About

Building blocks for building communities

• Our purpose is to provide a ready reference for people who want to work (and play) together to make a difference in their neighborhoods.
• We summarize the best material that’s already out there, and try to make them more accessible (shorter, mobile-readable) and richer (f.e. by using tags & links).
• We collect stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things for their neighborhoods. (Some of us learn better through stories than through technical stuff)
• Theory is good, but we like practice (lessons learned, case studies, best practices).
• We try to distill the material so as to highlight ideas that have been tested, whether they worked or not.
• With your help, we maintain a list of online libraries and resources that are available to the public, for free.

Blockheads

Our Blocks is an all-volunteer effort initiated by participants of idealist.org’s Community Points project. Our current co-editors:

• Dan Rapson worked as Director of Construction at the Wake County Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, then the third largest affiliate in the United States. He attends Wayne State University in downtown Detroit, and is interested in developing housing and food resources in the city.
• Hien Tran graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in International Business. Her nonprofit work started in her early college years. She worked at Catholic Charities, Charities Housing, Girls For A Change, and the International Rescue Committee. When not at work, she bakes, gardens, reads, and promotes community development.
• Leo Romero majored in History and Political Science at the University of the Philippines Baguio, and did post-grad work in Business Economics at the University of Asia and the Pacific. His day job is in affordable housing, focused on working families, seniors, the formerly homeless, and people with AIDS, addictions, or developmental disabilities.

Thanks to Allen Gunn of Aspiration for helping us set up and maintain this resource.

Be a Blockhead

This is a brand new project, and we need your help. The only criterion is that you’re able to write excerpts, summaries, or syntheses of good material that’s already out there, so people who want to do something about their neighborhoods can quickly pick up proven ideas to apply. If you want to be a Blockhead, please leave a reply below and tell us a bit about yourself (your reply won’t be displayed), then register so we can give you edit rights. While waiting for us to get off our day jobs and respond to you (see why we need you?), you can read and improve upon our Style Guide.

This blog is kept fresh by the Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter plugin.