SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT: THE ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES OF INTERMEDIARY ORGANIZATIONS

Community development corporations (CDCs) emerged in the 1960s as a way of revitalizing urban and rural neighborhoods and helping residents of those commu nities escape poverty through self-help and community action (Faux 1971; Halpern 1995; Pierce and Steinbach 1987). Many forces contributed to the rise of CDCs, including failed federal urban renewal policies put in place after World War II (Orlebeke 2000;Von Hoffman 2000). CDCs arose as part of the social activism of the 1960s (including the civil rights movement) that preceded the War on Poverty (Halpern 1995; O’Connor 2001). Since the 1960s, the CDC model has grown in importance as an antipoverty strategy (Grogan and Proscio 2000). CDCs became more effective in the 1980s with the emergence of national and local intermedi aries that provide financial and technical assistance to community-based develop ment organizations (Liou and Stroh 1998).1 The unique community development infrastructure provides its component intermediary organizations a level of strength and effectiveness not often seen in the nonprofit world (Berger and Kasper 1993; Ferguson and Stoutland 1996)