Connecticut Community Development Institute
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 most recent course of the
Institute has been “Business Planning for Growth”. The purpose of this four month training
programswas to increase the capacity of our state’s Community Development
Corporations and other nonprofit housing corporations. By thinking through the details of the
markets, demands, resources and programs needed for successful community
revitalization and housing production, groups can translate a strategic plan
into a working document that produces direct results and results that can be
measured.
Eight experienced
Connecticut nonprofit organizations were
recently selected to participate in a rigorous training for Business Plans. Each executive director attended eight
full days of class room training over a five-month period, and had the
consultant(s) come for field visits at each site four times. All eight groups produced a written
Business Plan, showing their goals and strategies for the next five years of
housing work. In some cases, the
groups chose to create an overall plan which integrated all the housing programs
within their organization. In
others, they chose to plan for a new program initiative. In all cases, they produced a high
quality Business Plan which culminated in power point presentations to each
other and interested board members, funders and business plan supporters at a
graduation ceremony in September.