Sinai Grace Guild Community Development Corporation
When was it organized?
The nonprofit established in 1943. It was the guild of sinai grace Hospital. In 2015, the guild began a conversation with leaders of NW Detroit. After those conversations, the president of the guild and the hospital decided to rename and change the direction of the guild to connect residents in NW to what they needed for healthcare services. It was run by nurses centered around resident health needs. The leadership of the hospital brought on a new board and hired myself in 2017. Previous president of the guild is on the board so we’re still trying to provide health equity.
Who is completing this survey? Name and role with organization:
Executive Director, Eleanore Eveleth
Choose one category that best fits your organization:
Community Development Organization (not sponsored by a church or agency or company)
Does your organization have paid staff?
Yes
If yes, what is your FTE staff? Within that, what is full time and what is part time?
Contract staff — 2.5 FTE
What is the annual budget of your organization?
$300,000
Describe the streets or locations that define your organization’s overall focus area (north, south, east and/or west):
- 7 Mile — N
- Finkel — S
- Southfield Freeway — W
- Lodge — E
Describe in detail the work your organization does, within the role categories below, along with the specific geographic area in which the work is done. Refer to the definitions below of the community development roles we are inquiring about. Include any partner organizations you work with, and how the work is funded or otherwise resourced. Use extra pages if necessary. If your organization doesn’t do work in one or more of the role categories, just skip that portion of the survey.
Please describe the work your organization does in community development:
Convening/Facilitating: General Description
- We’re a new organization so before developing strategy we’ve been engaged in a process to do outreach with as many different stakeholders as we can.
- We have a neighborhood revitalization strategic framework process with a steering committee (25 people: government and TA agencies). They’ve come together four times for monthly meetings to guide the process we’re engaged in.
It’s helpful to understand that you have to have many different ways to engage — even just having workshops aren’t enough and we have a lot of one-one-ones.
- We’re on our 4th community wide design workshop. We have 100 participants.
We have task forces that focus on topical issues. - We conduct stakeholder interviews and one-on-one and small group surveys for research and data.
- The planning process is moving along with our own organizational board development. The board is taking this information in and developing strategy for the organization as we move forward. This process will be finished in March and we’ll have the intention and direction for what residents want.
- We have one early action project that has been identified — a program to help seniors age in place by lowering their cost through weatherization and tax foreclosure prevention. More than 25% of our residents are older residents. It was clear in our process that they wanted us to support existing residents. Older residents are the ones organizing these projects.
Convening/Facilitating: Partner Organizations
- Amandla CDC
- Joy Gem CDC
- Resurrection CDC
- Hartford Memorial Baptist Church
- Winship
- College Park
- Crary/St Mary’s
- Hubbell-Puritan
- Tri-pont
- Belmont
- Harmony Village
- Schultze
- DON
- PDD
- HRD
- Office of Sustainability
- Health Department
- DPD
- Detroit Water and Sewage Department
- Buildings, Safety, Engineering, Environmental
- Recreation
- Transportation
- Detroit Employment Solutions
- DLBA
- DEGC
- DCDC
- Lakeridge Village
- Live 6
- Grandmont Rosedale CDC
DFC
New Economy Initiative - MCR
- TechTown/SWOT City
- BUILD Institute
- Sierra Club
- Greening of Detroit
- ProsperUS
- DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital
- Wayne County Community College District
- Westminister Church of Detroit
- Phillip Randolph Vocational Tech Ctr
- Renaissance High School
- Foreign Langauge Immersion Program
- University YES Academy
- Detroit Achievement Academy
- Old Redford Academy
- Cornerstone Health and Tech High School
- Rutherford Elementary School
- David Ellis Academy East
- Schulze Elementary School
- Mumford High School
- Marygrove College
- Coleman A Young Elementary School
- Timothy Baptist Church
- Outer Drive Faith Lutheran Church
- Greenfield Peace Lutheran Church
Convening/Facilitating: Funders
- DMC Sinai Grace
- Enterprise Community Partners
Convening/Facilitating: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- There wasn’t a lot of communication between all the different community groups before our planning process.
- Our planning process allows for people to know what other projects are going on.
- Residents are really positive about the workshops and people have said that people haven’t asked us what we’ve thought about their neighborhoods.
Lessons:
- I’ve been part of these processes before. When people do community planning processes, residents feel that they’re just a check box. We’ve been really intentional about having residents design it with us. It’s more of a process of developing the ideas with them. This is what will be forming our organization and the direction of our organization.
- It’s helpful to understand that you have to have many different ways to engage — even just having workshops aren’t enough and we have a lot of one-one-ones.
- A balance between genuine engagement and planning and action is critical.
- People were ready to start projects. We need to strike a balance between projects that are informed by residents, but have implementation happen sooner rather than later.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: General Description
- We’re a new organization so before developing strategy we’ve been engaged in a process to do outreach with as many different stakeholders as we can.
- We have a neighborhood revitalization strategic framework process with a steering committee (25 people: government and TA agencies). They’ve come together four times for monthly meetings to guide the process we’re engaged in.
We’re really getting into implementation and we have to think about what the role of resident leaders are. I don’t want it to be here do the project and then staff ends up doing the work. We have more to develop around what this looks like.
- We’re on our 4th community wide design workshop. We have 100 participants.
We have task forces that focus on topical issues. - We conduct stakeholder interviews and one-on-one and small group surveys for research and data.
- I met with presidents of block clubs and tabled at block club meetings to engage with people that might not come to the workshop normally.
- There’s a strong word of mouth network in NW Detroit.
- We’re bringing in 3 staff people on Monday and their jobs are all focused around community engagement. One of the staff members tasks will be to reach out to different types of people/organizations — particularly schools.
- We have 12 board members and 8 of them are residents.
- The way we’re wrapping up the workshops is by having solutionary sessions to decide priorities and to see who’s doing what. This is about residents deciding and deciding who’s doing what.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Partner Organizations
- Will ask steering committee how they want to be listed
- Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Funders
- DMC Sinai Grace
- Enterprise Community Partners
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- I’ve been part of these processes before. When people do community planning processes, residents feel that they’re just a check box. We’ve been really intentional about having residents design it with us. It’s more of a process of developing the ideas with them. This is what will be forming our organization and the direction of our organization.
- It’s helpful to understand that you have to have many different ways to engage — even just having workshops aren’t enough and we have a lot of one-one-ones. A
balance between genuine engagement and planning and action is critical. - People were ready to start projects. We need to strike a balance between projects that are informed by residents, but have implementation happen sooner rather than later.
Lessons:
- We’re really getting into implementation and we have to think about what the role of resident leaders are. I don’t want it to be here do the project and then staff ends up doing the work. We have more to develop around what this looks like.
- The people that want to be involved are. We still have work to do, but there’s a good representation
Economic Development: General Description
- We don’t have property yet.
- All of the ideas listed as examples of economic development have come up in the plans. We’re unclear as to which we’ll focus on.
- We have the early action project around weatherization and helping seniors age in place and making it more affordable, convenient and healthy. This will be funded by Enterprise Community Partners. This work supports seniors directly but it’ll benefit everyone because we have walkability and safety components to the project.
Economic Development: Partner Organizations
- Enterprise Community Partners
- Residents
Economic Development: Funders
Enterprise Community Partners
Economic Development: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
We have identified a first action step/project focused on senior residents aging in place.
Lessons:
We don’t have lessons yet.
Resident Support: General Description
We don’t do this work currently.
Resident Support: Partner Organizations
None
Resident Support: Funders
None
Resident Support: Important Outcomes or Lessons
None
Community Planning and Advocacy: General Description
Community Planning:
- We’re a new organization so before developing strategy we’ve been engaged in a process to do outreach with as many different stakeholders as we can.
- We have a neighborhood revitalization strategic framework process with a steering committee (25 people: government and TA agencies). They’ve come together four times for monthly meetings to guide the process we’re engaged in.
People were ready to start projects. We need to strike a balance between projects that are informed by residents, but have implementation happen sooner rather than later.
- We’re on our 4th community wide design workshop. We have 100 participants.
We have task forces that focus on topical issues. - We conduct stakeholder interviews and one-on-one and small group surveys for research and data.
- The planning process is moving along with our own organizational board development. The board is taking this information in and developing strategy for the organization as we move forward. This process will be finished in March and we’ll have the intention and direction for what residents want.
- We have one early action project that has been identified — a program to help seniors age in place by lowering their cost through weatherization and tax foreclosure prevention. More than 25% of our residents are older residents. It was clear in our process that they wanted us to support existing residents. Older residents are the ones organizing these projects.
Advocacy:
We’ll be advocating. I think a big part of that is about the change of the community development ecosystem. CDCs in the past might have done a lot of the work that the city is doing or planning on doing so now we can be filling in gaps and advocating to make sure that things get done.
Community Planning and Advocacy: Partner Organizations
- Amandla CDC
- Joy Gem CDC
- Resurrection CDC
- Hartford Memorial Baptist Church
- Other area organizations
- Community Planning and Advocacy: Funders
- DMC Sinai Grace
- Enterprise Community Partners
Community Planning and Advocacy: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
We will have a strategic plan.
Lessons:
- I’ve been part of these processes before. When people do community planning processes, residents feel that they’re just a check box. We’ve been really intentional about having residents design it with us. It’s more of a process of developing the ideas with them. This is what will be forming our organization and the direction of our organization.
- It’s helpful to understand that you have to have many different ways to engage — even just having workshops aren’t enough and we have a lot of one-one-ones. A
balance between genuine engagement and planning and action is critical. - People were ready to start projects. We need to strike a balance between projects that are informed by residents, but have implementation happen sooner rather than later.
- The least frequent role carried out by the organization.
Convening/Facilitating: Frequency Rank
5
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Frequency Rank
5
Economic Development: Frequency Rank
2
Resident Support: Frequency Rank
2
Community Planning and Advocacy: Frequency Rank
5
Can you please point us to other organizations in Detroit — especially in your immediate neighborhood — that are doing community development work? (Organization name, contact name, email, phone)
- Winship Community Association — June Mack, 313–310-4489
- Peggy Noble — College Park, 313–212-7219
- Olivia Shakur Crary / St. Mary, 313–272-8574
This information is current as of 2/16/18