Capacity Building
In addition to providing
financing, LISC offers extensive technical assistance and training to CDCs. The
goals of this assistance include:
- improving community development project output;
- creating long-term sustainability of community development projects; and,
- strengthening community development organizations.
LISC provides technical assistance to CDCs on each project to guide them through the pre-development, development and management phases of projects including: financing, site acquisition, permitting, construction and asset management. This project-based assistance improves the CDC's ability to successfully complete the project and manage assets for the long-term benefit of the community. LISC also assists CDCs in defining development strategies that encompass multiple projects in a neighborhood.
LISC provides training through the Connecticut Community Development
Institute, a partnership among LISC, the Connecticut Housing Coalition and
the Connecticut Housing Investment Fund. Over the past three years, LISC has
offered CDCs training in a variety of housing and community development topics
including: housing finance, site assembly, managing partnerships, neighborhood
revitalization, multi-family development homeownership development, strategic
planning and business planning. These courses have reached over 100 participants
from 40 different organizations.
The Hartford LISC program also works
closely with the Hartford Neighborhood Development Support Collaborative to
design organizational training for CDCs and to insure on-going dissemination of
national community development information. In addition to acting as the
administrative agent for the Collaborative, LISC also shares extensive technical
information to assist the organizational development work of the
Collaborative.