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Community Innovators Lab
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About Us
The Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) is a center for research and practice within the MIT Department of
Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP). CoLab supports the development and use of knowledge from
marginalized communities to build cooperation, deepen civic engagement, improve community practice,
inform policy, support creative problem-solving, mobilize community assets, and generate shared wealth.
We believe that community knowledge can drive powerful innovation that can help make markets an arena for
supporting social justice.
,
Working toward a world in which
marginalized people put their assets to work
to transform politics and the market
and create sustainable cities.
CoLab facilitates the interchange of knowledge and resources between MIT and community organizations in
order to inspire and support innovation from all sectors. We support students to be practitioners of our
approach to community change and sustainability
We work in three areas: democratic engagement, shared wealth generation and urban sustainability.
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History
The Community Innovators Lab has its roots in the MIT Community Fellows Program, a 25-year effort of the
Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) to support community activists’ learning by bringing them
to the MIT campus for coursework, learning and building networks. The Community Fellows Program evolved
into the Center for Reflective Community Practice (CRCP), which drew on the development expertise of DUSP
faculty and students, and used reflective practice to help communities and leaders "know what they know" in
order to improve the lives of those most marginalized by our society.
CRCP worked to mine the knowledge that resides in disenfranchised, low income and marginalized
communities, for residents’ own use, believing that knowledge emerging s from the daily experience of trying
to strengthen communities, holds critical lessons for re-imagining how to create a fair, just and equitable
society. Click here for the CRCP website.
Today, the Community Innovators Lab is expanding the original CRCP mission. Building upon the principles
of reflective practice, we seek to leverage a range of community assets, including community knowledge.
CoLab works to support the development of innovative experiments and prototyped solutions to address
pressing social, economic, and political challenges.
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Phone: 617-253-3216
Fax: 617-258-6515
Email:
For a map of our office location at MIT, click here:
http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=7-307&mapsearch=go
Community Innovators Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Building/Room 7-307
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
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CoLab
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Staff
Amber Bradley, Program Director for Economic Empowerment
Amber has several years of experience working as a domestic violence counselor with grassroots organizations
in Oregon and Colorado. In 2002-2003, through the support of a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, Amber
researched women's responses to domestic violence in Argentina, Kenya, Hungary and Ireland. Recently she
engaged in work in Gujarat, India, addressing Dalit or "untouchables" human rights. Amber's work is
motivated by a dedication to human rights and social equity. She sees her work through the lenses of race,
class, gender, exclusion, power, and accountability, and is deeply interested in issues of power dynamics –from
the interpersonal to the structural. Amber holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Reed College and a
Master of City Planning from MIT.
Dayna L. Cunningham, Executive Director
Dayna has over 20 years of experience working in democratic engagement and social justice as an attorney, in
philanthropy and in development. Dayna worked as a voting rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, litigating cases in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere in the South,
As an Associate Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, she funded initiatives that examined the relationship
between democracy and race, changing racial dynamics and new conceptions of race in the U.S., as well as
innovation in civil rights legal work. She also worked as an officer for the New York City Program at the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund. While associated with Public Interest Projects, a non-profit project management and
philanthropic consulting firm based in New York City, she managed foundation collaboratives on social justice
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issues. Most recently, Dayna directed the ELIAS Project, an MIT-based collaboration between business, NGOs
and government that seeks to use processes of profound innovation to advance economic, social and
environmental sustainability. Dayna holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a juris
doctor degree from New York University School of Law. She has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and
Radcliff Colleges.
Gary Thornton, Program Coordinator
Gary manages the financial, logistical, and operational aspects of the Center for Community Reflective Practice.
Before joining the Center, he worked for the New York City Department of Education as a Business
Development Analyst. He was responsible for the marketing, communication, and organization of boroughwide new small school informational sessions. As a former Americorps volunteer on the South Side of Chicago
and National Project Manager for City Year Inc., an international service organization, Gary organized several
large-scale service projects and training events for thousands of volunteers, students, and donors. Gary earned
his BS in Psychology from University of Illinois in 2000, and is currently working on his MBA.
Dulari Tahbildar, Program Director for Democratic Engagement
Dulari’s interests lie at the intersection of public education, community organizing, and community
development. Dulari helped to start up a 6-12 public school in the Bronx, worked in fundraising and
development at The Brotherhood/Sister Sol youth development organization in Harlem, NY, and researched
education policy at The Urban Institute in Washington, DC. Soon after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf
Coast, Dulari became involved in recovery and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. Her master’s thesis explored
educational equity in the rebuilding of public education in post-Katrina New Orleans, with a focus on black
activism, the politics of community change, and community building. Dulari holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in
Public Policy and Urban Studies from Brown University and a Master of City Planning degree from MIT.
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Fellows:
CoLab Fellows are leaders in community-level social justice innovation from around the world.
They bring knowledge and experience from extraordinary practice working with marginalized
communities to share with the MIT community and draw on the Institute’s knowledge and resource
base to support their work. Fellows come to CoLab to advance a specific project connected
with CoLab’s mission-- to support marginalized communities in putting their assets to work to
help transform politics and the market and create sustainable cities.
We provide a learning
community to exchange ideas with other community innovators, faculty and community partners;
facilitate links into resources in the wider MIT community and offer working space for Fellows
to advance their projects, including through opportunities to audit courses. With MIT
faculty, CoLab Fellows, community partners and others, CoLab promotes scholarship of
engagement and 360 degree knowledge transfer between the academy and innovative community
practitioners. At the culmination of the Fellowship, each fellow produces a synthesis of
her/his learning, in a form of her/his choosing, that can be shared with other fellows, MIT,
and the larger social justice community.
Becky Buell [GARY—bio & photo]
Becky joins CoLab as a fellow to help develop the concept of the Green Hub, a project to focus
on a missing element in the discussion of environmental sustainability-- the interrelated
social and economic issues of poverty-reduction, finance, employment, education and beyond—
necessary to bring about comprehensive and equitable green transformation in cities. Becky’s
focus will be on building partnerships with organizations in 3-4 cities in the southern
Hemisphere as key participants in the Hub's activities and networks. She will also work to
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develop links with the City of London, and UK organizations, businesses and universities
working on transition to low carbon futures.
Becky Buell joins CoLab from Oxfam GB where she worked as Senior Advisor for Strategy and Innovation. In this role she advised Oxfam's
board and directors on organizational strategy and innovation, and managed a portfolio of projects, primarily relating to cross-sector
collaboration on climate change, renewable energy, and sustainable supply chains. Until 2006, she held senior management positions for
Oxfam in Central America and Mexico, and in Oxfam's Campaigns and Policy Division. She developed Oxfam's work on the private sector's
role in poverty reduction, including the Oxfam-Unilever study on the company's "poverty footprint" in Indonesia and a range of cross-sectoral
partnerships for poverty reduction. Becky was an MIT-ELIAS Fellow in 2006-7 and continues to work with the ELIAS network on
supporting large organizations and networks in developing their capacity to innovate. As a CoLab fellow,
For more on individual Fellow’s work at CoLab, visit the Projects section of this website, or click here.
Lee Farrow, 2007-2008 Research Affiliate
Since June 2004 Lee’s work at CoLab has involved capturing collective voices of residents and community
organizations from Boston neighborhoods, to uncover and analyze lessons learned from three decades of
neighborhood-building efforts. As a CoLab Research Affiliate, Lee also works with The Harlem Children’s
Zone, Inc., researching housing displacement issues in Harlem. She is also leading a Learning Journey Path
that chronicles, documents and identifies lessons from the Harlem Children’s Zone’s start up and earlier work.
Prior to joining CoLab, Lee spent eleven years developing and implementing HCZ’s Community Pride Project.
For more on Lee’s project, click here.
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Judith Flick
Judith Flick joins CoLab’s fellowship program to build our partnership with the Presencing Institute and develop the second cohort of the
ELIAS project. Judith was born in Greece, is of Dutch nationality and presently working in South Africa. She has more than 15 years
experience in social development, mainly in Latin America and southern Africa. Judith holds an MA in Social Anthropology from the Leiden
University in The Netherlands, where she majored in Gender studies. This was followed by a post-masters degree in Management for
Business Administration. In 2006 she enrolled in the ELIAS Project (Emerging Leaders Innovate Across Sectors), a joint leadership
development initiative of a multi-sectoral group of global organizations. Hosted by MIT in Boston, this 12-month course is based on the Utheory or “presencing”. Over the past 6 years, Judith has worked as a Regional Director for the Oxfam Great Britain first in South America
and later for southern Africa, leading considerable change management processes. In 2004, became the lead for Oxfam GB on HIV/AIDS
globally, establishing a Global Centre of Learning (GCoL) on HIV/AIDS in Pretoria. with the purpose of defining Oxfam GB’s HIV/AIDS
policy and facilitating learning about HIV/AIDS responses across the globe in search for more profound and lasting answers for people living
in poverty. In partnership with the Presencing Institute, led by Dr. C.O Scharmer, she has initiated and is co-facilitating a cross-sectoral
group of leaders in Zambia, who are forging innovative ways to induce systemic changes that could change the present course of the HIV and
AIDS pandemic.
For more on individual Fellow’s work at CoLab, visit the Projects section of this website, or click here.
Sebastiao Ferreira, Visiting Scholar
Sebastiao, is a Brazilian who has lived in Peru most of his life. In the 80s he managed a Peruvian NGO focused
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on rural and urban development, and in the 90s he became an independent consultant in strategic planning for
cities and major institutions. He worked with national and local governments throughout Latin America, as
well as foundations, microfinance institutions, companies and international development organizations, with a
diversity of constituencies, such as peasants, public authorities, businessmen and development practitioners. He
developed cognitive methods for advanced, community-based knowledge-capture, and created mechanisms for
detecting and promoting innovative initiatives in communities. He has written six books in the last 20 years,
including I “Creacion de Futuros,” A study of [ add language here] The main focus of his present inquiry is
how to stimulate innovation in communities, primarily in disenfranchised sectors, and how to promote
institutional support to creative people. For more on Sebastiao’s work click here.
Ilma Paixao, CRCP Community Fellow/Founder, Handeira Linens and Lace
Ilma trained in Brazil as a nursing assistant and owned and ran a cleaning business. For the past 20 years she
has been involved in community-building volunteer work in Framingham, where she lives. A long-standing
member of the public school outreach and school development committees, Ilma also works on Framingham
Town Hall anti- violence initiatives. Ilma recently directed the “Brazilian Women Helping Each Other Live
Healthier,” a cancer screening and community empowerment project for Brazilian immigrant women. Most
recently, Ilma earned the "Rising Star" award at the Center for Women’s Enterprise in Boston for her work in
founding “Handeira Linens and Lace,” an international business that supports community development in
northern Brazil among the indigenous Xukuru people. Ilma works in partnership with the Xukuru indigenous
people marketing their fine handmade lace women's clothing and houseware to create a sustainable livelihood
that also preserves their health, their land, and their cultural identity. In addition to business development, Ilma
has helped the Xukuru start several social initiatives in their community, including eye and vision exams for
lacemakers, computer classes for teenagers, a farmer's seed bank, and a community-operated general store. For
more on Ilma’s Projects click here.
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Amritha Subramanian, CoLab Emerging Leadership Fellow
Amritha works to link CoLab with droppingknowledge, an organization devoted to enabling the global public to
ask and answer questions, exchange ideas, and start initiatives around pressing issues. Her work focuses on
building out the questions and dialogue which are often at the root of an issue or project. She graduated
springing 2007 from UCLA with degrees in economics and political science, and has worked in several
communities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and New Delhi, India around the issues of politics, healthcare,
organizing, and education. For more on Amritha’s Projects click here.
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Faculty
Xavier de Souza Briggs, Associate Professor of Urban Planning + Sociology,
Ph.D. Columbia
Xav is a sociologist whose work is focused on racial and ethnic diversity,
democratic problem-solving, and inequality in cities around the globe. He
is the founding director of The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
and Working Smarter in Community Development, two online resources for
"self-directed" learning by people and institutions worldwide. His last
book, The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in
Metropolitan America (Brookings Institution Press, 2005) won the 2007 Paul
Davidoff Award, given every two years to the top book in planning with a
focus on racial and economic justice. His next major work, Democracy as
Problem-Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities across the Globe, will be
published by The MIT Press in 2008. He teaches courses in collaborative
problem-solving, strategy and management, the community development
potential in "greening" cities, and the history and politics of planning
as a practice. Beyond his nationally awarded research on young people,
cities, segregation, and opportunity, he has been a community planner in
the South Bronx and other inner-city areas, a senior advisor to The White
House and Congress while at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, and a consultant to leading national and international
organizations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank. He
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spent six years on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of
Government. Xav has been an expert witness in civil rights litigation and
an editorial board member of leading journals in housing policy, urban
sociology, and planning. He is a member of the Aspen Roundtable on
Community Change, the governing boards of public policy analysis and
housing advocacy organizations, and other groups. He was raised in the
Caribbean and educated at Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia universities.
Xav and his family live in Boston’s culturally and economically diverse
Dorchester neighborhood.
Lorlene Hoyt, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning
Lorlene is an urban planning scholar, educator, and practitioner
who thinks that planning scholarship (“inquiry”) should be useful
to practitioners on the ground and planning “practice” should inform
and advance scholarship. Organized according to these beliefs,
Lorlene’s online portfolio deliberately positions planning education
(“instruction”) in the center because she sees the classroom as an
effective bridge between planning scholarship and practice.
Lorlene, who is a faculty member of the HCED Group, the UIS Group, and the
Center for Reflective Community Practice, is also the Project Director for
MIT@Lawrence –a HUD-funded and remote university- community partnership
between the Institute and the City of Lawrence, Massachusetts. As part of
this initiative, Lorlene and Lang (Keyes, also a faculty member of the
HCED group) have co-taught what is commonly known as the Lawrence
Practicum (11.423 - Information, Asset- building, and the Immigrant City)
for more than five years. Students who take this service-learning
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practicum strategically build earlier student contributions by
strengthening existing relationships with community leaders and residents
to increase affordable housing opportunities in a city where homeownership
rates are less than half of state and national averages.
With training and experience in both City Planning and
Landscape Architecture, Lorlene’s core interests include community
economic development, downtown revitalization, planning pedagogy, and
spatial information technologies. Her research has been published in
academic journals such as Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design,
the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Economic
Affairs, International Journal of Public Administration, Geography
Compass, Cityscape, and the Journal of Urban Technology.
Lorlene continually keeps a foot in the world of planning practice as cofounder and General Partner of Urban Revitalizers, a women and minorityowned real estate development and planning consultancy located in Boston,
Massachusetts. Before joining
MIT, she supervised the crime analysis and mapping unit at the
Philadelphia Police Department and worked as a senior planner for the
Philadelphia Housing Authority. Lorlene and her wife reside in Boston's
eclectic Bay Village neighborhood with their two lively Ethiopian
American children.
Lorlene's portfolio: http://www.urbanrevitalization.net
Karl Seidman, Senior Lecturer in Economic Development, MPP
Harvard
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Karl is an economic development practitioner with 25 years of experience
at a community development corporation, in state and local government, and
managing a consulting practice. His interests include local economic
development strategy, development finance, public purpose real estate
development, and commercial district revitalization. His experience
includes the preparation of economic development plans and strategies, the
design, management, and evaluation of development finance programs, and
the financing and supervision of complex development projects.
During
his tenure in Massachusetts state government, he authored laws that
established two Massachusetts business finance agencies, implemented
financing programs and helped capitalize a $120 million state real estate
finance and development authority, and oversaw implementation planning for
the redevelopment of the Gloucester State Fish Pier and Fort Devens. As a
consultant, he has prepared over twenty economic development and downtown
revitalization plans, completed market and feasibility studies for
numerous development projects and evaluated federal, state, and local
government and foundation initiated economic and community development
programs. His publications include the textbook Economic Development
Finance and Revitalizing Commerce for American Cities: A Practitioner’s
Guide to Urban Main Street Programs. He is a board member of the
Northeast Economic Developers Association and Boston Main Streets
Foundations and serves on advisory committees for the Urban Markets
Initiative and National New Markets Fund. Karl teaches Economic
Development Finance, Economic Development Planning, Revitalizing Urban
Main Streets, and Economic Development Planning Skills (IAP).
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J. Phillip Thompson, Associate Professor of Urban Politics
Phil Thompson is an urban planner and political scientist. He received a
B.A. in Sociology from Harvard University in 1977, a M.U.P. from Hunter
College in 1986, and a PhD. in Political Science from the City University
of New York Graduate Center in 1990. In the early 1990s, Phil worked as
Deputy General Manager of the New York Housing Authority, and as Director
of the Mayor’s Office of Housing Coordination. Phil is a frequent advisor
to trade unions in their efforts to work with immigrant and community
groups across the United States. Phil’s most recent academic work includes
a 2004 review of public health interventions in poor black communities
(written with Arline Geronimus) published in the Du Bois Review, entitled
“To Denigrate, Ignore, or Disrupt: The Health Impact of Policy-induced
Breakdown of Urban African American Communities of Support,” an article
entitled “Judging Mayors” in the June 2005 issue of Perspectives on
Politics, and a recent book called Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black
Communities and the Struggle for Deep Democracy published by Oxford
University Press. Following Hurricane Katrina, Phil coordinated MIT's
technical assistance efforts in the Gulf.
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Students
[PHOTOS -GARY]
Molly Ekerdt
Molly is working with HCED faculty to help them answer the question: “How has HCED helped
communities to thrive?” Through in-depth interviews, convenings, and analysis, Molly will support
faculty members to reflect on and understand the impact their work has had on communities over
time.
Carlos Espinoza-Toro
Carlos is conducting research on and for the Latino Community Credit Union (LCCU) headquartered
in Durham, North Carolina. The research will result in a report that offers ways in which the LCCU can
secure capitalization through the development of strategic partnerships with institutions that have
critical interests in communities where LCCU currently operates or is planning to expand. Carlos will
also explore whether LCCU's business model could be replicated successfully in other cities with
large immigrant worker populations.
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Cyd McKenna
Cyd is researching and documenting living examples of shared wealth
generation and cooperatives, including the Neighborhood Entrepreneur
Program in New York City, Market Creek Plaza in San Diego, California,
and Brightwood Health Clinic in Springfield, Massachusetts. These cases
will be adapted into educational materials and shared with CoLab partner
organizations and on our website.
Amit Sarin
Amit is researching strategies to leverage the opportunities for
collaborative ownership and wealth creation for people of color, workingclass and poor communities created by the massive effort in New York City
to become more green.
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Black Intensive Civic Engagement Project (BICEP)
Black Intensive Civic Engagement Project (BICEP)
Deepening democracy in African American communities
The African American community has been both a powerful leader and a loyal
constituent of the US progressive movement. But today, any effort to
mobilize black voters must begin with a critical question: Why has voting
not done more to improve African Americans’ lives and livelihoods over the
last thirty years?
With efforts to bring hundreds of thousands of
active new black voters into the electoral
process, the 2008 electoral season becomes a
signal opportunity to try new ways of engaging
local activists and leaders in a deeper civic
discourse about conditions in their communities.
A deepened conversation could help forge new
policy agendas for local, state and federal
lawmakers, tie voter registration and GOTV to
those agendas and by doing so, create long term mechanisms for stimulating
and supporting black political involvement. In past electoral cycles,
civic engagement efforts largely have focused on convincing African
Americans to support existing party platforms and candidates and
participation became an end in itself. Today those efforts must focus on
the issues and concerns that are most relevant to African Americans’
lives. BICEP works to harness the momentum of the 2008 presidential
campaign to advance dialogue and action around principles of deep civic
Civic engagement within black
communities must not simply be
about “moving black bodies” to
the polls.
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engagement that extend beyond election cycles to permeate the fabric of
community life.
PARTNERSHIPS
In an unprecedented alliance, a group of five civic engagement
organizations – The Advancement Project, National Coalition for Black
Civic Participation, Pushback Network, Malia Lazu’s Youth Engagement Table
and the MIT Community Innovators Lab – are joining forces for a set of
strategic activities that will develop critical analyses of current
conditions, raise their level of mutual accountability, eliminate
duplication and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their
efforts, enable shared learning and benchmarking, and produce a long-range
road map for ongoing civic engagement in black communities.
Called the Black Civic Engagement Alliance, the groups together reach a
broad spectrum of constituencies through their work, using a variety of
approaches to engaging, registering, mobilizing and protecting the ballot
integrity of black voters. Collectively they plan to register hundreds of
thousands of voters in the coming electoral season and then to work
systematically through their institutions and networks to ensure these new
voters actually get to the polls and are able to vote.
CoLab and its partners at MIT are working in the Alliance to support the
use of technology – both for maximizing the Alliance’s ability to use
voter data and track their efforts, but also to engage with African
American potential voters in new ways. CoLab partners include Progressive
Technology Project and Shaping America’s Agenda, an initiative of dropping
knowledge.
LINKS
The Advancement Project
http://www.advancementproject.org/
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National Coalition for Black Civic Participation
http://www.ncbcp.org/
Pushback Network
http://www.pushbacknetwork.org/
Progressive Technology Project
http://www.progressivetech.org/
dropping knowledge
www.droppingknowledge.org
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GainShare
Let’s consider a way to break this text up, i.e. with a sidebar that has the headers, or with a “Click here for more on GainShare” option.
GainShare
Shared wealth generation
Marginalized communities often have valuable assets that remain
unrecognized and untapped. Undeveloped land, brownfields, dense buying
power, social cooperation of organized groups, even local knowledge and
culture can all be sources of value.
With the right support, community
organizations can learn ways to leverage
community assets in sustainable business
models and generate shared wealth that
supports their own development goals. By
working with communitiy organizations and
leaders to identify their most valuable
assets, pair them with powerful partners in
labor unions and elsewhere, and help them
create
that can help with and to build
sustainable business models around those
assets, GainShare approaches help communities turn social capital into
financial capital that can create a more stable financial base for their
work. The coming wave of efforts to reduce the carbon footprint and
increase ecological sustainability of cities could present unprecedented
opportunities for Gainshare projects to create shared wealth.
GainShare approaches seek
innovative ways to harness
market forces in order to benefit
marginalized communities.
Barriers in economic markets, often contribute to the disenfranchisement
of poor communities, GainShare is an approach that seeks innovative ways
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to harness these and other assets
communities.
in order to benefit marginalized
GainShare and Green
Over 500 US cities have committed to undergo green transformations,
promising to usher in the biggest wave of public infrastructure spending
since the New Deal. Who will benefit from the unprecedented wealth
generation opportunities that will follow? Retrofitting to meet tougher
conservation standards, decentralized energy generation and distribution,
expansion of public transportation, and other “green” innovations at scale
are a few of the possibilities for community involvement and benefit.
GainShare approaches can help prepare organized communities to leverage
these possibilities and maximize the financial and social gains. To learn
more about CoLab’s Green Transformation work, click here.
GainShare Projects
Research and Analytical Frameworks
CoLab is supporting MIT Professor Phil Thompson and MIT graduate
students Cyd McKenna and Carlos Espinoza-Toro in researching and
documenting existing models of shared wealth generation. Case studies
include:
These links will go to an overview of each case. Where possible,
overviews will include links to the organizations. Amber will get
permission from these groups to include their names, etc.
Latino Community Credit Union, North Carolina
Neighborhood Entrepreneur Program, New York, NY
Market Creek, San Diego, CA
Brightwood Health Clinic GIS-based Community Health Maintenance
System, Springfield, MA
AFL-CIO Investment Trust Corporation, New Orleans, LA
Nonprofit Capacity Building
CoLab is working with several NGOs to help them explore possibilities
for incorporating GainShare methods and objectives into their work.
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Next year, CoLab will host a small group of Gainshare fellows from
community-based organizations for an in-depth exploration and
prototyping of innovative GainShare approaches applicable to their
own local contexts.
Once Ford Grantees have formally agreed to participate, Amber will
include their names and links to their orgs here.
MIT Course-based Projects
Cooperatively-Owned Wind Farms, Kentucky & South Africa
CoLab supported students in the Fall 2007 MIT course Cooperative
and Community Development to investigate opportunities for
collectively owned wind power generation in South Africa and
Appalachian Kentucky. Based on needs identified by local
communities, students researched and compiled case studies on
various wind farm ownership models. (Click here for the full
report). CoLab is continuing to explore potential partnerships
with these and other communities interested in cooperative wind
ownership models.
We may later want to include a section on Events and Convenings,
after Vonda’s talk and other formal GainShare-related meetings are
scheduled.
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New Orleans
New Orleans
Comprehensive participatory neighborhood rebuilding
Traditional planning theories separate the process of rebuilding physical
infrastructure from the social process of rebuilding neighborhoods and
communities. We believe that the two must be tightly integrated.
As New Orleans rebuilds its infrastructure, how could the city move its
tens of thousands or poorly educated and unemployed people into careers as
21st century “green” carpenters and “green electricians?” As the schools
are being reopened, how can the curricula be rethought to integrate
training to match such career opportunities? To make solutions truly
meaningful and give them staying power in a community context, answering
these questions requires both technical expertise and community
participation
CoLab supports the development of inclusive,
participatory processes that engage residents
within and across neighborhood boundaries to
meaningfully participate in the rebuilding of
the city. We seek to help residents capture
their knowledge about their neighborhoods and
translate that knowledge into achievable
community development plans.
In the early stages of recovery, with a small
grant from the Unitarian Universalist Service
Committee, DUSP deployed a group of graduate
students to live full time in New Orleans and
provide staff and support to groups seeking
Traditional planning theories
separate the process of rebuilding
physical infrastructure from the
social process of rebuilding
neighborhoods and communities,
we believe that the two must be
tightly integrated.
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to assess local capacity and organizing around participatory planning
processes. Despite the fact that residents and community based
organizations are best positioned to identify the challenges and concerns
faced by each community, DUSP students’ early scan revealed very little
infrastructure to support meaningful community participation in
rebuilding.
Since the Storm, faculty affiliates of CoLab have:

deployed 20 students through a graduate practicum to work with small
local groups in the Treme neighborhood to create a neighborhood
rebuilding plan.

worked with residents and a local CDC (Broadmoor Development
Corporation) in the Broadmoor community supporting projects to reopen a local library, develop program and funding proposals for the
redevelopment of a community building; develop a land trust; and
promote local commercial finance. DUSP students conducted
comprehensive interviews of business owners and assisted in
developing a business directory for them to hand out to residents
returning to the community.

worked with Enterprise Community Partners and Providence Community
Housing to create neighborhood development strategies, options and
opportunities.

worked with Providence Community Housing to formulate the
participatory aspects of long-term economic development frameworks
for these target neighborhoods.

assisted the Vietnamese community in Village de L’Est
East) advance its rebuilding plans and capacity.
(New Orleans
26

worked with staff and volunteers at Mary Queen of Vietnam church to
assess small business recovery needs and evaluate options to organize
local business to support commercial corridor revitalization.

conducted a program planning staff workshop and assisted with grant
applications to the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Worked with Gert Town helping them to establish an open-source
property mapping system and process and built an open-source database
management system and web portal to allow Gert Town residents and
government to view this information on-line and update it as new
information is available.
STUDENT INTERNSHIPS
During Summer 2007, CoLab supported fifteen MIT undergraduate and graduate
students to work at the New Orleans Office of Recovery Management on
planning and economic development initiatives related to the city’s
recovery post-Katrina, including target area planning and sustainability,
energy, and green building policy and planning.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Check out the DUSP@NOLA wiki to learn about past and current projects or
to add your own project. CoLab is committed to unearthing the collective
knowledge and lessons learned through these varied experiences through
reflection sessions, information sharing, and learning seminars.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
We are currently exploring possible technology partnerships to support the
development of neighborhood information systems that will engage residents
in participatory planning processes.
27
28
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Green Hub
The Green Hub at CoLab
The Green Hub at MIT is a collaborative project of MIT’s CoLab, Oxfam
Great Britain and the Presencing Institute. The Green Hub’s mission is to
work collaboratively with key MIT research centers, groups and leaders to
create resources that are of value for the larger world. We work to
promote a focus on equity, social inclusion, and social innovation in
green transformations.
Our focus
Poor urban communities of
Over 300 cities in the US alone have pledged to
undergo “green transformations.” There is growing
color must be included in
public awareness that an unprecedented opportunity
setting the agenda and reaping
for urban transformation is underway. Yet,
addressing interrelated issues of poverty and
the benefits of green urban
social isolation are the critical missing element
transformations.
in many approaches to “green.” Dense cities are
essential to long-range ecological sustainability;
greening efforts must address the root causes of
urban poverty, white flight, and suburban sprawl.
We call this approach “deep green.” The Green Hub works to advance and
support comprehensive strategies that incorporate poor and marginal groups
and create solutions to poverty and social isolation in order to bring
about effective and equitable—“Deep Green” transformation in cities.
Our work
The overall goals of the Green Hub are to:
29

Promote a sharp focus on equity, social inclusion and social
innovation within existing responses to the coming wave of green
transformations, and
 Develop on-the-ground projects that demonstrate the utility of
socially transformative approaches to greening cities.
With the combined expertise of MIT’s CoLab, Oxfam GB, and the Presencing
Institute, the Green Hub works through three avenues to achieve these
goals. Our three impact areas are:
Global Prototypes (Oxfam GB)
Research and Innovation (MIT)
Social Technology (Presencing Institute)
How We Work: Global Prototypes with Oxfam GB
The Green Hub aims to support targeted cities across the globe in their
transitions to a low carbon future. We see this work as an opportunity to
restructure markets to ensure that poor communities have an economic and
political stake in their future. The climate change agenda is opening up
huge opportunities for redistributing power and wealth, and cities will be
a key locus for this change. While the opportunity is significant, it
could be lost if there is not an immediate and concerted effort to develop
and spread models of how poor and marginalized communities can capture the
advantages of these new markets.
Beginning in 2008, the Hub aims to work with several cities in the US, the
UK and the southern hemisphere to frame major initiatives on green
transformation. In partnership with Oxfam, The Hub will facilitate these
efforts by identifying and leveraging support and resources for locations,
organizations and individuals where there is a high potential for
innovative initiatives of significant scale that address both climate
change and economic and social exclusion. The Hub aims to work with local
partners to develop a sound political analysis of how change happens in
these locations, and to identify the key actors who will be central to
framing and leading these initiatives. This initial scoping phase and
analysis will be followed by work in each location to convene leaders and
30
to work together towards defining a number of initiatives.
How We Work: Research and Innovation at MIT
Within MIT, the Green Hub works to connect key thinkers that are engaged
in different aspects of green urban transformations, in order to foster a
vibrant arena for knowledge sharing, innovation, and on-the-ground
implementation. We facilitate the transfer of interconnected knowledge
about technology, business models, financial models, methods, social
technologies and relationships for social inclusion and policy.
[need to add something here about the kitchen table working group
MIT DUSP Working Group
CoLab has convened a Working Group on Environmental Justice. The
Working Group hosts monthly meetings in which MIT Department of Urban
Studies (DUSP) professors discuss strategies to address the
intersections of social equality, racial justice, and environmental
sustainability. CoLab aims to work with this group to convene key
thinkers and generate innovative strategies for urban green
transformations that incorporate shared wealth formation for
marginalized communities. The Working Group aims to develop
comprehensive policy strategies to help US cities implement
innovative, socially inclusive, deep green transformations.
Current participants include:
DUSP Professor Phil Thompson
DUSP Professor Anne Spurn
DUSP Professor Judy Layzer
DUSP Professor Chris Zegras
CoLab Program Director Amber Bradley
DUSP Graduate Student Amit Sarin
Research
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CoLab is supporting MIT graduate student Amit Sarin in researching
green urban transformations and the opportunities these initiatives
present for marginalized communities.
MIT Course-based Projects
CoLab works with MIT professors to identify community partners and
develop client-based courses in which MIT graduate students work to
create useful deliverables to community-based organizations. Coursebased projects span the breadth of our work, and are often directly
related to green transformations.
To learn more about green-related projects as a part of our GainShare
work, click here.
Tools and Resources
CoLab is currently compiling information on a variety of greenrelated resources, with an emphasis on tools and resources relevant
to social inclusion and deep green transformations. Initially this
resource will provide a clearinghouse for information on greenrelated resources, projects, people, and programs at MIT. Eventually
this tool will grow to include information on green resources and
information across the globe.
[START HERE]
How We Work: Social Innovation with the Presencing Institute
Systemic change in cities will require a different kind of leadership:
leadership that involves communities, reaches across sectors and builds
deep levels of trust, collaboration and collective innovation. This
approach is key to “deep green” transformation" as it aims to
fundamentally shift economic and social relations through the work on
environmental regeneration and climate change.
32
Ecological challenges have become a critical consideration for a broad
range of leaders beyond the environmental movement. A movement is
underway to “green” cities that calls for a fundamental shift in the way
humans organize urban life. Massive public expenditures to reach
ecological goals in urban areas create the potential for equitable
investment in poor communities and a fulfillment of the New Deal’s
unfinished promise of broad social inclusion for poor and minority people.
But there is little capacity to deeply address issues of equity and
inclusion within current environmental efforts. Approaches that reach
across sectors and build deep levels of trust, collaboration and
collective innovation are desperately needed in order to fully realize the
transformative opportunities that green initiatives present.
In partnership with the Presencing Institute the Green Hub will:
 Convene high leverage cross-disciplinary players to explore and
address the lack of an integrated base of knowledge and practice
encountered by governments, investors, businesses and communities
seeking to develop high-impact creative solutions to socially
inclusive comprehensive green transformation.
 Facilitate processes of analysis and creative development among a group of
influential people and organizations that leads to concrete initiatives.
 Apply the Presencing Institute’s social technologies that allow
people with highly diverse views and conflicting interests to engage
in a focused way and generate new thinking, productive conversation
and practical breakthroughs.
 Capture and share learning on both the initiatives themselves, and
the “social technology” behind them---how different interest groups
come together to transform their cities.
The Green Hub is a living embodiment of the Presencing Institute’s
commitment to create places and infrastructures that convene strategic
cross-sector groups of frontline leaders in order to strengthen their
practices and networks, and thereby their capacity for dealing with
profound leadership challenges.
33
Our partners
Oxfam Great Britain
Oxfam GB is a founding partner of the Green Hub. Oxfam GB will engage
in the framing of the initiative, contribute policy and program
experience, and will engage on a number of concrete initiatives on
the ground. As a first step, we aim to identify several locations
where Oxfam and MIT can begin working together to support initiatives
that meet the dual objectives of addressing climate change and
reducing poverty and inequality. For more information on Oxfam GB’s
work click here.
Presencing Institute
The Presencing Institute (PI) is a founding partner of the Green Hub.
PI will apply social technologies to the Hub in an effort to bring
together key players from several sectors including business,
government, labor, academia and NGOs. For more information on the
Presencing Institute, click here.
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ELIAS
Emerging Leaders Innovate Across Systems (ELIAS)
Leaders in institutions around the world face unprecedented economic,
social, ecological, and political challenges locally and globally. These
challenges are multiplying in number and growing in complexity; leaders
must develop innovative tools to confront them. In doing so, they can
create opportunities to reinvent business models and identities, transform
social change protocols, and work more collaboratively with governments.
CoLab is one of the hosts of “Emerging Leaders Innovate Across Sectors”
(ELIAS). ELIAS is a global cross-sector network of high-potential leaders
and their institutions working collectively to generate new ideas,
prototypes, and ventures. The purpose of ELIAS is to contribute to the
evolution of sustainable global market systems that build human, social,
and natural capital as well as financial and industrial capital. CoLab,
along with the Presencing Institute, the Society for Organizational
Learning, and the MIT Leadership Center, in collaboration with Sloan
Executive Education, are launching the second year of the program.
Concrete outcomes of the ELIAS six--month leadership journey are:
 Prototypes and prototype ideas for cross-sector innovation that
address the shared challenges of creating value for the triple bottom
line—the economy, society, and the environment—with the ultimate goal
of advancing global sustainability.
 Membership in a steadily growing network of leaders in the public,
private, and civic sectors that will enhance and accelerate the
benefits to individual participants.
35
 A growing capacity among participating organizations to develop
strategic solutions to sustainability challenges that span the three
sectors.
 Pragmatic information and ideas for innovative solutions to
individual members’ challenges.
 An enhanced capacity among leaders to respond to the challenges of
globalization and sustainable development by pioneering practical
innovations.
Co-founders of ELIAS include, BASF, BP, Nissan, Oxfam Great Britain, the
UN Global Compact, Unilever, the World Bank Institute, and the World
Wildlife Fund.
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Community Fellows’ Work
Sebatiao [GARY]
Methodology for Promoting Social Innovation: Sebastiao Mendoca Ferreira is developing a tool for helping innovative groups to reconstruct
their experience, identify their innovations and map the innovative processes they have been using. The method was created for people
working with innovative groups who seek to strengthen their capacities. It was developed based on conceptual research and direct experience
with innovative groups in El Salvador. Currently the method is being improved as a shared effort of CoLab and CARE . In the next 3 to 4
months the method will be available to people interested in social innovation.
Salvadorian Knowledge Fairs: Sebastiao Mendoca Ferreira is working to identify and promote innovative groups in El Salvador. It started in
2005 as a partnership between the Salvadorian Government, UNDP, CARE, MIT, and currently has been extended to GTZ and Plan
International. The first Knowledge Fair took place in October 2006, presenting 23 innovative groups. Its success spurred the Salvadorian
Government to declare it public policy and to invite the alliance to organize the next fair in October 2008. CoLab’s role in this alliance is to
develop cognitive tools, to train the facilitators for working in the field and to monitor the process of identification and support to innovative
groups.
Reconstructing Peru: A team of DUSP faculty and CoLab is working with local partners to respond to the earthquake that devastated the
south coast of Peru. It is an alliance between MIT and the Universidad del Pacífico, in Peru, to combine capacities and resources around three
main objectives: (1) Supporting reconstruction of Tambo de Mora, in the province of Chincha, (2) Developing a plan for the Region of Ica
with an interactive methodology, and (3) Supporting a long term commitment of both universities for capacity building for improving
governance and promoting competitiveness in Peru. This work involves MIT faculty across diverse fields, including planning and
architecture, and also graduate and undergraduate students.
Transfer of methodology to IADB: The Critical Moments Reflection Methodology, CMRM, was developed in CoLab, formerly Center for
Community Reflective Practice, by Ceasar McDowell and currently CoLab is working with the Knowledge and Learning Department, KLD,
of the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington to develop its capacity to use the methodology. CoLab did a conceptual
introduction and a practical exercise with the staff of the KLD/IADB, and developed pedagogical materials for IADB to apply the CMRM.
Currently KLD/IADB is using the method with its teams and, in a few months, they will evaluate the experience with the team of CoLab.
37
Microfinance: After working for 13 years with many microfinance institutions, mostly in Latin America,
Sebastiao Mendoca Ferreira developed a book on strategic planning. The book was published by the Swiss
Agency, COSUDE, in 2007.
Lee [GARY]
Handeira Linens and Lace
Ilma Paixao is the founder of Handeira Linens and Lace. The Handeira Project is a
Lacemaker's Cooperative serving small villages in the Brazilian Northeastern states of
Pernambuco and Ceara. In this region that is economically underdeveloped and short on
rainfall, entire villages depend on lacemaking for their living. The art of lacemaking
has shaped the indigenous Xukuru way of life for generations. As a CoLab Fellow, Ilma
travels to these villages to bring fine handmade lace products to US markets. In order
to improve the quality of life in the villages, Ilma has helped develop several programs,
which include: a food cooperative for distribution at wholesale prices, tree planting to
provide fruit, shade and water retention, a seed bank, communal vegetable gardens, an eye
clinic, and funding for school supplies. Ilma’s work is representative of approaches
that CoLab seeks to support. CoLab’s research interests include understanding a new
model of development that stems the displacement of indigenous communities and cultures
now under threat from the pressures of urbanization and development.
dropping knowledge
dropping knowledge is a global initiative to support the free and open sharing of
knowledge among the people of the world. Born out of the unprecedented democratizing
power of the Internet, dropping knowledge employs advanced web-technology to empower the
global public to ask the questions that matter to them and seek new solutions through
community dialogue. Amritha Subramanian is currently working with dropping knowledge to
launch a web-based campaign around the issue of the Human Footprint. To do this, Amritha
works with questions and knowledge donated from communities all around the world, as well
as with online resources to build synergy around the issue. As a CoLab fellow, Amritha is
the link between CoLab and dropping knowledge, and works on digital media for projects
such as BICEP.
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Springfield, MA
Community planning based on local resident knowledge
In 2001, CoLab (then CRCP) made a ten-year
commitment to support community planning and
development initiatives in the North End
neighborhood of Springfield, MA. This
commitment includes a partnership with the North
Outreach Network (NEON), the North End Campus
Committee (NECC), and an annual Springfield
Studio practicum course.
Springfield Studio practicum course
Springfield Photo
Springfield Photo
Springfield Photo
Springfield Photo
Springfield Photo
Springfield Photo
Springfield Photo
End
The Springfield Studio is an annual practicum
design course in MIT’s Department of Urban
Studies and Planning (DUSP) that focuses on the
physical, programmatic, and social renewal of the North End community in
Springfield, MA by combining classroom work with an applied class project.
Community outreach workers join students in collaborating on the project
design. The Springfield Studio draws upon knowledge gained from other
collaborative projects, including previous practica, the Community Mapping
project, the North End Strategic Plan, and individual student research.
Past courses can be accessed through MIT OpenCourseWare for free.
Final student projects include a plan and design for a community campus to
unite the North End (Spring 2004), and an economic development plan for
the North End (Fall 2005).
39
Note: When we collaborated on a project in Springfield before 2008, we
reference the Center for Reflective Community Practice (CRCP). Please
note that CRCP has been renamed the Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) and
all current and future projects will be referenced as such.
DIGITAL STORYTELLING
In Summer 2001, NEON community health advocates created digital stories
based on their own experience of confronting issues they had witnessed in
their work. These stories are in English and in Spanish.
Telling Our Legacies Digitally (TOLD) began in 2002 as the North End
digital storytelling team, a "train the trainers" initiative led by CRCP,
which brought together community workers from diverse organizations in
Springfield, MA and led them through the process of producing short
multimedia narratives on topics that were significant to them and their
communities. In conjunction with the North End Strategic Planning Process,
the group developed a proposal for establishing the nation’s first
community-based digital storytelling center in Springfield. In October
2003, the Waitt Foundation awarded them seed money. They subsequently
appointed an acting director and moved forward with their plans.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
During the summer of 2003, CRCP and NEON led the North End community in
creating the North End Strategic Plan. As part of the process, fifteen
satellite meetings and two larger community meetings were held to gather
input for a unified vision and goals for its neighborhoods over the next
five years. Defined goal areas included lifelong learning, health, safety
and economic development. The plan was successfully submitted to the Waitt
Family Foundation, which subsequently provided support to the community to
achieve its goals and vision.
COMMUNITY MAPPING
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CRCP brought together three community organizations – the Alamosa
Neighborhood Association in Albuquerque, NM, the Dudley Street
Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury, MA, and the North End Outreach Network
in Springfield, MA – and engaged them in building local expertise in
geographic information systems (GIS), as well as in developing new
software for community mapping and spatial information management.
NEON
www.neonprogram.org
Springfield Studio
http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=6:2:0&detail=11.403
MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu/
PDF: plan and design for a community campus to unite the North End (Spring 2004)
PDF: economic development plan for the North End (Fall 2005)
NEON community health advocates created digital stories
--Link to Digital Stories Archive in Tools & Resources section
PDF: North End Strategic Plan
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Presencing Institute [DAYNA]
dropping knowledge
dropping knowledge is a global initiative to support the free and open sharing of knowledge
among the people of the world. Born out of the unprecedented democratizing power of the
Internet, dropping knowledge employs advanced web-technology to empower the global public to
ask the questions that matter to them and seek new solution through community dialog. Ceasar
McDowell, former CRCP Director, is now the Executive Director of dropping knowledge US. CoLAB
supports dropping knowledge through a Community Fellowship for dropping knowledge’s Amritha
Subramanian. For more on Amritha’s work with dropping knowledge, click here.
To visit the dropping knowledge website, click here.
MIT@Lawrence
MIT@Lawrence is a long-term commitment to support dynamic and mutually beneficial
relationships between faculty, students, and staff at MIT, together with civic leaders,
residents, and community-based organizations in Lawrence, Massachusetts. To learn more about
this work, visit the MIT@Lawrence website.
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Tools & Resources
DUSP@NOLA wiki
The DUSP@NOLA wiki was created in order to increase awareness of the work
of DUSP students, faculty, and staff in New Orleans by the MIT community
and our community partners and to promote collaboration and dialogue on
specific projects.
Reflective Practice
Reflective practice is an approach that enables practitioners to
understand how they use their knowledge in practical situations and
how they combine action and learning in a more effective way. Through
greater awareness and reflection, practitioners are able to identify
the knowledge that is embedded in the experience of their work so
that they can improve their actions in a timely way, and achieve
greater flexibility and conceptual innovation.
For a mini-course on reflective practice, check out Reflective
Practice: An Approach for Expanding Your Learning Frontiers. Taught
in January 2007 by MIT Professor Ceasar McDowell and CoLab Visiting
Scholar Sebastiao Ferreira, it is available through MIT
OpenCourseWare for free.
Digital Stories
From 2000-2004, CoLab (then CRCP) used digital storytelling as a tool for
reflection and community building. Digital storytelling, which originated
at the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, integrates
narrative, oral history, filmmaking, and sound in a workshop process that
43
enables multimedia novices to produce two to five minute video pieces that
can be viewed on VHS, CD-ROM, DVD, or the Internet.
This digital stories archive includes some of the dozens of digital
stories produced by CRCP affiliates, including community organizers, MIT
graduate students, and youth between 2000-2004. Click on the title of a
story to open and play it in a new window. You must have Quicktime 5.0 or
higher installed on your computer to play the stories. (Quicktime can be
downloaded for free at http://www.quicktime.com)
Working Smarter in Community Development
The Working Smarter in Community Development website is a tool for
self-directed learning, created to improve the effectiveness of
community development practice, broadly defined—to help committed
people and institutions work smarter, not just harder. On this site
you will find Knowledge-In-Action briefs that bring together cuttingedge ideas in an accessible format—often with mini-cases of the ideas
at work—with simple references for further reading. In addition, you
will find Learning Guides that can be used as structured guides for
discussion and for linking ideas in the briefs to issues in the field
or classroom projects. "Working Smarter" is a companion to The
Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT, which focuses more globally
on civic processes such as partnering, negotiating, organizing civic
action, leading participatory planning, and more.
The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT is a learning space for
people and institutions worldwide that work on a wide variety of
issues within and across the private, non-profit, and public sectors.
On this site you will find Strategy Tools to help you approach issues
and work with other stakeholders more effectively and Program Tools
for responding to specific, substantive problems by learning what
44
works and what doesn't in a given area (housing, health, education,
etc.).
Gainshare Case Studies
LINKS
DUSP@NOLA wiki
-- link to wiki URL
Reflective Practice: An Approach for Expanding Your Learning Frontiers.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Urban-Studies-and-Planning/11-965January--IAP-2007/CourseHome/index.htm
Center for Digital Storytelling
http://www.storycenter.org/
digital
-- link
stories
and put
stories archive
to digital stories archive, which will contain all the digital
currently on the CRCP website (we just have to download the files
them in a web folder)
Working Smarter in Community Development website
http://web.mit.edu/workingsmarter/
The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
www.community-problem-solving.net/
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