Community Ownership is…

Communities of Opportunity (COO) is committed to ensuring that residents are its primary drivers. Residents understand what it requires to identify and address problems and they can do this with continued collaboration of government and community based organizations. COO creates pathways for dialogue and engagement that moves ideas into action. Community Ownership of COO means that residents deepen their leadership roles, strengthen their participation, and commit to on-going success and accountability. Community Ownership means community commitment.

What does Community Ownership look like?

The Community directs and implements efforts – Community stakeholders come together to facilitate change. These stakeholders are invested in ensuring that COO addresses key issues that can lead to growth in the areas that make communities vibrant. Collective voice identifies implementation strategies and collective accountability makes sure those strategies work. Residents engage in implementation that leads to community growth and sustainment.

Driven by a resident led Implementation Committee – a group of peers, residents and leaders from the systems (social, non-profit, etc.) and organizations that support COO’s community development efforts, embrace the idea that residents can craft their own future, and understand that to move change forward, we must collaborate. They set the agenda and put it into action.

A community owned COO is a mechanism that can cultivate a middle-class community in San Francisco. In the past ten years, middle class families have left the City in steadily increasing numbers. This outward migration compromises the City’s ability to maintain the economic and ethnic diversity that make San Francisco a world class city. COO has the ability to work with residents struggling to sustain themselves and move them up economic ladders. Community Ownership means that residents become the drivers of this economic transformation at both the family and community level.

In order for Community Ownership to work, COO needs you to become a part of the change. Just because you don’t live in Bayview Hunters Point or Visitacion Valley does not mean their issues don’t affect you or that you can’t help make change.

CONNECT.    ENGAGE.    PLUG-IN.

Click here to see video on how residents are claiming their COO and committing to insuring that Communities of Opportunity continues to work for them...