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ImpactPHL Perspectives is a multi-part content series that explores the many facets of the impact economy in Greater Philadelphia from the perspectives of its doers, movers, shakers, and agents of change. Each volume is written directly by a leader in this space, to discuss best practices and share lessons learned while challenging our assumptions about financial and impact returns. For more thought leadership like this, check out the full catalog of ImpactPHL Perspectives.

Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director, Kensington Corridor Trust

People have referred to communities and neighborhoods interchangeably for as long as I can remember. Having worked in community engagement for almost 15 years, I couldn’t tell you a time when the words weren’t used synonymously without question. It wasn’t until my first conversation with Joseph Margulies, Professor of Law and Government at Cornell University, that someone clearly distinguished the critical differences between these words. When we take a place-based approach to our work, we focus on a specific area, a geographic location. In the case of the Kensington Corridor Trust, it's a very specific neighborhood. That neighborhood is made up of many people: residents, business owners, employees, commuters, worshippers, unhoused folks, and more. Those are communities.

Communities are people. Neighborhoods are places.

Place-based redevelopment efforts have spurred significant investment into neighborhoods like Kensington. It is often difficult to understand or see where/when the communities in those neighborhoods have a say. A say in what investments are made. A say in how and with whom those investments are made. Matching dollars with the needs and desires of the communities most impacted by the investments.

Sure, we can all point to community engagement and outreach. We can talk about the interviews and surveys we’ve done. We’ll reference the report we put together that culminated the themes that emerged from those conversations. Then what? Does it stop there? Do we make decisions for an entire neighborhood without their communities having a seat at the power table? These questions are what moved the Kensington Corridor Trust to ideate about a different form of governance, one where we are led by the communities that make up this neighborhood and where we collectively steward assets for their benefit.

Building a Power Table

“Place-based redevelopment efforts have spurred significant investment into neighborhoods like Kensington. It is often difficult to understand or see where/when the communities in those neighborhoods have a say.“

Formed as a nonprofit, the Kensington Corridor Trust, required a board of directors like all other nonprofits. It was initially composed of representatives from the founding partners, Impact Services, IF Lab, Shift Capital, and PIDC, which was not uncommon or unique. They worked together to secure the first grant from The Barra Foundation and the first investment from the Patricia Kind Family Foundation for the organization. Hiring its first executive director, me, and acquiring the first two buildings to enter the trust. Within a year, it became clear that critical voices were missing from that power table. The resident and small business owner communities were not sufficiently represented, and it felt like decisions were being made in a vacuum based on the ideas of issue area experts and not those of the communities of Kensington.

After some tough conversations about power, privilege, education, and more, the founding board members voted to cede their power and roll off the governing structure in favor of developing a new governing body. We began a yearlong journey, with two phases, to transition from traditional governance led by institutions and issue area experts to a board with residents and small business owners that had lived experience and deep connections in the neighborhood. One where the residents and small business owners led the board and were on the ground daily to receive and share information with communities in the neighborhood.

Investing in People

The social impact community in Philadelphia is small when considering the city's size and population. They are issuing debt and making equity investments into projects and ideas that could lead to real change in a sector through innovation. There will be a social impact that underlines the financial investments made. The deals are still reviewed for the “dollars and cents.” There must be sufficient returns to make the work possible and repay the investment. In this equation we are missing investment in people. The project gets the dollars but building internal capacity is not often included in these investments and frankly don’t offer the direct (although I could make arguments all day about the indirect returns they produce) financial returns required to repay the debt.

When we shared with our funders and investors that we would be transitioning our board to be led by the communities in Kensington, we were met with excitement. Two Philadelphia-based partners, The Barra Foundation and Spring Point Partners immediately resourced us with grant dollars to invest in our governance transition and our people. They were soon joined by the John S. And James L. Knight Foundation, which supported the development of a second governing body for the other half of our legal structure, a perpetual purpose trust.

These three partners saw, without much pleading on my end, thankfully, that we needed to invest in people. In the team, both the board and staff. It came down to something so simple. They all asked me the same question. “What do you need?” Then instead of convincing me that I needed something else or that we weren’t prepared to transition governance, they just cut checks. They invested in people.

As a result, our board and staff have consultants and dollars at their disposal for training and ongoing learning. They are proud to be a part of this work, they show up, they support my staff and I, and they bring others along. They know the people that make up this neighborhood. They are changemakers and stewards for a brighter collective future in this neighborhood.

Then in Places

We are applying our learnings from investing in people to how we invest in the physical space. The built environment so heavily impacts the daily lived experience of the communities of Kensington, and we want to ensure that our work is responsive to their needs and desires. For over a year, we have stewarded a pollinator garden that is open for community events, and has seen abundant usage. In that space, we’ve layered in some important things that we’ve heard, like youth engagement opportunities, public art, and preservation of culture and history.

“Advancing collective ownership and wealth building requires all of us to move past traditional and historic thinking.“

When we began acquisitions a few years ago, it became clear that density and proximity would be critical to our leasing strategy. With vacancy as high as 50% on some blocks on Kensington Avenue, we wanted to have a visible impact in our redevelopment efforts. Ensuring our spaces were close to each other would also allow us to connect new small business owners together. There’s an existing small business community that has persisted and from which we have learned so much. It’s also imperative that we connect new businesses with established businesses to support the cultivation of those relationships.

Nothing about our work follows the status quo process of redevelopment, from acquisition to leasing. Attracting small businesses to lease on Kensington Avenue has again reminded us to invest in people. We acknowledge that our leasing process is unlike most. We do community engagement to ensure folks don’t have concerns about the business type, and we work closely with the business owner to overcome barriers to their success. We provide fit-out support, connect them with technical assistance, and capital providers when needed.

We are building a neighborhood trust model that can preserve both localized control and long-term affordability. This requires continual investments into the Kensington Corridor Trust. It will take millions of dollars to get this work to scale. We need blended capital, both grants and debt, to move this work forward. Currently, we have almost $6 million secured and pledged towards our $20 million investment goal.

Advancing collective ownership and wealth building requires all of us to move past traditional and historic thinking. Kensington Corridor Trust is among a handful of alternative ownership projects that have cropped up across the nation in the last five years. We are not an anomaly but we are also not commonplace. We need more people to step up and help advance these initiatives with their time, networks, and resources.

Property by property, we are leading a movement towards a future where neighborhoods have control. We recently conducted community engagement around our first new construction project. It’s a small project on the only vacant lot on its side of the block, but as one resident described it, “it’s the last missing tooth in the smile.”

The Kensington Corridor Trust fosters the equitable economic revitalization of a commercial corridor and its surrounding neighborhood through local partnerships, strategic programming, and an innovative approach to moving real estate assets out of the speculative private market. It does this by utilizing collective ownership to direct investments focused on the corridor that preserve culture and affordability while building neighborhood power and wealth in Kensington. The Kensington Corridor Trust leverages a long-term trust vehicle to de-commodify real estate assets and transition them to neighborhood control. This pioneering model of neighborhood ownership, governance, and local economic development has the potential to keep control within the neighborhood and ensure long-term affordability.

Adriana Abizadeh is the executive director of the Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT) in Philadelphia. With deep interests in public policy Adriana has taken every opportunity to utilize her privileged position as a nonprofit leader in order to speak out for what she believes in and to lift the voices of impacted community members. Adriana has a BA from Rutgers University in Political Science with a minor in Security Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism. She also has an MS in Public Policy from Drexel University.