What are place-based initiatives?

Place-based initiatives draw on the power of collective action to support healthier, more equitable communities.

These collaborative networks bring public, private, and nonprofit organizations together with community members to address systemic challenges and spark positive, population-level change.

They are designed to address the specific challenges facing a defined region or community—bring together diverse community stakeholders to work across systems like education, health, and economic development, finding new ways to spur opportunity and increase equity.

Image of a teenage boy throwing a frisbee to other boys in a field of grass

Place-based initiatives go beyond single-issue strategies.

Instead, by confronting the underlying causes of inequality, place-based initiatives can address complex community challenges, like increasing affordable housing, improving education, and strengthening civic engagement. Place-based initiatives can break down barriers to opportunity, offering a path to better outcomes for people, children, and families.

Why are they important?

Systemic inequality continues to affect communities across the country and around the world. Using an innovative, holistic approach, place-based initiatives go beyond stand-alone, single-issue strategies, creating community-led networks to address the underlying causes of inequality. They work to shift the very systems that cause long-standing and intractable challenges—poverty, housing and food insecurity, poor education and health outcomes, and more.

Who leads them?

While place-based initiatives can take a variety of forms, they are collaborative and inclusive in nature, bringing together public, private, and nonprofit organizations and community members in shared leadership.

How do they work?

Although place-based work is inherently context- and community-dependent, Population Change Institute, working in collaboration with leading place-based practitioners across the country, has identified six Collective Capacities needed for initiatives to achieve improved population outcomes.

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Foundational Case Studies

In 2017, the Population Change Learning Community--a group of place-based practitioners from diverse regions in both the US and Canada--came together to explore what defines a high-impact place-based initiative. Their work revealed six core collective capacities needed to support place-based change.

Image of cover for case study - Magnolia Initiative

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

MAGNOLIA COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP

In launching the Magnolia Community Initiative (MCI), the Children’s Bureau of Southern California set out to advance child and family wellbeing in a densely-populated, 500-block stretch of neighborhoods in Los Angeles County. By creating a shared learning network of community-based organizations all working collectively to improve child and family outcomes, MCI has helped build the infrastructure--and spark the innovation--to support, sustain, and spread community change.

See Case Study

Image of cover for case study - Thunder Valley

OGLALA LAKOTA NATION

THUNDER VALLEY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

On the Pine Ridge Reservation, Thunder Valley CDC has created a place-based model that applies Indigenous innovation and collective leadership to spark a whole new kind of regenerative community development.

See Case Study

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN

AMANI NEIGHBORHOOD

In the Amani Neighborhood in Milwaukee Wisconsin, two organizations came together to create a resident-driven place-based initiative, creating urgently needed community assets, from new green spaces to access to quality health care.

See Case Study

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

VITAL VILLAGE

In launching Vital Village, an interdisciplinary group of practitioners based at Boston Medical Center set out to discover how to break through systemic barriers to child and family wellbeing. This place-based community engagement network draws on innovative partnerships and collective investment to seed scalable, sustainable community change around child protection.

See Case Study

Image of cover for case study - AveOfChange

GUILDFORD, WEST SURREY

AVENUES OF CHANGE

In British Columbia’s City of Surrey, the Avenues of Change Initiative brought residents and community organizations and created a testing ground for new ways of working toward community change efforts focused on child wellbeing.

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BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

BROWNSVILLE PARTNERSHIP

In Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood--a community affected by persistent poverty and housing insecurity--the Brownsville Partnership committed to being a place-based catalyst, bringing together residents and community-based organizations to expand access to opportunity and employment opportunities.

See Case Study

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

ASYLUM FAMILY CENTER

In the diverse city of Hartford, where socioeconomic disparities affect many families, the Asylum Hill Family Center launched an effort to transition service recipients into Parent Ambassadors. Leveraging their knowledge, insight, and leadership, the Center created intentional programming that is driving positive change across the community.

See Case Study