Detroit Drilldown
Columbia Heights
About Social Compact
Social Compact is a non-profit organization that breaks down barriers to public investment in underserved urban areas. Since its founding in 1990, the organization has become a powerful force for change in overlooked urban markets by delivering the reliable, representative, and up-to-the-minute information about a community’s economic health needed to make critically important investments possible and partnering with investors, municipalities, and community leaders to leverage this valuable information in the decision-making process.
BETTER DATA = BETTER INVESTMENT
Over the last decade, Social Compact has focused its work on the development and deployment of a collection of innovative economic and demographic analyses custom tailored for inner-city neighborhoods. When these analytical tools, most often as part of a Social Compact DrillDown profile, are applied to a wide range of transactional data sets, the resulting information is an invaluable tool for attracting local investment. Findings have been successfully used by cities and businesses to provide quality financial and municipal services, encourage property as well as small business development, and attract retail investment.
Unlike most other methodologies, Social Compact’s analyses are not derived from census data and are calibrated to measure the vibrant, informal economies of underserved urban areas, integrating information about real estate, consumer expenditures, utility usage, bill payments and other critical factors. The organization’s groundbreaking research replaces outdated and outmoded, deficiency-based data on lower-income communities with current and reliable market analysis.
Cumulatively, Social Compact has identified:
• Aggregate household income $35 billion (22%) higher than census trend projections
• 350,000 more households than census trend projections
• 1.25 million more residents than census trend projections
BETTER NUMBERS = BETTER NEIGHBORHOODS
More than 20 cities have partnered with Social Compact to conduct analyses in over 350 urban neighborhoods. Because Social Compact is uniquely able to statistically capture the real-life picture of a community’s economic health, it can incisively identify and quantify opportunities in areas traditionally overlooked and underserved by businesses, financial establishments, and other services. Social Compact’s reports, and the investment that often follows, can catalyze the redefinition of a neighborhood’s business profile, create jobs, bolster the tax base, improve the availability of goods, and help create better-served, healthier, and safer neighborhoods.
- socialcompact.org/news
- socialcompact.org/blog
Announcing the Social Compact Investment Fund
Social Compact, Inc., a national non-profit organization, has created the Social Compact Investment Fund (SCIF) to support the development of supermarket-anchored retail projects in underserved marketplaces. These investments will bring new grocery stores into markets that the traditional, national supermarket and grocery store chains have long overlooked. The stores supported by SCIF investments will offer high-quality general merchandise, seasonal goods and everyday consumables at very competitive prices, in addition to USDA-inspected beef, pork and poultry, farm-fresh fruits and vegetables.
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Fill Out Your Census Forms!
April is almost here. It is a month for pouring rain, playing pranks, painting eggs, and paying taxes. But since this is a year ending in zero that means it’s also time for one more thing, filling out your Census.
It costs no money and takes a trifling amount of time, but it helps to determine how well represented your community is in government, how over $400 billion in federal funding gets divided, and how big of a market your community represents to businesses and organizations looking to expand.
Social Compact has assisted cities with programs to correct and challenge undercounts of their populations by conventional metrics. Last year alone Social Compact assisted twelve…
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Social Compact Launches Exciting New Online Tool in Washington DC
Social Compact announced today the launch of its Washington, DC-based ‘CityDNA,’ a new easy-to-use web-based system that will serve as a one-stop-shop for visualizing and analyzing local market data. CityDNA aims to help local governments, investors and community groups understand and respond to the unique market characteristics of their communities.
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NPR’s Morning Edition: Recession Adds To Hurdles Facing U.S. Census
The 2010 U.S. Census is fast approaching and, according to this story from NPR’s Morning Edition, the recession will make it even harder for the government to make an accurate count. The decennial count directly impacts the yearly allocation of more than $200 billion in federal funding to states, cities, and municipalities. Unfortunately, many people affected by foreclosures or job loss are in transitory living arrangements and are harder than ever to track down. Furthermore, Labor Department data show that traditionally harder-to-count minority groups, such as Latinos and African Americans,…
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Social Compact Selects Alyssa Stewart Lee As New Chief Executive Officer
Washington, D.C., May 16, 2011—Social Compact, a national non-profit organization that helps underserved urban areas develop accurate economic data needed to attract investment, announced today that Alyssa Stewart Lee has been selected as the organization’s chief executive officer (CEO).
With the exception of the U.S. Census Bureau, Social Compact is the only organization that conducts original demographic research in major cities across the U.S. Social Compact’s research often identifies Census under-reporting issues and quantifies the purchasing power and stability of urban and micro-markets to support community development and investment. To date,…
Report Finds Detroit is Ready for New Investment
Social Compact and Detroit Economic Growth Corporation’s 2009 DrillDown Report for Detroit will serve as a foundation for comprehensive economic development strategic planning for the City of Detroit through 2012.
(DETROIT, MI, February 23) - In the face of the national recession, many of Detroit’s neighborhoods are continuing to show strong market strength for retail and other economic investment. The Social Compact 2009 DrillDown Report shows that while Detroit experienced an overall population loss, many neighborhoods remained stable or had grown slightly since the 2000 U.S. Census report. In anticipating a Census 2010 undercount, this information has allowed Detroit…
Social Compact Launches Exciting New Online Tool in Washington DC
WASHINGTON, Mar 11, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE)—Social Compact announced today the launch of its Washington, DC-based ‘CityDNA,’ a new easy-to-use web-based system that will serve as a one-stop-shop for visualizing and analyzing local market data. CityDNA aims to help local governments, investors and community groups understand and respond to the unique market characteristics of their communities.
CityDNA is made possible through support from the Citi Foundation and marks a giant leap forward in the technical capacity available to stakeholders working toward sustainable community development in the District. “The Citi Foundation’s support of Social Compact’s…
Public-private partnerships created 1,200 jobs, 30 businesses in Columbia Heights, according to SC
More than 1,200 jobs and 30 new business have been created in Columbia Heights since 2002, the result of a public-private partnership that has helped transform a struggling inner-city community into a thriving neighborhood. And an additional 30,000 square feet of retail development is in the pipeline. These figures were reported by Social Compact, a coalition of business leaders from across the country who are promoting successful business investment in lower-income communities for the benefit of current residents.
