Community Power-Building in Practice

Over the past year, we’ve been deepening our relationships across Buffalo’s East Side, listening, learning, and working alongside partners to better understand what it takes to support community power-building in practice. Community power-building creates the conditions for long-term financial prosperity in a racially just Buffalo-Niagara region by addressing the systems and racial inequities that have limited opportunity for too many residents.

Our community power-building strategic framework–which is rooted in the belief that power already exists in our communities, and that the Foundation’s role is to honor it, elevate it, invest in it, and walk alongside it–is the tool guiding our work. The framework operationalizes the Strategic Direction that we articulated in 2023, which is grounded in racial equity and a long-term vision of improved financial prosperity for Black residents, starting on Buffalo's East Side. The Framework includes seven interconnected focus areas that together form our core approach to systems change: Organizational Power, Individual Power, Community Asset Control & Ownership, Joy, Restoration & Resilience, Collective Community Organizing, Narrative Change, and Policies & Practices. These focus areas help guide how we learn, partner, and invest. 

As we’ve begun to put our framework into action, one thing has become clear: this work doesn’t move in a single direction. It shows up in how stories are told, in the relationships that are built, in the strength of organizations, and in how communities lead and own what comes next.

We’re sharing an early look at a few examples of work beginning to take shape alongside partners with deep experience, expertise, and long-standing commitment to Buffalo’s East Side communities. These individuals and organizations have been doing community-rooted, power-building work long before this framework was developed, and each brings important knowledge, relationships, and perspective to this evolving work.

As we continue operationalizing the framework, we see this as an opportunity not only to invest alongside partners, but also to learn alongside them—deepening our understanding of what community power-building looks like in practice and what it requires over time. This work is rooted in trust, relationship-building, and a shared commitment to strengthening the conditions for long-term financial prosperity and community-led change.

Black Joy on the East Side

In partnership with Aitina Fareed-Cooke and Get Fokus’d Productions

Too often, Black communities are defined by deficit, hardship, or challenges before they are recognized for their strength, leadership, creativity, and joy. Black Joy is not separate from change, it is an integral part of community transformation, and contributes to how people heal, connect, imagine new futures, and build collective power. Within our framework, this work reflects the interconnected focus areas of Joy, Restoration & Resilience, Narrative Change, and Individual Power. 

We’re partnering with Aitina Fareed-Cooke and the Get Fokus’d Productions team to explore how storytelling and creative expression shape community power.

“Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have because it shapes not only how others see us, but how we see ourselves. For too long, narratives about Black communities have been framed through limitation, often overlooking the depth of creativity, resilience, and joy that exists within them. Through digital storytelling and literary arts, we create space for people to reclaim authorship of their own stories, shifting from being described to defining themselves.This work is about more than expression; it’s about education and empowerment.

When communities understand how narratives are constructed, they gain the ability to challenge harmful portrayals and replace them with stories that honor truth, complexity, and lived experience. By centering joy as a form of resistance and restoration, we not only reshape perception, we build pathways for connection, healing, and sustainable change. Storytelling becomes a way to return power to the people, where it has always belonged.”~Aitina Fareed-Cooke, Get Fokus’d Productions

Through workshops and creative experiences, community members will have the opportunity to define and express what Black Joy means to them—on their own terms. By highlighting the value of cultural expression as a pathway to connection, visibility, and belonging, joy becomes an integral part of community transformation.This work will take many forms, from storytelling and visual art to public exhibits that share these expressions more broadly.

Organizational Power

In partnership with Tanya Staples and Perrin Associates

Strong organizations are essential to sustained systems change. When community-rooted organizations have the staffing, systems, leadership capacity, and other infrastructure, they are better positioned to serve residents, influence decisions and grow their long-term impact. Investing in organizational power at this stage helps strengthen the network of community-led organizations already driving change on the East Side, so they can sustain their work, collaborate, and influence the systems that shape daily life. We’re working with Tanya Staples and her team to better understand what nonprofit organizations need to strengthen their infrastructure and sustain their impact over time.

“Organizational power is built when community-rooted organizations have the leadership, infrastructure, and strategic capacity to move beyond survival and shape the systems that impact their communities. This work is not about building power for organizations alone—it is about strengthening the collective ability of communities to lead, influence decisions, sustain change, and define their own future.”~Tanya Staples, Perrin Associates

This work starts with listening. Organizations are identifying their own priorities, and a team of consultants will work alongside them to support those needs—whether that’s strengthening internal systems, leadership capacity, or other foundational elements that allow them to continue serving their communities and advance lasting change. 

Community Asset Control & Ownership

In partnership with Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Agency

Who owns land, housing, businesses, and neighborhood assets influences who benefits from growth and who builds wealth over time. Historic disinvestment and discriminatory policies have limited wealth-building opportunities across Buffalo’s East Side for generations. Community ownership matters because lasting financial prosperity requires residents to have greater control over the places where they live and invest their lives.  This work focuses on supporting neighborhoods as they define and move toward their own vision for community-owned assets and development.

"For generations, decisions about land, housing, and neighborhood assets on Buffalo's East Side were made without us and too often against us. Land and ownership are at the heart of wealth-building, and for too long, both have been out of reach for the communities that needed them most. Community asset control isn't just a strategy, it's a correction. When residents have real ownership and real decision-making power over the places where they live, work, and invest their lives, that's not just economic development, that's the restoration of something that was taken.

Our work starts with residents, their vision, their priorities, their definition of what a thriving community looks like. When communities own what they build, prosperity doesn't just visit, it stays. Community ownership is how we make that vision durable, so that the next generation inherits not just the neighborhood, but a real stake in it. This work is about making sure that what gets built here, and who benefits from it, is determined by the people who live, work and play there."~ Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Agency

Working alongside East Side neighborhoods, this effort centers community voice and leadership—supporting residents as they identify what they want to see in their communities and helping to create pathways to bring those ideas forward.

Many Pathways, Shared Purpose

While each of these efforts looks different, they are connected. Together, they reflect the many ways community power takes shape, through narrative, strong and supported organizations, and community ownership and decision-making. Each reflects a pathway toward the same broader goal: shifting systems and creating conditions for expanded opportunity to build long-term financial prosperity shaped by and with the people most impacted. 

This is early work, and we are continuing to learn alongside our partners as it develops. We’re grateful to be in relationship with the individuals and organizations helping to shape what this looks like in practice, and we look forward to sharing more as the work evolves.

True financial prosperity requires addressing the racial inequities, historic disinvestment, and structural barriers that have limited opportunity for too many East Side residents. As our framework continues to guide learning, partnerships, and resource allocation, we remain focused on investing in work rooted in community priorities.