Tools

COVID Community Data Lab

Boston Indicators
We’re scanning the best available data sources to analyze how our communities have changed since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in early March. (Since public health experts are covering the dynamics of the virus spread, we focus here mostly on non-virus-related areas.) We’re looking at non-traditional sources like call volumes to the state’s 211 social service call center and road traffic through Mass Pike toll gantries. None of them are perfect, and there’s a lot of other data we wish we had. But taken together these sources paint a picture of how much our day-to-day lives have been altered across a few key domains.

Cambridge College Resource Library for Business Development Program

Cambridge College
The Business Resource Library connects Consultants, Technical Assistance Providers and students to a variety of learning tools, including sample documents and industry trend topics. This library can quickly provide comprehensive information you may need to assist small businesses during their start-up, stabilization and growth phases. These materials can be downloaded from the links below. This library was built with the collaboration of Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation (MGCC), Mel King Institute, Lawyers for Civil Rights, and Technical Assistance providers.

COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard

Eviction Lab
Safe, stable, and decent housing has always been central to ensuring health and stability. Today, with the United States focused on containing the COVID-19 pandemic, the broader and longstanding issue of income and housing insecurity has quickly become paramount to the health of an entire nation.To better understand the steps states have taken to prevent homelessness during and after the pandemic, the Eviction Lab and Columbia Law School’s Professor Emily Benfer have developed a policy scorecard for each state, distilling the contents of thousands of newly-released emergency orders, declarations, and legislation into a clear set of critical measures included in, and left out of, state-level pandemic responses related to eviction and housing.

Storytelling Toolkit: Lessons Learned from NHT's "Where Will We Live"

National Housing Trust
This toolkit is a guide for advocates to replicate the National Housing Trust’s efforts and successfully employ digital, visual and audio storytelling strategies within their advocacy tactics.

Opportunity360 Community Dashboard

Enterprise
Opportunity360 Community Dashboards provide the information necessary to determine where action is most needed and where established programs and policies have been most successful in any neighborhood in the country. These dashboards now allow data comparison for up to three census tracts, anywhere in the US. In the free Opportunity360 Community Dashboards, you will find over 150 indicators from 27 sources.

Public Policy Resources

BestColleges.com
This guide includes links to free public policy online resources that will help one get a better sense of the entire field.

Public Policy Career Outlook

BestColleges.com
This guide provides you with in-depth information on degree planning including program structures, concentrations, and skill development and application for a Public Policy career.

Earning a Public Policy Master’s Degree

BestColleges.com
This resource will help you learn about the common Master's in Public Policy admission requirements, coursework, and jobs available for graduates.

Vision, Values, and Voice: A Communications Toolkit

The Opportunity Agenda
This toolkit focuses on the broader goal of identifying universal themes and values that tie together a range of issues.

Rights for Renters Messaging

Public Will Initiative with Topos
This tool reiterates focusing on the positives instead of the negatives when it comes to messaging. Even though the series is called Rights for Renters, it isn’t actually limited to renter issue areas—such as the Critiquing Without Undermining Government brief.

A Progressive’s Style Guide

Hanna Thomas (SumOfUs.org); Anna Hirsch (ActivistEditor.com)
A Progressive’s Style Guide is explicitly multi-voiced and is created with the following commitments. 1) We combat discriminatory language. 2) We seek advice or more information when we’re unsure. 3) When writing, speaking, or using images, we aim to use examples that reflect a broad range of identities and perspectives.

Housing Matters

Urban Institute
Housing Matters is an online resource for the most rigorous research and practical information on how a quality, stable, affordable home in a vibrant community contributes to individual and community success.

55 Competency-Based Ideas for Professional Development

The Bridgespan Group
This extensive list of 55 practical on-the-job learning opportunities will help you build customized development plans for your direct reports.

The Public Health Information Tool (PHIT) Walkthrough

Massachusetts Department of Public Health
A how-to for the use of the PHIT (below), and a guide on looking at publicly available data through a population health lens.

Population Health Information Tool (PHIT)

Massachusetts Department of Public Health
The Population Health Information Tool (PHIT) is a data portal for Massachusetts health data. As a service of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, PHIT aims to provide data for a healthier Massachusetts.

Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General Hospital and HMO Community Benefits Reports

MA Attorney General's Office (AGO)
The Attorney General's Office (AGO) provides guidance on how non-profit hospitals and health plans should develop and report on the benefits and programs they provide to the public. The Attorney General's Community Benefits Guidelines gives expectations on how hospitals and HMOs should determine the health care needs of their communities, plan programs with their community partners, and report those activities to the AGO. This tool allows users to browse and search reports and to download report data.

Massachusetts Small Business Loan Data Project

Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (MCBC)
The Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (the MCBC) has sponsored an annual report on small business lending trends in Massachusetts since 1998. In the Spring of 2019, MCBC launched a new online platform – the Massachusetts Small Business Loan Data Project – that serves as a companion to the most recent report, Small Business Lending in Massachusetts 2008-2017, authored by BankMaps. The Massachusetts Small Business Loan Data Project provides an online data service with interactive access to maps and charts from six (6) national databases related to the subject of small business lending in Massachusetts.

DataTown

Massachusetts Housing Partnership's Center for Housing Data
The site compiles community-level information from various data sources for all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns, and visualizes that data in graphics and charts so it's easy to understand, print out and bring to a community discussion.

Homes for Families: Family Housing Resource Guide Massachusetts

Brooke Murphy, UMass Boston Master of Public Administration Graduate Student
All of the resources, terms, definitions, subsidies and programs one should know to create affordable family housing in Massachusetts.

Green + Healthy Property Management: A Guide for Multifamily Affordable Housing

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
LISC created this Guide to help affordable housing owners define and pursue measures to reduce the use of energy, water, and harmful chemicals in their properties, reduce waste generated on site, create healthier living environments for residents, and reduce the carbon and environmental footprint associated with residential properties.

Equitable Development / Brownfields Planning

Groundwork USA
Groundworks USA's technical assistance team offers customized strategy, tools, and peer support for those in brownfield-affected communities seeking a more inclusive planning and redevelopment agenda in which everyone can prosper.

The National Equity Research Database, Boston Edition

Brandeis Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy
This is a database of 286 socio-economic indicators on a wide range of subjects, including demography, education, employment, health, housing, earnings and ancestry covering the Boston metropolitan area.

Building Blocks: Connecting People, Places and Policies

Enterprise Community Partners
A podcast for thought-provoking conversations about the current issues, trends, ideas and big questions facing the affordable housing and community development field in the United States.

MASSCAP Trainings: Recorded Webinars

MASSCAP
This resource contains all the past recorded webinars from MASSCAP (Understanding Immigrant Rights, Community Action Impact, Succession Planning, and More!)

Housing Toolbox for Mass Communities

MHP
Strategies and best practices for the creation and preservation of affordable housing, with guides, tools and resources for local boards & committees, planners, municipal staff, developers, and volunteers.

Access: A Community Development Podcast

Federal Reserve System
Access is a new podcast from the Community Development departments of the Federal Reserve System. Each episode highlights a successful model or program within the four focus areas of our work: people, place, policy and practice, and small business.

Budget Resources

Mass Budget
Shortly after each major state budget release, MassBudget produce a written Budget Monitor that analyzes major proposals across a range of key areas (e.g. education, transportation, health care, revenue).

Inclusive, Local Sourcing: Purchasing for People and Place

Democracy Collaborative
This toolkit provides hospital and health system leaders with the tools they need to harness their everyday business operations to improve community health through procurement and purchasing focused on locally-owned businesses.

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