Ideas

Amplify Your Local Impact: Lessons Learned from the 2025 People and Places Conference

In October, I joined community development practitioners, organizers, and advocates at the annual People and Places Conference in Washington, D.C. This gathering advances inclusive housing and economic development best practices, local insights, and fresh ideas. Session panels showcased innovative strategies and expert insights on how to build stronger and more resilient communities.

This year’s conference centered on positive changemaking, with sessions exploring how we can drive local impact by “raising our voices,” “elevating innovative solutions,” and “bridging political divides.” Many of us are still reeling from recent political and funding shifts that have disrupted longstanding community development institutions and practices. But the 2025 People and Places Conference reminded me: we can still amplify our local impact — even during uncertainty — by building new partnerships rooted in shared needs like housing, job growth, and economic development.

Think Globally, Aim Locally

An underlying theme was the importance of thinking globally while acting locally. Community development often centers on place-specific strategies, and we must now apply evidence-based practices to our unique contexts in new and innovative ways. Many former federal funding streams have shifted or disappeared, leaving a gap in support for proven community-building outcomes — such as access to a range of safe and affordable housing options, strong public schools, family-sustaining jobs, small business growth, and clean local environments.

To fill that gap, we must explore and test new ways to fund, scale, and spread strategies that support these outcomes. Local governments, regional foundations, mission-aligned funders, and local business leaders may become key partners. This theme is something we at Community Science continue to assist our partners with, since our work often leads us to identifying compelling case studies and conducting tailored research to support local adaptations of community development strategies — bringing a global lens to local strategies.

Bridge New, Sometimes Unexpected, Partnerships

A standout takeaway: in this divided climate, we must bridge differences and build relationships — even with those we might disagree with politically. Drawing on political scientist Robert Putnam’s concept of “bridging,” we explored how to build coalitions across social and ideological lines. When different groups unite around shared goals to build and expand their sense of community (McMillan and Chavis, 1986; also visit www.senseofcommunity.com), real collaboration becomes possible.

In practice, that could mean convening resident leaders, local business owners, and researchers with perceived differences but aligned visions to co-create an economic development strategy. It could also mean reaching across the aisle and initiating conversations based on mutual interests like community stability, job creation, or affordable housing.

“Bridging” doesn’t mean abandoning your values — it means building civic dialogue around common ground and getting to know one another by working toward a shared goal. Try reaching out to a local leader who you believe has a different perspective from you by saying, “I know you care about building a thriving community. So do I. How can we work together?”

Community Science can support this type of bridging through facilitated dialogues and structured problem-solving across different groups and sectors. In the past, we have successfully brought adults and young people together to address education issues, helped align local developers and city officials around a community’s housing needs, and convened recent immigrant newcomers and long-term residents to come up with shared visions for improving their neighborhoods.

Reshape Your Narratives and Avoid “Association Traps”

Messaging matters. If we want to expand local impact and form new alliances, we must rethink how we frame our issues. A major insight from the conference was avoiding “association traps” — those default narratives that play into opponents’ framings.

Take homelessness, for example. Opponents often link homelessness to crime, creating a harmful narrative that is not evidence-based. Even when we refute the link (e.g., “homelessness doesn’t cause crime”), we’re still reinforcing the false association.

Instead, we need proactive, clear messaging like “housing solves homelessness” — a solution-focused narrative that shifts attention to systems, not stigma. Similarly, repositioning affordable housing as an economic development tool — boosting the tax base, meeting developer incentives, or supporting workforce housing — can help engage business-minded stakeholders.

Recently, we helped the City of Rutland, Vermont apply this very strategy through HUD’s Distressed Cities Technical Assistance (DCTA) program. Reframing matters, and we can help shape a narrative that invites investment, rather than opposition.

Find Your Data

Narratives can open doors, but data drives decisions. To ground your story in your community, you need the right data. Want to push for “middle housing” (i.e., housing options between single-family homes and large apartment complexes such as duplexes, accessory dwelling units, and townhouses)? Start with evidence: What housing types dominate your local market? What do your residents say they need?

Qualitative data — interviews, focus groups, site visits — can reveal on-the-ground insights. Quantitative sources like the U.S. Census Bureau or platforms like Redfin or Zillow offer population-level trends. But your data must have both “fit” (relevant to your geography, timeframe, and audience) and “function” (aligned with your key message).

At Community Science, we help you find data that has both — creating evidence-based foundations for planning, coalition building, and shared decision making.

Get Creative

Even with diminished federal support, practitioners are innovating with existing tools. Conference sessions highlighted several:
– New Market Tax Credits to attract private investment in distressed areas;
– Community land banks to manage development in gentrifying neighborhoods;
– Down payment assistance through local HFAs to support first-time homebuyers; and
– HUD’s Distressed Cities Technical Assistance for custom technical support.

There are more tools available than many realize — and we can help you assess which might work for your local strategy.

Ask for Help When You Need It

The biggest lesson? We can’t do this alone. Bridging new partnerships does not mean abandoning long-standing allies. Whether you need help shaping a narrative, building a coalition, conducting local research, or identifying creative tools, Community Science is here to help.

We’re problem-solvers and facilitators, walking alongside you to develop solutions that truly fit your community’s context and needs. In times of change, don’t hesitate to reach out.

In this field, we know one thing for certain: it takes a village to build a thriving community.

Reference

McMillan, D. & Chavis, D. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. American Journal of Community Psychology 14 (1), 6-23.