As Ground Works marks our fifth anniversary, we're reflecting on critical lessons learned from facilitating NeighborWorks America's Health Equity Action Lab (HEAL) in 2024. Working alongside nine community development corporations, we discovered how cross-community learning networks become essential survival strategies in resource-constrained times, why reclaiming local histories of resistance strengthens today's organizing efforts, and how organizations are building sustainable revenue models that outlast philanthropic funding cycles. These insights offer a ideas for advancing health equity and community power even when federal support disappears and political winds shift.

Our framework for advancing housing justice outlines practical strategies for housing practitioners to advance racial equity despite current political headwinds. It presents four key elements for success - clear theories of change, creative legal approaches, strategic institutional partnerships, and robust implementation.

Drawing lessons from California's Statewide Housing Advocacy Committee (SHAC), effective power-building starts with mapping where power lies rather than jumping straight into campaigns. Through strengthening relationships and aligning priorities across 13 organizations, SHAC demonstrates how housing advocates can build the collective power needed to advance bold, systemic solutions.

Ever wonder what it takes to make economic development work for everyone? Through our work with two regional collaboratives in California's San Joaquin Valley and a funder collaborative in St. Louis, one thing has become clear: we need new ways of working together. But what does meaningful collaboration actually look like in practice?

Want to know what happens when you bring nine community development organizations together to tackle health equity? We had the privilege of facilitating NeighborWorks America's Health Equity Action Lab (HEAL), where organizations from across the country learned from each other and their communities to create better health outcomes. Through site visits, peer coaching, and plenty of in-person connection, these practitioners discovered they faced similar challenges - and by sharing their experiences, they found new ways to make their health equity work more impactful and community-driven.

Advocating for racial justice within institutions and power structures shaped by generations of racism-based policies and practices can be lonely – and, at times, demoralizing. Finding the right support squad is vital when working to advance racial equity, especially as a public servant. The need to squad up was one key driver behind Leading with Equity, our ABAG-sponsored cohort of local jurisdiction staff from 12 Bay Area jurisdictions.

Freedom’s Revival: Research from the Headwaters of Liberation is an inquiry into freedom and its possibilities. It seeks to explore the freedom that is central to all our struggles for justice, equality, and our planet’s survival. It seeks to recover a freedom unlike the one that has taken root in the United States.

The toolbox includes materials for local government staff and community partners to embed racial equity in housing and planning agencies’ structures, policies, and practices.

​​The constant loss of affordable units to the speculative market is accelerating displacement and chipping away at the forever dwindling stock of affordable housing. The intensity of the crisis has led us to explore best practices in preservation strategies to stabilize housing and make it permanently affordable.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Policies and Programs Toolkit highlights 15 key strategies to support Bay Area jurisdictions in completing the crucial step of establishing fair housing goals, policies, and actions in their housing plans.

Seeding Climate Resilience through Equitable Investment presents case studies illustrating the impact of community-driven investment in climate resilience.

Over the last three years, our team has had the opportunity to work closely with over a dozen small non-profits that are expanding or transforming their organizational focus from direct service and advocacy to community investment and development institutions.

The Opportunity to Purchase Act Campaign Playbook outlines the essential building blocks for a successful OPA campaign and provides resources to help you run your campaign.

This report provides comprehensive research on how states are considering energy efficiency, health, and equity in affordable housing.

What is necessary to advance community power building and community development? We’ve found six thematic lessons emerging from our work in California.

What type of catalytic philanthropic investments are needed to make public resources flow to community organizations and projects? We interviewed nearly a dozen practitioners from across the state to answer this question.

Recentering power-building in community development practices.

Jairius Matthews, co-director of the Embers Project in Stockton, CA discusses what it takes to build truly community-centered development collaboratives.

Structured Funds 101 looks at a community investment tool practitioners use to advance large-scale development initiatives.