Tools

Radical Imagination

Angela Glover Blackwell; Powered by PolicyLink
To imagine radically, means to think big, demand better, and redefine the terms of the struggle; the Radical Imagination podcast delivers all that. The debut season confronts the challenging issues facing our nation, including immigration, the need for big new economic ideas, the impact of climate change, revolutionary approaches to community safety and justice, and more.

The Move

Ceasar McDowell, Founder; Ayushi Roy, Podcast co-host; Misael Galdamez, Website Author; Julia Curbera, Website Author
The Move is a movement to rebuild our public’s muscle for democracy. This movement aims to bring together people of all backgrounds who are seeking to facilitate real civic engagement in today’s democracies. The Move rebuilds our public muscle in three ways: We will partner in the design and implementation of at least one civic engagement project each year. We will provide a collaborative learning and knowledge exchange platform on TheMove.MIT.edu and it’s adjacent social media channels for cities, institutions, and community organizations. We will advance learning, experimentation, and innovation in civic design using eight design principles.

Massachusetts Defense For Eviction (MADE): Self-Guided Eviction Help

Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)
This completely free guided interview is for Massachusetts tenants who are being evicted. It is estimated to take between 25 and 90 minutes for a typical tenant to use on their own. It will help you make sure that you respond to your landlord's eviction case correctly.

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.

Boston Neighborhood Change Interactive Map

Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University
A new interactive mapping tool showing the dramatic demographic, social, and economic changes that have occurred in Greater Boston since 1990. The tool includes data from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses and from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates for 2010 and 2016.

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.

Prosperity Now Scorecard

Prosperity Now Scorecard
A comprehensive resource for data on household financial health, racial economic inequality and policy recommendations to help put everyone in our country on a path to prosperity.

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!)

Operationalizing Racial Equity & Inclusion at Living Cities: Tools for Getting Started and Keeping At It

Living Cities
These are some of the resources and contacts LC has shared with organizations who are looking to embed racial equity and inclusion into their work.

Opportunity Zone Eligibility Tool

The Opportunity360 team created the tool below to help states and others interested in opportunity zone eligibility to determine which tracts in their state or region are eligible and how eligible tracts relate to other federal programs and designations.

Advancements in measuring bicycle and pedestrian accessibility

State Smart Transportation Initiative
Jennifer Boldry from People For Bikes and Spencer Gardner from Toole Design Group discussed their new open source Bike Network Accessibility tool, and Chris McCahill from SSTI showed how pedestrian accessibility measures have been applied in Sacramento, Calif., Madison, Wisc., and Virginia.

Racial Identity Caucusing: A Strategy for Building Anti-Racist Collectives

Crossroads
This toolkit describes methods for anti-racism work and the value of caucusing

Mapped: How the US Generates Electricity

Carbonbrief
Carbon Brief has plotted the nation’s power stations in an interactive map to show how and where the US generates electricity.

Understanding Systemic Racism

Race Forward
"What Is Systemic Racism?" is an 8-part video series that shows how racism shows up in our lives across institutions and society: Wealth Gap, Employment, Housing Discrimination, Government Surveillance, Incarceration, Drug Arrests, Immigration Arrests, Infant Mortality

Rejecting Bigotry, Demanding Action

Opportunity Agenda
Together with UnidosUS, The Opportunity Agenda completed public opinion and messaging research with this goal in mind: to tell a story of American diversity that reflects our values and our aspirations as a country stronger because of our myriad backgrounds, ethnicities, races, experiences – because of the parts of us that may make us different, but ultimately also make us stronger. This research provides guidance for those using their platforms to reject bigotry while demand action.

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.

Greening Our Grid

MAPC
“Greening our Grid” is a fact sheet and a case study detailing MAPC’s new strategy to use municipal aggregation to help build new renewable energy in New England

Perfect Fit Parking

MAPC
Parking is a point of contention in communities across Metro Boston, yet many deliberations about the topic occur in the absence of hard data about how much parking we have, and how much we need. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) has begun a multi-phase initiative to develop the data and tools that communities need to establish informed, sustainable, and economical parking policies.

Rolling Back Inclusion

The Democracy Collaborative
In order to help communities across the country—both rural and urban—speak up in a moment in which the administration has made clear its intentions to scale back or dismantle these key federal frameworks, we will be tracking the new federal attacks on inclusive community development here, along with state-level measures enabled and encouraged by the new federal context.

All America Conversations Toolkit

National Civic League
All-America Conversations are designed to help cities and other groups understand residents’ aspirations for the community, the divisions facing the community and, most importantly, the small, specific actions that give people a sense of confidence that we can work across dividing lines.

Racial Wealth Audit

The Institute on Assets and Social Policy; Demos
This interactive online tool uses real-world examples to help policymakers and advocates explore and understand the causes and effects of the racial wealth gap.

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.

MAPC Local Access Score

MAPC
The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC)'s active transportation network utility score for each segment of roadway indicates how useful that street segment is for connecting residents with schools, shops, restaurants, parks, and transit stations.

Tools for Cultivating and Connecting Leaders

Living Cities
A well curated toolkit to support effective and adaptive leadership

Glossary for Senior-Related Housing and Healthcare Terms in Massachusetts

The Community Builders, Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly, and LeadingAge MA
This glossary is intended to provide a primer on housing and healthcare terms, so that professionals in both housing and healthcare can work collaboratively to ensure that there is sufficient and high-quality housing and services for older adults.

Health Disadvantage Index Tool

Public Health Institute
Mapping tool allows user to explore health disparities in a region

Documentaries about Gentrification

Gentrification Learning Community
These films can be used to learn about issues of gentrification in America

Jargon Buster- Build Healthy Places Network

Build Healthy Places Network
Tool demystifies community development and public health jargon terms for those working with peers in other sectors

Gentrification Learning Community Resources

Gentrification Learning Community-Mel King Institute
This compendium of resources studied by the gentrification learning community includes broad perspectives for defining and tackling issues of gentrification

Pedestrian Infrastructure: Strategies for improving pedestrian safety through low-cost traffic calming

WalkBoston
Tool provides examples of low-cost measures to calm traffic and enhance safety on municipal streets and state roads

Shared Ownership Toolkit

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)
Explore case studies, videos and resources on how to create a shared ownership business enterprise

Community Development Acronyms

MACDC
List of definitions for common terminology for community development and affordable housing

Resources from the Massachusetts Community and Banking Council

Massachusetts Community and Banking Council
Explore MCBC's compendium of resources on their new website intended for boosting the availability of credit and financial services in low-income communities

Racial Equity Tools

Center for Assessment and Policy Development
This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities and the culture at large.

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