“Place-based” initiatives, which 20 years ago may have been called “comprehensive community initiatives,” bring much-needed resources to struggling communities. Yet they may have unforeseen and sometimes unplanned consequences for the communities selected as sites of place-based initiatives. These initiatives can create significant challenges for the community-based organizations and leaders who foundations rely upon for implementation, and they can shift the local ecosystem of power dynamics and organizational relationships in complex ways.

The resurgence of interest in place-based grantmaking initiatives has surfaced the need to strengthen funders’

understanding of best practices as well as the complex dynamics that such initiatives can create at the community level. In 2014, the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions and Neighborhood Funders Group initiated a collaborative effort to develop learning opportunities and programming for funders designed explicitly to improve the effectiveness of place-based grantmaking.