Hope Community seeks to be a catalyst for change, growth, and safety in the Minneapolis Phillips area.In pursuit of this mission, Hope promotes a sustainable neighborhood model through community organization, active education, leadership, and affordable housing development. Hope works with hundreds of people every year in an effort at collaborative neighborhood revitalization. The strategy was born out of necessity. In the mid-1990s Hope was a small organization working for change in a part of the Phillips Neighborhood in Minneapolis that was devastated by illegal drugs, tragic violence, and disinvestment. The organization rehabbed a few houses and started a small kids program.
The McKnight Foundation has been supporting Hope Community’s work in the Minneapolis Phillips Community since 1991. Currently, McKnight’s Region & Communities program provides general operating support to Hope Community due to their commitment to economically vibrant neighborhoods. Hope developed a vision with the community to take on new mission in response to years of neighborhood devastation. They tackled the buildings, starting small, and then using innovative financial tools and long-term partnerships to grow. Now 173 units of rental housing and additional community spaces are changing the face of the neighborhood.
Hope Community seeks to be a catalyst for change, growth, and safety in the Minneapolis Phillips area.
Buildings alone can’t change a neighborhood. Hope has a long history of community connection. Now more than 1,000 diverse youth and adults connect annually with Hope to build skills, community, assets, and leadership. We develop community leaders who step up and help make things happen, learn in the process and go on to more – a valuable resource for long-term community change.
Hope is growing networks of influence leading to even more impact. Over 40 partners are involved, and Hope staff and leaders are taking on community change related to transportation, food access and racial and economic equity related to city parks. McKnight Foundation’s support of Hope’s unique mission has made a major impact, critical to the future of the city and region – fully engaging low and moderate income people in their own lives and in building the future of their communities.
