Community Strategies

Empowering communities to create change and equitable growth.

Building Community From the Residents Up

We know that a community is only as strong as the people who live in it. Through our Community Strategies team, we partner with community organizations and local governments to develop local revitalization strategies and plans that empower community members to tackle problems and bring vitality, economic opportunity and equitable growth to communities across New Jersey.

Our Approach

The Community Strategies team fosters effective local revitalization strategies through the following approaches:

Neighborhood Planning: Taking a community-centered and implementation-oriented approach, we work with partners to create high-quality neighborhood plans that help them to qualify for the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit (NRTC) Program, Wells Fargo Regional Foundation funding, the Neighborhood Preservation Program program, and similar neighborhood-based revitalization efforts.

Strategic Consulting: We provide our partners with strategic guidance, research and technical assistance on effective policies and revitalization strategies based on their unique situations, opportunities and capacities.

Access to Resources: We connect our partners to community development resources, whether through the NRTC Program, other funding opportunities or NJCC’s own financing and real estate acquisition and development services.

Building Community and Organizational Capacity: We help our partners and the communities they work in become stronger and better able to achieve their goals through organizational capacity building, identifying and empowering community leaders, and support for effective community organizing.

East Trenton Collaborative

We are not just consultants; we are on-the-ground practitioners, too. In addition to sharing in the success of all of our partners, since 2015, Community Strategies has overseen the East Trenton Collaborative, a community-driven revitalization initiative in the capital city. Through ETC, we have repaired homes, rehabilitated abandoned properties, run neighborhood programs out of our community center, attracted millions of dollars in NRTC and other investment, and empowered hundreds of community leaders to improve their community. We know what it is like to work at the grassroots, and our approach to our engagements reflects that.

Learn More

To learn more about Community Strategies or to discuss a potential neighborhood planning or consulting engagement, please contact Jason Rowe, Managing Director, Community Strategie, by emailing below.