Melvin L. Oliver Dean, Division of Social Sciences Professor of Sociology

1. Reflections: Helping to Build the Ford Foundation Asset Building and Community Development Program Melvin L. Oliver Dean, Division of Social Sciences Professor of Sociology University of California, Santa Barbara Asset Building: The Perspective of People of Color Tuskegee University October 3, 2005

3. Becoming VP at Ford • Long time Grantee • Urban Poverty • UCLA Center for the Study of Urban Poverty • Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality • Leadership Change at Ford • Franklin Thomas to Susan Berresford • Opportunity for Change

4. New Reorganization • From 7 programs to 3 • Peace and Social Justice • Education, Media, Arts and Culture • Communities, Families, and Livelihoods • Worldwide Responsibility • Focus on Learning from Grantmaking

5. My Charge • Take what was formerly 4 programs and provide coherence, choose the right leadership, and develop a creative and responsive program • Urban Poverty • Rural and Resource Development • Sexuality and Reproductive Health • Program Related Investment

7. Asset Building and Community Development Program 1996- • The assets program invests in individuals and organizations worldwide that build financial, human, social, and natural resource assets in ways that reduce or prevent poverty, and invests in developing the fields that support the work of asset-building organizations.

8. 1997 Spending (Millions $)

9. Moving a Big Institution like Ford has Consequences • Instantly made asset building a legitimate strategy for poverty reduction • Caused a rethinking of traditional approaches that were service oriented as opposed to “mobility” oriented • Ownership versus rental housing • Challenged asset limits • Focused on institutional constraints for the poor to accumulate assets

10. Costs to Moving an Institution • Time Intensive • Sexuality and Reproductive Health • What is an asset?

11. Assets Targeted Financial Human/Personal Social Natural Resources

12. Financial Assets Savings Investments Home ownership Business ownership Jobs

13. Human/Personal Assets Health Knowledge Skills Faith

14. Social Assets Families Cultural Capital (Trust) Intergenerational relationships Community leadership Philanthropic capital

15. Natural Resources Assets Land Water Forests Wildlife Livestock

16. Costs to Moving an Institution • Time Intensive • Sexuality and Reproductive Health • What is an asset? • Work is invisible outside of the institution • Politically you don’t want to expose institutional dirty laundry • Took me out of the public debates

17. Did I accomplish what I wanted to do? • Yes and No! • Contributed to legitimizing asset building as a poverty reduction strategy • Not only in the US but worldwide • Supported asset building policy that has had a national impact • IDA’s • Children’s Development Accounts • Secondary Mortgage Markets • Contributed to scholarly work to understand the sources and consequences of assets • The racial asset gap • Do assets make a difference

18. Some of the unfinished business? • Making asset-building the new civil rights agenda of the 21st Century • Engaging communities of color • Broadening the debate on Asset Building policy to include middle and upper class asset building policies • Controlling the debate so that it is not hijacked by the likes of the “ownership society” proponents

19. What I learned being a Senior Officer of a Major Foundation? • Major institutions (e.g., large national Foundations) are limited in what they can do for “communities of color” • Ford does a great job, but they will never be the savior of our communities • Institutions think about their institutional viability in a larger context and the larger context will always win out • This is why it is important to have staff and leadership in these institutions from communities of color