Center for Community Change

Center for Community Change (CCC), established in 1968, became a national leader in community economic development, working with a range of low-income, racially diverse neighborhood development groups across the country. In its early years, the Center was supported by only the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Ford Foundation, and the RBF, but eventually built a broad base of funding. The RBF made grants to CCC through the Fund’s Southern program beginning in 1972, providing technical assistance to agricultural development groups in the U.S. South. In 1975, it began contributing to the Center’s core operating costs through the RBF Equal Rights and Opportunities program. Other projects included the RBF-initiated Task Force on Southern Rural Development, which worked on public policy; a collaborative effort to open the doors of the federal Farm Credit Administration to minority farmers; a land bank planning initiative; and funding for CCC to administrate the new National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. The RBF began phasing out its national program in 1979, but it supported CCC well into the 1980s because the Center continued to broker key relationships in the Fund’s areas of interest, including agricultural land preservation and the nonprofit sector.