Nonprofit Goes Global - and Green

Community Renewal founder Mack McCarter and affordable housing legend Millard Fuller at a recent blitz build of three houses in one week in Shreveport.

The Petroleum Tower is being renovated into an energy-efficient green building to house community renewal practitioners.

Architect's drawing of the completed Community Renewal Complex.

The "We Care" approach is centered on three basic strategies:

1. Renewal Teams that work citywide to unite businesses, civic groups, churches, residents and other community resources as caring partners to build a safer, stronger, healthier city;
2. Haven Houses, where volunteers unite neighbors on the block where they live, turning strangers into friends, and
3. Friendship Houses, built in some of the city's toughest residential areas. A trained Community Coordinator and their family move in and not only help the neighborhood - they become a part of it.

The first two Friendship Houses opened in the spring and summer of 1997. As the model was implemented, it soon began to see startling success. Streets became safer, crime and drop-out rates went down, strangers became friends.

SBCR soon attracted national attention. The Pew Partnership for Civic Change recognized SBCR as a "Solution for America" in 1998. SBCR was selected as a "Best Practice Model" by the White House Conference on Community Renewal. The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University chose SBCR for a case study entitled, "Building Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal: Restoring Community through Christian Love."

SBCR signed a cooperative agreement with the Observatory for Cultural and Audiovisual Communication, making SBCR the community-building model for the Infopoverty Programme worldwide.

Infopoverty is coordinated by OCCAM, a charter office within the United Nations. In Cameroon, Africa, the chiefs of five remote villages united to bring Community Renewal to their corner of the world.

The Manhattan Institute chose SBCR for its 2005 Social Entrepreneurship Award, which honors contemporary non-profit organizations which have found innovative, private solutions for America's most pressing social problems.

Community Renewal initiatives are now underway in Austin and Abilene, Texas; Elk River, Minnesota; Knoxville, Tennessee and other American cities.

In 2005, Community Renewal started a partnership with affordable housing visionary Millard Fuller to build sixty houses for low-income residents and hurricane evacuees in an SBCR Shreveport neighborhood.

Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal changed its name this year to Community Renewal International. There are "We Care" members in nearly every state as well as many foreign countries, from Cameroon to Canada to China.

In the spring of 2008, University of Texas professor Michael Garrison, a leading authority on green technology, addressed Community Renewal's newest initiative in a three-day symposium titled "Louisiana Green... Right Here! Right Now!"

Community Renewal International and the US Green Building Council's Louisiana Chapter are partners in the renovation of downtown Shreveport's Petroleum Tower to house the Center for Community Renewal.

Attended by governmental, private sector, environmental and community development partners, the conference included in-depth information about how solar power, photovoltaic cells and sustainable building materials will help this facility produce more energy than it consumes.

The building itself, the historic Petroleum Tower, is also a symbol of renewal. The building was donated to Community Renewal in 2001 and is being restored for a new life as an environmentally friendly "green building," using solar panels, taking advantage of outside lighting, recycling its wastewater and incorporating other energy-efficient measures.

The self-sustaining building is expected to be the first in Louisiana to earn a platinum-certified rating, which is the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard.

The Center for Community Renewal will bring civic leaders from across the nation and the world to Shreveport to learn more about building and restoring safe and caring communities. The Center will serve as a comprehensive facility providing training and technical support for community leaders who want to apply the model established by Community Renewal International in their own city. The building will house offices, a conference center, classrooms, a library, museum, guest rooms for overnight accommodations and more.

"The greatest thing we can live for and the highest cause we can devote ourselves to is to make this world a place where our children can grow up in loving and caring and nurturing communities. It's important to devote ourselves to that cause and that calling," said Mack McCarter, founder of Community Renewal.

"D. Elton Trueblood said, 'The greatest heresy is to make small what God intended to be large.' By changing our name to Community Renewal International, we are giving a clear signal that we are committed to nothing less than joining with others to change our world."