Local Initiatives Support Corporation

What is the LISC of Greater Kansas City

Community Development Leadership

Though the financial capital and technical assistance we provide continues to be important to our community, what LISC tries to do fundamentally is establish networks of relationships that will eventually lead to the transformation of neighborhoods. LISC is called upon to establish deep associations with the corporate, civic and public sectors from which it can gather the resources it needs to assist neighborhood clients.

Greater Kansas City LISC typically has the role of intermediary in projects, not necessarily being the lead voice for community issues, but usually playing a financial, advisory or advocacy role. However, at times, Greater Kansas City LISC will provide leadership on issues important to communities.

For example, in Kansas we convened the first Kansas Housing Conference to respond to the need for a central voice for housing programs in the state. Most recently, that conference, now in its fifth year, had 500 participants. We have also taken a leadership position for Vacant Properties in the Kansas City metropolitan area, holding a series of best-practice forums on how government agencies, residents and nonprofit groups can best deal with this growing issue in our community.

Institute for Comprehensive Community Development

The Institute for Comprehensive Community Development is a venture of Local Initiatives Support Corporation. It was established in 2010 to advance the field of comprehensive community development and the positive impact it has in urban and rural communities across the country. The Institute does this by:

Building the capacity of community development practitioners;

Providing on-site support and technical assistance to comprehensive community development initiatives in cities across the U.S.;

Applying lessons learned through research and performance evaluation to continually improve on-going comprehensive community development initiatives and to develop new initiatives;

Supporting the development of public policies which integrate government programs in order to effectively facilitate and support comprehensive community development;

Communicating broadly the best there is in practice and theory in the field of community development.

The Institute is a place where the community development field can take what it learns from practice and use it as a base from which to provide training, to promote research in comprehensive community development, and to investigate the public policies that would best advance this work locally and nationally. The Institute is the locus where practice and theory meet, and where experimentation and innovation – grounded in real-world experience – flourish. Visit the Institute’s website.