The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability takes our partnerships with the many communities we serve seriously. We are grateful to have so many allies and supporters through our long-standing relationships with community groups, coalitions, faith-based institutions, affinity groups and more.

A great deal of the work done by our community partners starts small — in church basements and local cafes, during kids’ soccer games, over long commutes, long past dinner hours, on the weekends, in friends’ backyards and myriad other places.

We want to be more intentional about building the capacity of grassroots organizers, community advocates, and all the movers, shakers and changemakers in Portland. So, BPS is recognizing the following emerging organizations and coalitions in whose work we see shared value, alignment and strong promise:

• Leaven Salt & Light, for ongoing organizing work around affordable housing development in faith communities.
• Play-Grow-Learn, for providing vulnerable children in East Portland safe places to play. 
• Black Community of Portland, for organizing work with the Black community in East Portland and the City of Gresham.
• Center for Diversity and Environment (CDE) - Environmental Professionals of Color, for the creation and maintenance of safe space serving our environmental professionals of color.
• Portland African American Leadership Forum, for work around the preservation of some of our most valuable historic resources and the countless contributions of the People’s Plan.
• MudBone Grown and Coalition of Prosperity for the People, for environmental and cultural advocacy for the preservation of urban agriculture and heathy relationships to the land.
• APANO, for its community organizing, policy advocacy, civic engagement, leadership development, community development, and cultural work.

We hope these funds will serve as seeds to continue the positive trajectory these community champions are on.