National Community Development Week 2024

Time to celebrate! It’s nearly National Community Development Week! Celebrated in April each year, this year’s festivities start today, April 1st, and run through the week.

Ok, you may not break out the party hats and kazoos, but this is something worth celebrating. But don’t mistake the purpose of the week. It is not directed at overall community development. It is a week that points out the importance of Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to communities throughout the nation.

The Council of State Community Development Agencies leads the way each year. But they aren’t celebrating just one week. COSCDA is celebrating the entire month of April as Community Development Month in honor of the 50th anniversary of the start of the CDBG program! Their website is packed with information, videos, templates, and more to help make your celebration of National Community Development Week a success.

The National Community Development Week Tool Kit

The COSCDA website provides a full tool kit for those who want to bring attention to Community Development that week. There is a myriad of sample documents from proclamations to resolutions that your community can use to celebrate the week. The full toolkit for 2024 is available here:

National Community Development Week Toolkit

The link above is to the PDF toolkit, but they have an MS Word version available too to make it easier to use the proclamation and resolutions available inside.

A Good Time to Plan

National Community Development Week is a great time to think about your next CDBG project. To prioritize those projects that may be eligible to receive CDBG funding and to start down the path towards applying for funding.

As April is National Fair Housing Month and May is National Affordable Housing Month, looking to CDBG to help your housing stock. In 2021 we looked at how CDBGs can Help Maintain Affordable Housing.

We’ve also profiled how the City of Clarinda, Iowa, has used CDBG funding to help with downtown revitalization.

Whatever the project, utilize the week to start the momentum toward your next CDBG-funded project to help your community.