Brief #1: Community Economic Development Organizations and Their Activities

Community Economic Development Organizations and Their Activities is the first issue brief in the Money Meet Communities Series. It identifies the types of nonprofit organizations that make up the community economic development (CED) sector and seeks to answer three research questions.

• Which kinds of nonprofit agencies make up the community economic development sector? 
  
  
• What kinds of activities do CED groups carry out? 
  
  
• Do different kinds of agencies carry out different types of activities?

Community economic development organizations invest large amounts of government and philanthropic dollars into projects and programs to advance the well-being of low-income communities and the people who live there.

This brief finds that:

Many different types of organizations pursue community economic development (CED), including social services agencies, real estate developers, residential property managers, lenders, and planning, and organizing groups.

To respond to the diverse needs of the areas they serve, most CED groups pursue multiple activities simultaneously.

No matter what type of activity CED groups carry out as their primary line of work, nearly 80 percent of groups provide social services to low-income people.

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