Rip Rapson
President
The Kresge Foundation
Living Cities Board of Directors

Living Cities has at various times and to various degrees both reflected the leading edge of practice in the community development field and provided a unique vehicle through which foundations and financial institutions could redefine that edge. Its contributions fall into four categories.

First, cross-sector collaboration. It’s tough enough to herd foundations; to have imagined herding foundations and banks and lending institutions and the federal government should have struck someone as hallucinatory. Yet, Living Cities has discovered a formula that has inspired others, even while defying precise replication. Maybe it requires characters of the stature and self-assurance of Peter Goldmark, Doug Nelson, Hodding Carter, Jonathan Fanton, Ed Skloot and Henry Cisneros. Maybe it takes bankers of such extraordinary flexibility and skill as Gary Hattem or Mark Willis or Dennis White. Or maybe it necessitates having intermediaries capable of both leading and following, with all of the patience and wisdom of a Bart Harvey or Michael Rubinger. Whatever its secret sauce, Living Cities has shown that sectors can co-create something that far exceeds the collective impact of their individual capacities.

Second, ground-wire to practice. Living Cities has struggled with creating a policy presence that repositions cities in the national debate about this country’s future. But in many ways, it hasn’t had to. Our claim to policy legitimacy was always derivative, resting for much of our history on the ground-game of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Enterprise Community Partners. An urban policy agenda was framed by and through their activities. A significant question going forward is whether the Integration Initiative, with its emphasis on foundation-led consortia in communities, will substitute for that legitimacy and provide the ground-wire any national policy aspirations must have.

Third, course correction. For the first 15 years, the NCDI/Living Cities brand and method were clear. Our attempts to refine or recalibrate were fine, as far as they went. But the core remained a constant. That has changed dramatically in recent years. And just in time—had we not, I suspect we might have wound down rather than ramping up, as we have. Each of the executives of Living Cities has been exactly right for his or her time: Jim Pickman doing the grand design, reconciling personalities, and ensuring early traction; Reese Fayde professionalizing, refining, and diplomatically repositioning; Ben Hecht pushing for innovation, re-purposing, and expansion. In the process, each executive made an indelible mark on community development. Each pushed the membership out of its comfort zone and strengthened a resilient capacity within the organization that enabled it to navigate through very different eras in urban policy and practice.

Fourth, extending beyond parochialism. So many philanthropic collaborations are simply a means of aggregating funds that reinforce individual member priorities. Understandable. It takes an unusual foundation or bank or financial institution to park self-interest at the door. There have been times when Living Cities just couldn’t get there—we have had countless conversations about how each of our members needs to see its priorities, specifically or in general terms, reflected in the priorities of the larger organization. But there have also been times—of which the present is one—when the membership has genuinely stepped back and constructed approaches that by virtue of their boldness, innovation, or potential for powerful impact take us beyond what each one of us would do within our own portfolio. Sounds simple, but it is enormously challenging for organizations that have to report back to trustees about why their money is being spent outside their topical or geographical scope. It is a mark of the organization’s maturity that our conversations now arc above—even while paying attention to—those concerns.

The ultimate measure of Living Cities is that as it has changed and adjusted, it has remained constant to its founding aspirations of improving the life circumstances of low-income people living in America’s cities. It is a remarkable legacy—and a remarkable platform for future progress.