A mother and two young daughters with backpacks hold hands while walking on a sidewalk.
A mother and two young daughters with backpacks hold hands while walking on a sidewalk.

Transforming neighborhoods to improve health and wellbeing.

Community development facilitates neighborhood change that enables residents to thrive.

Community development is the work of creating the physical, economic, and social conditions in communities that enable residents to reach their best possible health and wellbeing—including affordable housing, community facilities for early childhood and health services, local businesses and cultural institutions, and parks and open spaces. At its best, community development addresses structural racism and channels community voice and power. 

Through its community development-related grants and impact investments, RWJF seeks to facilitate change that is driven by and responsive to residents to improve health and wellbeing and to ensure that investment flows to the places that have long been neglected while safeguarding against any unintended consequences, such as displacement. 

What happens when the health and community development sectors realize they’re working toward the same goal of enabling people to live their healthiest lives?

Watch this video to learn how the field of community development evolved in the past decade to help communities meet residents’ needs and address the effects of racism embedded in policies and practices.

The Future of Community Development

What are opportunities for the future of community development? We asked six experts.

Featured Initiatives

RWJF funds many initiatives to create opportunities that improve health equity. For this area of focus, these initiatives were selected to demonstrate grantmaking that is helping us achieve the greatest impact.

A daycare teacher playing with a group of young children outside.

Purpose Built Communities

Learn more
Street view of a row of houses.

Center for Community Investment

Learn more
A medical professional talking with a woman holding an infant.

Healthy Neighborhoods Study

Learn more
Construction crew and community members review building plans by a pickup truck.

Build Healthy Places Network

Learn more
Community organizers talk while touring a neighborhood.

Third Space Action Lab

Learn more
Women and a baby in a stroller crossing the street.

Invest Health

Learn more
Three men smile while carrying on a conversation outside.

Partners for Rural Transformation

Learn more

Impact Investments for Community Development

The community development finance system (infographic)—made up of mission-driven lenders (infographic) is a main driver of capital for essentials like affordable housing, clean water, and small businesses that create jobs and generational wealth in communities that historically have experienced a lack of investment, especially communities of color and those with low incomes. Our impact investments and related grants focus on strengthening the community development finance system.

Resources from Grantees

Residential Segregation and Health: History, Harms, and Next Steps

Read more on Health Affairs

Public Policies to Address Residential Segregation and Improve Health

Read more on Health Affairs

Related Content

Blog Post
Drawing Houses Illustration

What Does Antiracist Community Development Look Like in Practice?

An antiracist paradigm for community development along with actions by investors, government, and philanthropy can move the U.S. toward more racially just financing.

4-min read

Equitable Community Development Policy and Law Structural Racism
Blog Post
Healthy communities illustration.

Who Finances Healthy Communities

When people establish roots, make friendships, raise families, and participate in activities like volunteering or mentoring, a place becomes a community.

5-min read

Equitable Community Development
Regulatory Comments
Comments on Information Sharing between the IRS and Census.

Information Sharing Between IRS and Census

RWJF offers its strong support for the 2024 Proposed Rule, which authorizes the IRS to expand the disclosure of Federal Tax Returns and Return Information to the Census Bureau.

4-min read

Health Disparities Policy and Law Family and Social Environment
View all
Three cyclists crossing the street.

Infrastructure

Promoting health equity through public infrastructure is a critical step toward creating communities and regions where all residents may participate in, and benefit from, decisions that shape the places they call home.

1-min read

Infrastructure & Energy
A father and son walking on a sidewalk while a bus passes by.

Impact Investing

Impact investing expands our toolkit and builds on our decades-long work changing systems and policies to improve health, especially for those facing the greatest obstacles.

2-min read

Health Disparities
A community leader speaking at a neighborhood gathering.

Building Community Power

RWJF supports research and organizing to increase grassroots capacity to shape conditions for healthier communities, especially in low-income communities and communities of color.

1-min read

Public and Community Health Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Community Power