Cashin Community Development Fellowship
LISC NY offer the annual Cashin Community Development Fellowship to expose young people of color to the field of community development while providing talent to our community based partners.
Established in 2007 through the generous donation of LISC Board member Lisa Cashin, the program places students in a full-time, 8 week, paid summer internship with community based organizations across New York City and at LISC. Students are alumni of Prep for Prep, a leadership development program that places New York City students of color at leading independent schools across the northeast. The Cashin Fellowship is designed to cultivate future generations of community development leaders by providing a paid professional experience that introduces fellows to community development, and gives them the skills they need as emerging leaders in the field.
Every summer, the program provides fellows with a comprehensive introduction to community development. Fellows gain first-hand experience working at LISC or our community partners, supporting projects in the areas of affordable housing preservation, economic development, financial empowerment, food justice, and resident engagement. Fellows develop skills as emerging professional leaders by facilitating events on community development industry. The program includes a professional development workshop, a tour of a NYC neighborhood, and mentorship.
In 2021, Cashin Fellows were placed at ten different community-based partners and two LISC offices to provide capacity building support to organizations doing much-needed recovery work in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read this wrap up for highlights from the Final Presentation of our 2021 Cashin Fellows.
On July 8, 2021, LISC NY held the Mid-Summer Workshop, a professional development event for Cashin Fellows to gain insights on career paths in community development, and expand their professional development skills. In this blog post, Cashin Fellows reflect on how the event expanded their ideas about the field and on the importance of professional development.