Mapping Out the Road to Success: King’s Dream Enhances Community Development with LISC Houston’s Community Compass Initiative!
Updated: Aug 14
King’s Dream has recently partnered with LISC Houston to serve as a consultant for their Community Compass Initiative. Through this program, community-based organizations can work together with a consultant to develop a personalized map demonstrating the need for their services in the local area.
Many Houston residents live in underserved communities and may struggle with economic instability, limited access to quality education, inadequate housing, and underemployment. Even the organizations created to help alleviate these pressures have limited access to the resources needed to uplift their communities. This is where King’s Dream Business Consulting comes in, providing expert consulting services to help these organizations maximize their impact and better serve their communities.
LISC Houston is a local office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the nation’s largest community development support organization. The group provides capital, technical expertise, and training to help develop community leaders. Additionally, LISC invests in programs that create and grow affordable housing, local community centers, and businesses that create new jobs.
In 2023, LISC Houston continued its work in place-based community development by disbursing $400,000 in grants to three neighborhood communities. They also distributed $67,000 in small grants to support 14 projects across six neighborhoods in Greater Houston and worked with LISC National, the NFL Foundation, and the Houston Texans to provide clean, safe, and accessible football fields in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
But perhaps LISC Houston’s most ambitious project came in the form of Community Compass, where community-based organizations had the opportunity to apply for in-kind support of a consultant—provided by LISC—to work one-on-one with them to develop a unique map of the areas they serve. These maps can show everything from demographic information to economic indicators to local resources, visually representing the community and its assets. You can take a look at several of the completed maps here.
For the remainder of 2024, LISC Houston will continue to prioritize strategic partnerships with community leaders, government officials, and private and community-based organizations to promote sustainable development methods. This includes working to include equitable green initiatives and community-led safety strategies. LISC Houston also plans to dig deeper into the relationship between social determinants of health (SDoH) and community development.
Both King’s Dream and LISC understand how deeply SDoH can shape the overall well-being of residents. We look forward to partnering with additional entities to further address and resolve the continued disparities in underserved communities across Houston.
Learn more about LISC Houston and all of its 2024 initiatives here.
About King's Dream Business Consulting: Founded in 2019, King's Dream Business Consulting is a small business consulting and management firm established initially in response to Seattle's gentrification and displacement of its minority business communities. To Date, King's Dream has served over 200 small businesses nationwide. King's Dream Business Consulting is a leading provider of business advisory services, offering strategic planning, marketing strategies, financial management, operational efficiency, and human resources consulting. Committed to the success of small businesses, King's Dream Business Consulting provides tailored guidance and support to drive sustainable growth.
Samaria Johnson writes many things, hopefully, none of which you consider boring. She loves taking complex information and breaking it down into engaging understandable content. Samaria’s goal is to only use her words to help make the world a better place.
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