Our purpose in building community capacity is for residents to move upward with the economic development of their community.

Harry Martin, a leader of the Community Development Foundation in Tupelo, Mississippi—a town that sits at the heart of one of the best-known turnaround regions in the South—once said “community development must precede economic development.” He is referring to the importance of moving both place and people forward in the revitalization of our poor communities. Without including the people piece, we would be providing merely bricks and mortar, technical solutions to complicated long-term social problems.

At Neighborhood Allies, we define community revitalization as the improvement of both geographic place and its people. However, we believe that building people and place alone is not enough. An important precursor to building the capacity of people—human and intellectual capital of the neighborhood—is building the social capital, the connections and relationships across the community (three critical components of our Complete Capital Model). By building the social capital, we can better understand the assets already present in our communities. We have built our capacity building program on the foundation of our existing programs, aligning each of those programs with ways we can work with our partners on the ground to create the change we want to see in our communities.

Here’s how our capacity building initiatives are contributing to improving people and place and building healthy neighborhoods across Pittsburgh! (Click the image to zoom)