Tools

The Gap - A Shortage of Affordable Homes

No State Has an Adequate Supply of Affordable Rental Housing for the Lowest-Income Renters

Global Greater Boston: Immigrants in a Changing Region

For as long as it’s been a city, immigrants have been central to Boston’s identity. For this new report Boston Indicators partnered with Immigration Research Initiative to analyze who makes up immigrant communities in Greater Boston, quantify what they contribute to our regional economy, and detail the immigration pathways they take to get here.

Advocates' Guide 2024!

Every year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition publishes the Advocates’ Guide to educate advocates of all kinds about the programs and policies that make housing affordable to low-income people across America.

Boston Builds Credit

Boston Builds Credit
Here, you’ll find free and low-cost resources to help Boston and area residents understand how credit works and learn how to build, protect and improve your credit scores. With a trusted network of partners working with the City of Boston and United Way of Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley, our team can put you in contact with a trained financial coach and financial wellness workshops.

Getting Capital to Small Businesses in Low-Income Communities

The Aspen Institute
Heeding the call for greater race and gender equity, policymakers, donors, and investors want to uplift small businesses in underserved communities. But boosting access to capital for business owners of color is easier said than done. In this video, we identify the importance of microloans in meeting firms owned by people of color where they are in terms of their capital needs. And we highlight the work of community development financial institutions (CDFIs) in serving this vital role. Members of the Aspen Institute’s Microfinance Impact Collaborative, for example, issued over 8,300 loans in 2018, 75% of which were to entrepreneurs of color.

COVID-19 Reopening Guide for Small Businesses

Chamber of Commerce
This guide will cover all that business owners need to know about reopening and navigating current government requirements.

Delivering Credit to Entrepreneurs of Color Impacted by COVID-19: Why Community Financial Institutions Are Essential

The Aspen Institute
Prior to the global pandemic, the relatively high small business start and ownership rates among entrepreneurs of color were a bright spot in a period of declining US entrepreneurship. But small businesses have endured some of the hardest stresses of the pandemic, as forced closures and physical distancing have decimated earnings for restaurants, salons, childcare centers, and other services we all rely on. Businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color have been particularly impacted by declining revenues, and despite government efforts to get money into people’s hands, many small businesses have not received the support they need. This is partly a problem with the delivery systems used: programs that flow through banks miss those that have historically been underserved. Fortunately, there are lenders who serve these businesses and communities: Community Development Financial Institutions. CDFIs are mission-driven lenders that serve the parts of America that too often get left behind, inc

Fifty Years Of “The People v. HUD”

Poverty & Race research Action Council (PRRAC)
HUD has benefited enormously from strong civil rights advocacy, and many of HUD’s most important regulatory guidelines have emerged from this advocacy. We offer this selected timeline as a tribute to this ongoing history and, we hope, an inspiration to a new generation of civil rights and tenant activists.

The Boston Foundation Racial Equity Capacity Builders Directory

The Boston Foundation
As part of its continued work to support nonprofits as it centers and advances racial equity within its organizations, the Boston Foundation worked with partners to develop a directory of racial equity capacity builders currently serving Greater Boston nonprofit organizations. The directory lists 80 individuals and organizations providing racial equity capacity building services. Please use this as a resource for organizational racial equity goals.

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.

Arts & Planning Toolkit

MAPC
The Arts and Planning Toolkit has been given a reboot to become better aligned with the needs of municipal planners who are doing arts and culture-related work. Each page now follows a consistent outline of tools, resources, and examples to show how ideas may be put into action.

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.

Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgement

Sponsored by: U.S. Department of Arts and Culture
Created in partnership with Native allies and organizations, the Guide offers context about the practice of acknowledgment, gives step-by-step instructions for how to begin wherever you are, and provides tips for moving beyond acknowledgment into action.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

Filter By Learning Area