Sunrise Valley is a large neighborhood in a
large city. Located close to downtown, it was
once a vibrant African-American community,
with doctors, teachers and laborers making
up a close-knit, family-driven fabric.
The past decades were not kind to Sunrise
Valley. Good factory jobs were lost, higher-
income families moved to the suburbs and
deteriorated housing became the norm rather
than the exception.
The memory for what had been in Sunrise
Valley helped to inspire a strong effort to turn
things around. A new and visionary mayor,
himself a former resident of the area, joined
with a large, progressive foundation and neigh-
borhood residents to build a new community.
Community Partnership (CP) was the organiza-
tion founded to lead this effort.
Three years after its inception, the CP board
determined that it was not achieving its agenda.
It contracted with a technical assistance agency,
Help Inc., to gather information for a SWOT
analysis and to lead the board in strategic plan-
ning sessions.
The results of these efforts follow.