Tools

The Push and Pull: Declining Interest in Nonprofit Leadership

This report presents findings from BMP’s 2022 survey of more than 3,000 nonprofit staff on the factors related to their aspiration to top leadership roles, as well as the experiences of current nonprofit leaders.

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.

A VISION FOR INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES

MASSACHUSETTS COALITION FOR RACIAL EQUITY IN HOUSING

Compare Project Management Software

Search and select project management software to build your own comparison and see which provider best fits your requirements.

Dirty Data Cost Calculator

Association Trends
Download this whitepaper and learn how to: Calculate how much dirty data is currently costing your association, and how much it will continue costing as time passes without clean-up. Quantify this cost so you are able to communicate the importance of data hygiene to your boss, board, and/or stakeholders.

National Housing & Financial Capability Survey

NeighborWorks America
On June 24, 2021, NeighborWorks America released findings from its 2021 Housing and Financial Capability Survey, which was conducted in April. The survey showed that many people see the advantages in owning a home but are unequipped to handle financial challenges that stall their dream of homeownership. Since 2019, NeighborWorks America has conducted its annual Housing and Financial Capability Survey to collect data that helps set the foundation for the stabilization of communities. Prior to 2019, the organization released a spring consumer finance survey and a fall homeownership survey. The findings from the survey help NeighborWorks America understand who still needs the organization's help and the areas that need the most attention.

Worforce Training Fund Express Program - Passive House and LEED certifications

BE+
Any company is eligible for $30,000 of training per year through this grant application. There are many certification for building sustainability measures.

Commonwealth Workforce Training Fund Express Program

Workforce Training Fund
50 courses approved to provide PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant training.

Turning Towards Each Other: A Conflict Workbook

Jovida Ross and Weyam Ghadbian
The exercises in this workbook are offered as a way to bring love into the hard parts of our relationships. Of course, when we’re in the middle of a tense situation, it may not feel like love. It can be helpful to remember that there are always multiple truths present in a conflict: We each experience a situation differently, and interpret what is going on from a different vantage point. Making space for our feelings and experiences to be acknowledged can help us surface deeper insights hidden in the tension and uncover new solutions.

Project Manager Core Skills Toolkit

Mel King Institute
The Tracker tool was designed to support the growth and development of non-profit real estate project managers. The tool can be adapted to suit needs of various project managers, as job titles and the division of work will differ for each organization. It can be used with a supervisor/supervisee relationship or as an individual project manager self-assessment.

Know Your Rights: Source of Income Discrimination FAQ

Attorney General, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts residents who rely on public assistance, including rental assistance programs, often face unique challenges in securing housing, which is a key pathway to economic security. Because we recognize the importance of access to housing, we have prepared this guide to help educate residents and landlords on their rights and obligations in this area.

State and Local Antidiscrimination Laws Could Help Renters Access Emergency Rental Assistance and Keep Their Homes

Urban Institute
Despite the needs of both renters and landlords, some landlords are not accepting rent relief. We don’t have much data on how many landlords are refusing rental relief or their motivations for doing so, but we know that the outcomes can be dire for tenants, especially low-income renters and renters of color, who often face housing discrimination when using federal assistance.

COVID Eviction Legal Help Video - Ed's Story

COVID Eviction Legal Help Project (CELHP)
Last October, the COVID Eviction Legal Help Project (CELHP) was created through the Governor’s Eviction Diversion Initiative. Since its inception, CELHP has provided legal help in over 3,650 eviction cases.

Facing an Eviction Informational Videos

COVID Eviction Legal Help Project
Learn what to do if you are facing an eviction in Massachusetts.

Move The Money: Practices and Values for Funding Social Movements

Building Movement Project
A set of resources geared towards grantmaking institutions eager to expand and deepen their support of organizations, networks, and leaders involved with social change movements.

South End Affordable Housing Tour

Corcoran Center
South End Affordable Housing Tour with Vince O'Donnell

National Low Income Housing Profiles by State

National Low Income Housing Coalition
Our Housing Profiles provide a one-page snapshot of the information advocates need to make the case for socially just housing policy. The State Housing Profiles are perfect to take with you when meeting with a state elected official or U.S. Senator. Take the Congressional District Housing Profile for your congressional district with you when you meet with your U.S. Representative.

MA Self-Guided Eviction Tool

Greater Boston Legal Services
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.

State Support for Local School Construction: Leveraging Equity and Diversity

Lauren Mittman, Nikhil De, and Philip Tegeler
Historically, state support for suburban school construction facilitated white flight and metropolitan segregation. The least we can do today is think more carefully about the impacts of future school construction funding. PRRAC has prepared a policy brief on this question, based on a state-by-state survey of current practices.

Best Practices for RAD "Choice-Mobility" Implementation

Poverty & Race Research Action Council
The Rental Assistance Demonstration has become the most significant public housing redevelopment program in the U.S., bringing new funds to support aging properties around the country. One essential element of the program is that, after conversion, all tenants have a right to request a portable Housing Choice Voucher, and move to a community of their choice (thus opening up their apartment to another eligible family on the waiting list). Few housing authorities have worked out plans for implementation of this Choice-Mobility feature of the program, so we have developed a guidance document for PHAs and advocates, based on extensive policy research and interviews.

Beyond the Board Statement: How Can Boards Join the Movement for Racial Justice? (Part Two)

Jeanne Bell & Nonprofit Quarterly
In this second part of a two-part series, nationally renowned board and equity consultants Vernetta Walker and Robin Stacia answer participants’ questions about how to transform a board so it embraces a racial equity agenda, In this session, you’ll find many practical examples of ways to approach the work, discussions of the barriers to change, and tools to help organize and ground racial justice in your organizational mission. Stacia and Walker bring an interactive approach that is deeply insightful, grounded in both research and practice, and unrelentingly focused on creating a different and more racially just future.

BoardSource Racial Equity Tools Glossary

BoardSource
Racial Equity Tools has created a glossary of terms to create a shared understanding of words to enhance the way we talk about race. Language is an essential tool in racial equity work, and the terms we use have evolved as this work has developed. Having a common language allows us to better engage, discuss, and reflect on these important issues together. Terms in the glossary include: Implicit bias, Institutional racism, Microaggression, Restorative justice

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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