Core Program Focus

CORE PROGRAM FOCUS
AND OBJECTIVES

Technology – Our online and digital media technology tools ( ARiZE.org ) work to build connected, empowered and engaged communities. They are combined with coordinated strategies to improve the overall health and economic well-being of local communities by helping people access information, leverage resources, work together and measure the progress they are making.

Public Policy - Whether it’s on the local, statewide and/or national level, the CUP works to educate and engage policymakers and the public in the development and delivery of decisions and solutions that can and do work for the benefit of uplifting low-income people, and growing the middle class.

Joint Ventures – Through our Community Investment Initiative, we engage our partners in a strategy to collaboratively plan, fund, manage and measure the performance of innovative and sustainable programs, initiatives and social enterprises that include, but are not limited to:

·         Small business planning, management, marketing and financing assistance

·         Mixed-use, affordable housing and retail buildings

·         Asset building (financial coaching and capability) programs

·         Science, technology, engineering and mathematics academic support and parent engagement programs for underrepresented youth

·         Community information and technology resources

·         Job and life skills training programs for ex-offenders and at-risk teens

·         Institutional Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Cultural venues

Community-driven and nonpartisan, our Initiative brings together stakeholders at a regional level (throughout California), aligns their widely shared priorities and provides a wide range of project and data management, fund development, facilitation, technical assistance and training services in a process for achieving Collective Impact.

The Initiative empowers stakeholders to ensure that individuals and families experiencing generational poverty and income inequality have access to business, housing, employment, health, education, and other resources necessary to become economically secure, and have an improved quality of life.

Designed to create environments conducive for success, the Initiative empowers our partners to synergize capital, government regulation, infrastructure, workforce development and civic engagement to decrease lost opportunities and risk, and to create high returns on investment for neighborhood residents and industrial stakeholders.

THE NEED FOR COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPS

In today’s age of economic uncertainty and government gridlock, California’s non-profit community development organizations are vanguards for turning crisis into opportunity.

As key sources of support and empowerment for people who are struggling to survive, community development organizations: Help aspiring entrepreneurs with business plans. Provide job and life skills training to ex-offenders and at-risk teens. Inspire youngsters to become the next generation of scientists and engineers. Help secure affordable housing for families; prevent gang violence, and so much more.

Although they should never be underestimated, CBO’s face tremendous barriers to reaching critical mass in the work of rebuilding blighted neighborhoods, and improving the quality of life in our major urban centers. Overwhelming evidence shows that they often find themselves completely absorbed by efforts to simply maintain their core services. Typically, there is little-to-no extra capacity for further program refinement and expansion, working with other groups on interrelated community problems, or, identifying and tapping new funding streams to do so.

A meaningful community transformation process starts when shared interests and energies are channeled as a TEAM of capable service providers and change agents.

The CUP fills a major void by serving as the glue that binds and integrates the collaborative work of grassroots community institutions and other public/private sector entities with multiple missions, disciplines and talents.