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The Mobilization Fund helps Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) overcome barriers with financial security used to support public contracting and to successfully deliver on contracts in New Orleans. In the short term, the objective of the $1.54 million pilot fund is to increase capital access to DBE contractors, supporting their current financial health and capacity. In the long term, the fund is intended to strengthen disadvantaged businesses’ ability to bid and deliver on a pipeline of public contracts, access roles as prime contractors, and over time, build wealth among those business owners and their employees.

Beginning in late 2016, the fund is structured as a public-private partnership (PPP) between Living Cities, the City of New Orleans, and NewCorp Inc, a mission-driven Community Development Financial Institution based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The fund builds on NewCorp’s long history of community lending to test ways to increase DBEs’ access to capital.

This public report contains the findings of RTI International’s interviews with fund recipients and the fund’s PPP partners and stakeholders to characterize initial outcomes. Those results range from improved financial outlooks for DBEs and the ability to deliver on their current public contract to reduced personal stress and increased business finance savvy. Findings are described in terms of:

• financial outcomes
• contract delivery outcomes
• business ownership outcomes
• loan process and management outcomes
• fund partners’ outcomes

This assessment revealed important lessons learned for replicated or scaled funds in the future, including aspects of the pilot fund that worked well and areas of opportunity.

Primarily, the lessons apply to the fund design itself and the environment in which it operates. Overall, these findings highlight the early successes created by the existing PPP and demonstrate the importance of continued collective action across the public, private, and social sectors.

Earlier this spring, ILSR released its 2018 Community Power State Scorecard, revealing the best and worst states for local clean energy across the country. Did many states improve on their 2017 score? In this new comparison of state rankings, we take a closer look at which states have taken the lead, which are improving, and which have a lot more to do when it comes to creating a policy landscape that enables distributed energy.… Read More

The post Community Power State Scorecard Comparison — 2018 vs. 2017 appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tackling the problem of food waste is gaining attention to avoid garbage, conserve resources, create jobs, alleviate hunger, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) details how home composting is among the best opportunities to reduce food waste, especially in the near term and in areas lacking curbside collection or facilities to compost.… Read More

The post Release: New Report Argues Home Composting Is Vital to Local Waste Reduction Strategies appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

ILSR’s report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. Appendix E features additional materials … Read More

The post Yes! In My Backyard Report: Appendix E – Videos, Program Websites, and Miscellaneous appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

ILSR’s report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. The report has an extensive … Read More

The post Yes! In My Backyard Report: Appendix D – Sample Ordinances appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

ILSR’s report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. Appendix C features program reports … Read More

The post Yes! In My Backyard Report: Appendix C – Reports on Local Programs appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

ILSR’s report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. Appendix B features sample print … Read More

The post Yes! In My Backyard Report: Appendix B – Sample Print Educational Materials appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

ILSR’s report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. Appendix A features sample … Read More

The post Yes! In My Backyard Report: Appendix A – Sample Outreach Materials appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

The report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Governments, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. It makes the case that home composting should be a central component of every community’s residential food waste reduction strategy. The guide is not intended as a manual on how to compost at home.… Read More

The post Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government appeared first on Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

It’s been more than a year since Donald Trump was elected president, and the “rural-urban divide” is frequently cited as one of the big reasons for his win.

But discussions often simplify the realities of America’s rural areas, cities, and suburbs, reducing these communities to monoliths with few overlapping experiences or attitudes. The findings of a new survey by the Pew Research Center complicate that narrative—showing that while rural, urban, and suburban communities have unique problems, they have surprising, perhaps often overlooked, similarities.

“Yes, there are deep divides,” said Kim Parker, Director of Social Trends Research at Pew. “But when it comes to the basic issues of life, there’s a lot that Americans across communities agree on.”

There are more similarities than we may have believed

How various communities across the American landscape imagine themselves, their ties to their homes, and their most urgent problems is pretty similar, the survey findings show. Some highlights follow:

Rural and urban America face some of the same local concerns

In recent years, the opioid epidemic has devastated a number of white, rural communities. But data shows that it is urban, black populations that have seen the steepest increases in overdose deaths. This epidemic is a shared challenge, and the findings of the Pew survey demonstrate that. In it, similar shares of rural (50 percent) and urban (46 percent) respondents report drug addiction being one of the biggest problems facing their communities.

Everyone pretty much agrees rural areas could use more help

About 71 percent of rural residents believe they get the short end of the stick as far as federal aid is concerned. But perhaps surprisingly, significant shares of suburban (61 percent) and urban residents (57 percent) agreed.

On the other hand, fewer than half of those living in cities said city residents received less than they deserve from the federal government; and only about a third of suburban and rural respondents agreed.

They have similarly iffy connections to home

Only one in seven Americans reports feeling a strong attachment to their local community, and that share is the same across cities, suburbs, and rural communities.

No one actually talks to their neighbors

Turns out it’s not true that country folks are more neighborly. The Pew survey finds that while it’s true that rural residents are more likely than urban ones to know who their neighbors are, they aren’t really more likely to chat them up.

Both rural and urban communities feel misunderstood

Urban and rural residents both believe that outsiders regard them negatively. Suburbanites, on the other hand, feel they enjoy a positive image in society.

Rural and urban residents both agree … that they disagree

When it comes to what they disagree on, rural and urban Americans are roughly on the same page. Around 60 percent of rural respondents say that their values do not align with the urban residents, and 53 percent of urban ones feel the same of their rural counterparts.

The popular theory that some of these differences in views stem from “economic anxiety” in smaller, more rural towns has been heavily challenged in the aftermath of the election. Economically, the picture is complicated. It’s true that rural populations have the lowest earnings—but they’re also living in the cheapest areas across the country. And in terms of poverty, it’s actually the suburbs that have seen the steepest increases: 51 percent since 2000, compared to 31 percent in urban and 23 percent in rural areas.

Of course, the perception of relative deprivation may still persist in these spaces, but recent research suggests that perhaps anti-immigrant sentiment and support for Trump are tied to factors beyond pure economics: They may have more to do with lack of exposure to diversity and fear of lost status because of the changing face of the country.