Starting a community land trust from scratch can be a daunting process. With so many decisions to make, it can be challenging to navigate the best way to move forward. Use this roadmap to help chart a course for advancing from idea to implementation.
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Key take-aways:
- Does your community have a shared vision of the change you want to see?
- Have you decided who your community land trust will serve and how?
- Have you decided on an organizational and governance structure for your community land trust?
- Do you have an execution plan for the next 12 months? 5 years?
- Have you determined what kind of resources you will need for execution?
- Have you laid the groundwork for your first project?
Below are important questions and activities that will guide your way, with tools and resources to help you create a successful and sustainable community land trust.
1. Does your community have a shared vision for the change you want to see?
A community vision is a shared image of how your community will look in the future. The often time-consuming process of crafting this image is not just about informing community residents of what is being proposed in the neighborhood; it is the process of gathering ideas, refining them and ultimately having the community decide what is best for itself. Your shared vision will provide a solid foundation for your community land trust initiative and will lay the foundation for strong support from City government, funders, and other partners because the community land trust (CLT) and the community will be speaking with one voice.
2. Have you decided who your CLT will serve and how?
Determining who you want to serve and how is the critical next step in your CLT’s development. Your decisions will be informed by the discussions you had with the community in the first step along this roadmap and now it’s time to dive deeper into the details. It is important to know that some of the decisions you make now will change as your community and CLT evolve. The tools below will help you talk through some of the most common CLT options.
3. Have you decided on an organizational and governance structure for your CLT?
Now that you have spoken to your community, formed a shared vision and started to think about who your CLT will serve and how you can now start to dig into the nuts and bolts of starting your initiative. There are a lot of different ways that you can structure your new CLT. From creating a program within an existing organization to starting a new nonprofit organization you have a lot of options to consider. Unfortunately (or fortunately, CLTs are not a “one size fits all” kind of organization and so these resources will help you decide on the best way to structure your CLT. Do note, that as you learn more, you may decide to amend and revise the decisions that you had previously made. Don’t worry—this is to be expected!
4. Do you have an execution plan for the next 12 months? 5 years?
By this point in the process, you have had a lot of conversations and have made quite a few decisions when it comes to your new CLT. Now is the time to create a business plan that will take all of those decisions your group has made and package them in a form that supporters, funds, lenders, and others will understand. Most groups that embark on a business planning process work with a consultant or expert to help facilitate the process and to bring an outsider’s perspective. We encourage you to use the tools and examples as a starting place and to reach out to a staff person on our Capacity Building team for more information and support.
5. Have you determined what kind of resources you will need for execution?
Now that you have your written business plan, it is time to put numbers to all of those great ideas. These tools will help you create an organizational budget for your start-up CLT and a development budget for your proposed first project. An organizationalbudget is a plan or forecast of outgoing expenses and incoming revenues for a specific time period. A development budget is a plan or forecast of the resources needed through loans (financing), grants (funding) and how those funds will be expended to create affordable housing. And remember, while financial resources are always helpful, you will need community, political and other types of non-monetary support as well.
6. Have you laid the groundwork for your first project?
After completing all of the steps above, you’ve successfully developed your CLT organization. Now, you need to focus on building out your program which includes critical decisions like customizing your ground lease, selecting a resale formula and recruiting lenders to provide mortgage financing to your future homebuyers (if appropriate). While this section focuses on homeownership, many CLTs have projects that include a rental urban agriculture or other non-residential programs.
