About
The Center for Community Progress is the only national nonprofit dedicated to helping communities tackle property vacancy, abandonment, and deterioration. Established in 2010, the organization works with policymakers, local leaders, and community members to foster strong, equitable communities where vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties are transformed into assets for neighbors and neighborhoods.
Mission
Community Progress works to foster strong, equitable communities where vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties are transformed into assets for neighbors and neighborhoods. It focuses on the systemic causes of widespread property vacancy — the people, policies, and processes behind it — and on the tools, policies, and processes that foster community revitalization.
What they do
- Technical assistance: expert guidance for local governments that want to prevent and reduce entrenched vacancy, including scholarship programs such as the Land Bank Incubator Scholarship and the New Jersey Abandoned Property Rehabilitation Scholarship.
- Leadership and education: trainings such as the Vacant Property Leadership Institute and VAD Academy, the Community Revitalization Fellowship, and regular webinars.
- Policy and research: research and advocacy for policy change to help policymakers reform the systems that perpetuate vacancy, plus publications and data resources on topics including land banks, vacant land stewardship, creative placemaking, brownfields, strategic code enforcement, and delinquent property tax enforcement.
- National Land Bank Network: a membership network for land banks, with a national land bank map, trainings, learning exchanges, and a State of Land Banking national survey.
- Events: convenings including the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference.
History
The Center for Community Progress was established in 2010. Its work has since included hundreds of hours of resources and trainings to help local governments and community members return properties to productive use, with technical assistance recipients including the City of Detroit and Louisville Metro Government.
Financials
The organization's legal name is Center for Land Reform Inc (based in Flint, Michigan), operating as the Center for Community Progress. Per its ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer profile (fiscal year 2025), it reported total revenue of $7,593,513, total expenses of $6,843,347, and net assets of $4,426,824.
Governance
The Center for Community Progress is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (tax ID 27-0718458), governed by a board of directors. Donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.