder survey and focus groups to identify socially feasible “synergistic opportunities” for water reuse and resilience. Rather than advancing technical designs, we analyze stakeholder data to assess perceptions, willingness to collaborate, and barriers to implementation, which provides a foundational input for priority projects. Results highlight leverage points for cross-sector collaboration, providing a data-driven framework, and targeted policy recommendations to shape the regulatory landscape for sustainable resource management in rapidly developing coastal communities.
This study examines refugee entrepreneurship as a community-driven pathway for integration that balances cultural preservation, traditional entrepreneurial knowledge with economic adaptation and practices in the United States. Grounded in Putnam’s Social Capital Theory and guided by a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach, the research explores how interactions between refugee entrepreneurs and host-community members generate trust, networks, and opportunity structures. The study centers refugees as knowledge holders who leverage cultural assets, generational entrepreneurial knowledge while navigating local markets, institutions, and regulatory systems. Findings contribute to community development practice by highlighting how place-based, relational strategies can support inclusive economic growth that fosters positive integration for newcomers.
This study explores how immigrant and refugee entrepreneurship functions as a community-embedded integration strategy that balances cultural preservation with adaptation to economic and institutional change. Anchored in Putnam’s (1993) Social Capital Theory and informed by a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework, the research examines how social bonding and bridging capital emerge through interactions between immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs and host-community members, organizations, and institutions.
Rather than conceptualizing integration as a linear process of assimilation, this study highlights how immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs draw upon cultural knowledge, community practices, and transnational ties while simultaneously building relationships within local markets and governance systems. Through CBPR, immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs and community partners are engaged as co-creators of knowledge, shaping research questions, interpretation, and practical implications. This approach ensures that the study reflects lived experience and community-defined priorities while strengthening trust between researcher and participants.
The study investigates how trust, trustworthiness norms, and institutional relationships influence refugees’ access to information, resources, and entrepreneurial opportunities, particularly in contexts marked by limited human and financial capital and structural barriers to formal employment. It also explores how community-based networks help mitigate these constraints and foster economic participation, social belonging, and mutual accountability.
By centering place-based interactions and participatory knowledge production, this research contributes to community development scholarship on inclusive growth, immigrant integration, and entrepreneurship. Practically, findings offer guidance for practitioners, policymakers, and community organizations designing refugee self-sufficiency and economic development programs that honor cultural heritage while supporting pathways integration to their new social and cultural context.
In 2020, Hawkinsville, Georgia, was selected for a university program. With a huge community buy-in of nearly $70,000 in pledges, the process took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in a plan to revitalize the downtown core of the city. By 2025, Hawkinsville has completed all of the short and medium-term goals, with only long-term goals remaining. This case study examines how the partners worked in tandem with the City and County, and how the community accomplished various phases of the plan alongside the University.
This program/project presentation brings together editors from Community Development and Local Development & Society to share field-level insights into how community development scholarship and practice are evolving amid accelerating change. Drawing on editorial data, reviewer experiences, and submission trends, the session examines how generational shifts, practitioner–scholar collaboration, cultural storytelling, and emerging technologies are shaping what knowledge circulates in the field. Designed for practitioners, scholars, activists, and educators, the session emphasizes sense-making, dialogue, and practical guidance for navigating publishing and knowledge co-production in community development.
