As conversations concerning neighborhood transformation, education reform, and public open space continue to be at the fore of the public agenda, it is critically important that all communities have access to the resources that will enable them to have some say in what happens in their own communities. The Community Design Collaborative plays a critical role in providing community-based nonprofits with such resources. The Community Design Collaborative of AIA Philadelphia (the Collaborative) is a volunteer-based design center that links design professionals to nonprofit organizations in order to provide pro bono, preliminary design assistance throughout greater Philadelphia. Created by a handful of volunteers in 1991, the Collaborative began as an initiative of AIA Philadelphia and became an independent 501(c)(3) in 1996.

Today, the Collaborative is a healthy organization with an engaged, active board, and a sizeable corps of volunteers that has leveraged considerable professional services with a modest financial budget and small staff. The Collaborative's services help to advance nonprofit projects, such as building renovation, affordable housing development, and streetscape improvements, to the next phase of design and development. The donated services ultimately help each organization to advance its mission and better serve its constituency. In so doing, volunteers offer community leaders the design tools to help them realize neighborhood revitalization goals.

The Collaborative employs a three-fold approach to advancing its mission:

-Provide nonprofit organizations access to pro bono predevelopment design services.

-Offer unique volunteer opportunities for design professionals to participate in advancing neighborhood revitalization goals.

-Promote best practices and raise awareness about the importance of community design and development.

Each year, the Collaborative:

-Provides (at least) 30 nonprofits with preliminary design services valued at up to $20,000 per project,

-Assists more than 100 nonprofits seeking preliminary design services, advice, or referrals,

-Places nearly 200 architects, landscape architects, preservationists, interior designers, urban planners, engineers, and cost estimators on projects, and

-Hosts programs and events that bring together over 1,000 people from the design, community development and nonprofit fields.

Over its sixteen year history, the Collaborative has completed nearly 475 projects for area nonprofits and coordinated the pro bono services of 900 design professionals.

Sustainability Essentials: Environmental Quality, Social Equity, Economic Feasibility - The mission of the Collaborative is inherently a sustainable one. The Collaborative recognizes that design is a value to our communities and to our citizens, regardless of income level. The Collaborative's core design services aim to improve our environment one neighborhood, or one nonprofit, at a time. In delivering its services, the Collaborative pursues a portfolio of projects that hold the greatest potential to leverage resources, attention, and action, and that are consistent with community revitalization plans and efforts.

The Collaborative is also catalyst for civic engagement among design professionals and community design advocates. The Collaborative takes a deliberate approach to connecting Philadelphia's architecture, engineering and construction industry to opportunities for voluntary service to the nonprofit sector. Throughout its efforts the Collaborative tailors volunteer opportunities, recognizing that people at different stages -students, interns, staff architects, principals,Aeiin their careers may prefer different volunteer experiences. Ultimately, by promoting greater engagement by design professionals in the nonprofit community the Collaborative is also helping to promote greater awareness of community design and its impact on the city as a whole.

Innovation - New to Region, New to Industry/Practice - The Collaborative is one of very few community design centers in the country not affiliated with a university or school of architecture. The Collaborative is unique in connecting directly to a body of design professionals and providing them with a vehicle to use their skills to serve their communities.

Positive Impact (Lasting, Deep, Measurable) - The Collaborative engages in projects throughout the city of Philadelphia and the region. In addition to project-based, client initiated work, the Collaborative is currently engaged in a broader special initiative. Infill Philadelphia is a five-year initiative created by the Collaborative to promote workable solutions for revitalizing urban neighborhoods through innovative design. Infill development -the reuse and repositioning of underutilized buildings and sites - is an essential part of renewing neighborhoods and knitting them back together. Infill Philadelphia will be implemented in three phases, each focusing on a different type of infill development, such as commercial corridor revitalization, neighborhood anchors and transit-oriented development. Each phase will feature site-specific design projects; opportunities for public dialogue; and participation by community-based organizations, design firms, and local and national experts.

Additional Sustainability Elements - Partnerships - The Collaborative is true to its name and works closely with a host of organizations to provide design services and advocacy. These organizations include the nonprofits that receive direct design services; local and national intermediaries, such as Philadelphia LISC, Partners for Sacred Places and the Office of Housing and Community Development, that help the Collaborative to target its work in specific clusters; professional organizations, such as AIA Philadelphia, the Design Advocacy Group, Association for Community Design, National Trust Forum, and the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations, that serve as members of the Collaborative's referral and advocacy network; and the many design professionals and firms that serve as the heart of the volunteer corps.

Additional Sustainability Elements - Can Be Replicated - The success of the Collaborative has drawn interest from groups in several cities looking to create similar organizations. The Collaborative has also been, in part, a model for a new national web-based database encouraging connections between design firms and nonprofit organizations.

In 2006, the Collaborative completed projects with 46 nonprofit organizations, initiated 44 new service grants, engaged the services of 25 design firms and another 60 individual design professionals, and facilitated more than $550,000 in pro bono preliminary design services to community-based nonprofit organizations throughout greater Philadelphia.

Three recent Collaborative projects specifically embrace not only the community and social aspects of sustainability, but explicitly explore environmental responsibility within the challenges of an urban environment. Please see the attached file: Three Project Profiles.pdf.