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Our Principles: Fund for an OPEN Society (OPEN) brings a wealth of proven expertise and resources to creating and sustaining thriving, integrated communities. Our approach is comprehensive, working in every area from economic development to inter-group relations. We know that creating an inclusive community takes time, and requires leadership and commitment over many years. We are prepared to equip community leaders for what it takes to be in this work for the long haul, and to achieve success. As we work with communities, we seek progress on two goals: 1) to foster a unitary housing market, where people of more than one race are competing together for available housing, and 2) to encourage changes to the political and civic power structures to represent the racial and ethnic composition of the community.
We help community leaders by: · Gauging a community's racial and ethnic composition, and how it is changing; · Assessing a community's assets and creating a plan to market your community to potential residents; · Creating organizations and structures to enable an intentional initiative to be successful; · Working with community leaders and citizens to ensure broad-based buy-in for inclusion; · Galvanizing support from key constituencies such as business owners, realtors, organizational leaders and the faith community; · Assisting with step-by-step program implantation; · Linking community leaders with resources and information, and · Assessing the results.
Demonstrable Results - A Case Study: Since 1996, OPEN has worked with South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey on an intentional effort to create a stable, integrated community. Maplewood and South Orange are middle-class suburbs of Newark, NJ, with a combined population of 40,000 and a single, shared school district.
They have committed themselves to a comprehensive, long-term initiative which seeks to ensure that they will remain communities of choice for people of all races and ethnicities looking for an ideal place to live, work and raise a family in northern New Jersey.
Their efforts have included: · Founding a new not-for-profit organization, the South Orange / Maplewood Community Coalition on Race, to promote the communities; · Broad-based outreach to community and block groups, faith communities, and others to garner public support, recruit volunteers, and create avenues for communication; · Creating a focused external marketing effort which assures robust demand for housing; · Promoting greater community involvement with the public schools, along with frank community conversations on the challenges schools that diverse communities face due to the test score achievement gap; · Working with fair housing organizations to monitor Realtor behavior.
These efforts have yielded positive results which prove the value of this work: · Housing values in South Orange and Maplewood have risen higher in proportion to any of the segregated (white or African American) communities which surround them; · Money Magazine named Maplewood as one of the Top 10 communities in the United States, specifically citing its diversity; · South Orange and Maplewood have developed a reputation in the metro New York region as exciting, cosmopolitan places to live; · The South Orange / Maplewood Community Coalition on Race has several hundred volunteers who can be counted upon to promote this effort, and undertake projects in support of it.
Visit the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race Website
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Fund for an OPEN Society |
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because separate can never be equal. |
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OPEN’s Pro-integrative Consulting |
How We Work |
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Contact Us
Email: open@opensoc.org NJ Office: 973.821.4198 PA Office: 215.546.0511 |
