At NKCDC, we believe that community development can and should benefit all residents.
Our Intersecting Values
Community Driven
NKCDC believes community development can and should benefit all residents. We draw our inspiration and goals—and our staff and board—from the communities we serve.
Trauma Informed
The stress of poverty, violence, racism, disinvestment, and the opioid epidemic traumatizes individuals and neighborhoods. NKCDC calls on community strengths to face our shared problems. We build networks to bring healing to clients, community members, and staff.
Equity Focused
At NKCDC, racial equity is not a fashion statement—it is a deeply held value and a tool to create lasting change. Equity means we focus on the areas of greatest need and opportunity. Equity means the people impacted by our work lead it.
OUR MISSION
NKCDC advances social equity & economic empowerment by nurturing and creating opportunities for residents to live in, and actively shape, their neighborhoods of choice.
Four focus areas
NKCDC uses a strategic combination of real estate development, community engagement, and people-centered direct services to ensure all of our neighbors can remain—and thrive—where they choose to live. Whether we are building affordable housing or helping residents build their wealth, we pledge to promote equity, stability, and safety in all we do, with a sharp focus on those most at risk of being displaced.
BUILDING WEALTH
NKCDC builds generational wealth by creating and preserving homeownership, supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs, providing financial education, and offering job training such as our Community Health Worker workforce development program.
FIGHTING DISPLACEMENT
NKCDC resists the displacement of longtime residents by investing the resources and wealth of our communities in our communities. Our housing services help residents develop sustainable budgets and navigate home repair programs to keep them in their homes. We build and own apartment buildings—and build single-family homes for sale—that are genuinely affordable to residents of our community, where the actual median income is just 30% of what HUD considers Area Median Income for Philadelphia.
GROWING CAPACITY
We support residents of all ages in becoming leaders in their community. We organize and assist business associations and civic associations. We support partner organizations with resources, connections, and collaboration so they can learn and grow. We focus on the assets of the community to build upon the strengths and resilience of the neighborhood.
IMPROVING HEALTH
Social determinants of health—factors like housing, safety, environment, social connection, education, employment, income—have a profound effect on individual and community health. Through our nutrition education and community health worker programs, NKCDC promotes healthy food and active lifestyles. Because of the mental health benefits of clean open space, we maintain hundreds of vacant lots across North Philadelphia. A team of corridor stewards cleans and maintains four Kensington and Port Richmond commercial corridors year-round.
Our Impact
NKCDC is a NeighborWorks member organization. NeighborWorks America is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1978. NeighborWorks builds the skills, supplements the funding, and amplifies the reach of organizations like NKCDC so we can leverage additional resources to achieve our mission.
Annual Report
In 2020, timely rental assistance kept 90 Kensington residents in their homes. NKCDC housing advisors helped 440 Philadelphians buy their first home. And a partnership with Rebuilding Together Philadelphia completed its 80th healthy home repair in Kensington.
Community Survey
Every three years NKCDC takes a survey of Kensington Philadelphia to learn how residents are thinking and feeling about their neighborhood.
NKCDC in the news
National and local news stories, blogs, audio and video mentioning NKCDC.
We use a strategic combination of real estate development, community engagement, and people-centered direct services to ensure all of our neighbors can remain—and thrive—where they choose to live.
Whether we are building affordable housing or helping residents build their wealth, we pledge to promote equity, stability, and safety in all we do, with a sharp focus on those most at risk of being displaced.
Strategic Plan
We believe neighborhood development can and should benefit all our neighbors.
That was the vision that grabbed NKCDC’s Board of Directors in 2019, and it is the vision we carry into our next years of work under a new strategic plan.
Partners & Funders
We couldn’t do half our work without the support of a whole community of partners and funders.
Staff & Board
With more than 30 full-time and 15 part-time employees, NKCDC staff bring resources to local businesses and residents—and provide housing services across Philadelphia.
Our History
Fishtown was once Kensington, and Kensington was once “the workshop of the world.” NKCDC has worked in the community since 1985. We are a proud member of NeighborWorks America, a congressionally chartered national network.