Earlier this month, the Grassroots Grantmaking Committee (GGC) of Love My Neighbor!—a group of residents that makes funding decisions on resident-led projects—convened to begin the process of grantmaking.

Neighborhood Allies is excited to partner with the Coro Center for Civic Leadership and Michael Sider-Rose to deliver sessions where GGC members shared their relationship with their neighborhoods and identified and engaged with behaviors to improve their grantmaking abilities.  Spanning nine different neighborhoods, the residents of the Committee are growing and developing stewards and weavers.

STEWARD: A neighbor that knows and believes that their neighbors have valuable and untapped ideas, skills, and knowledge. Stewards work to support and grow these assets with resources, connections, and information. They realize that the work of building communities is bigger than themselves and believe that the way to make positive and effective changes is by building upon what’s working, what neighbors are already doing.

WEAVER: A neighbor learns about new learnings, ideas, resources, and opportunities and shares—or weaves—them with the relevant people and associations in their neighborhoods.

In January 2018, the Love My Neighbor! grant program opens. Before that, GGC members engage in a curriculum to learn new and different ways to strategically invest and solve challenging problems in communities.

New and past members shared their reflections of their experiences:

“This process allowed me to reflect upon the values of my community (Homewood) as well as the other communities in the City of Pittsburgh. The activities helped me to understand the positive impact that this community can have supporting our diverse neighborhoods.”

– Jordana Stephens, Homewood

“The experience reminded me of ‘Anansi: The African Spider Man’, ‘We weave a web that comes from the chaos to create a beautiful tapestry.”

-Ruby Williams, Knoxville

“What really got me thinking today is how all of us have to understand our purpose because it is what gets our passion going within ourselves. What I love to hear was the diversity of everyone’s story.”

-Denise Rudar, Millvale

“The opportunity to allow people to open there vision and ideas to others is a key for moving forward in community engagement.”

-Donna Jackson, Larimer

There are currently 16 members of the GGC–find more information about them and what they do for communities here!