Community Power - Creating an Equitable Development Scorecard

Engaging Communities to Create an Equitable Development Scorecard

Virginia Community Voice offers leaders a simple framework to engage community members around creating an Equitable Development Scorecard in conjunction with their neighbors. As new developments come to Richmond, the risk of gentrification and displacement of our historically marginalized neighbors increases. Furthermore, it always feels like communities are the last to know about, or have a say in, these new developments. There is a better path forward.

Enter the Equitable Development Scorecard, a community-led approach to hold developers and the city accountable to neighbors' priorities for their natural and built environments. In this two-hour training, VACV will share how we used our Community Voice Process to engage with neighbors to create the scorecard, provide examples of development categories to be scored, and provide strategies on how to bring neighbors together so the community can build its own Scorecard. Participants will also work through how to equitably make decisions, and engage people of color and other marginalized groups.

• Learn about the four stages of the Community Voice model of engagement: Listen, Connect, Craft, and Reflect
• Reflect on your own experiences making decisions about and engaging people in historically marginalized communities
• Understand what an Equitable Development Scorecard is and how it can be used to amplify the voices, wants, and needs of community members while working with non- and for-profit developers
• Learn strategies for organizing community members and their wants and needs into a usable scorecard