http://www.spireandbase.com/our-approach daily 0.75 2025-08-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1725558633998-X9RC1QVIKMECAYUK32CB/ColorTestLarge4.png See Our Approach. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1725559432343-V7ZUPPAQSXBXALTZQTA4/ColorTestLarge3.png See Our Approach. http://www.spireandbase.com/spire-home daily 1.0 2025-08-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1725486833767-O3AB199TIJMWAJ6JPHMI/ColorTest3.png Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1725489341754-BYCIS4RN1F3TJAQ72NPM/ColorTestLarge2.png Home http://www.spireandbase.com/get-inspired daily 0.75 2026-02-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/9a48773f-fe6e-4c21-ba6f-96ee969d27cd/StoriedCommunities.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab and the Community Opportunity Alliance. Residents formed the very first community development organizations and have played a central role throughout their history. This report digs into what residents in four communities across the United States think about the state of resident voice in the sector today and their visions for what it could look like in the future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/4022a6e5-20c6-4036-893f-4725822435ba/MappingOut.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out In too many communities, “experts” come in and talk about bringing assets into a community … with very little attention to the assets that are already there. In partnership with ArtPlace America, we explore why cultural asset mapping is so important to equitable development and how you can do it in meaningful ways. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/26a61b52-aa8b-475a-95df-5f300b33891a/ARCDHighLevel.png Get Inspired. Prepared as part of ThirdSpace Action Lab’s The People Practice. This large-scale research looks at how structural racism shows up throughout today’s community development sector, including the dominant narratives that may be holding the sector back. Then we unpack what anti-racist practice and policy can look like — and why that matters to the way we advance place-based change. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/316719a4-9473-4633-906b-4b452fef0301/BriefHistory.png Get Inspired. Prepared as part of ThirdSpace Action Lab’s The People Practice. If we want to build a better future in community development, first, it’s important, to get to a better understanding of what community development has been throughout history. This report unpacks how the American notions of race, place, policy and on-the-ground solutions have shaped virtually every aspect of the sector’s work today. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/dfc9c0e1-5437-4a16-819d-be095fcd277d/CoreCharacteristics.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared as part of ThirdSpace Action Lab’s The People Practice. The community development sector consists of people with a lot of different roles spread out across thousands of organizations covering everything from real estate development to research to finance. This report outlines the ways that anti-racist practice and policy might look like for these different segments of the sector. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/2e5570a0-6dfa-4048-85d9-51cda4cb5be2/FundingResource.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. We’ve seen some success in expanding funding targeted explicitly to supporting community racial equity and justice efforts. But that investment remains relatively limited, shorter term and highly uneven geographically. In this resource, we’re narrowing in on community development funding practices that can support transformative anti-racist work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/2ee0f6de-516a-4a60-8628-b3abc427f3c9/PastFutureResource.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. It’s hard to truly understand the past or think about the future when we’re having to deal with the emergencies of today. But equitable development requires us to hold multiple timelines all at the same time. In this resource, we’re examing what it means to meaningfully bring history and futurism into community change work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/7cc71a56-cc7f-4931-a0dc-987a27e5439e/WealthBuildingResource.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. Building wealth in the United States for people of color has been, and continues to be, an uphill battle. Even within that problematic environment, there are many successful approaches proving that this battle can be won. In this resource, we think through how to build from the economic resiliency and creativity of communities to support grassroots prosperity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/73924cca-e37f-442b-a7b1-20f131a12db2/HealthHealingResource.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. Racialized health disparities are incredibly geographically concentrated due to things like segregation and redlining… but so, too, are many health solutions. In this resource, we’re looking at transformative intersections between health, healing and equitable development … and how we can bring that approach into our own work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/c523d702-e9f4-41bc-be96-38615e5c2047/CommunitySafetyResource.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. Community development and community safety are linked, but we haven’t done enough to ensure that safety solutions don’t create new harms, especially for residents of color. In this resource, we dig deep on practices that actually advance equitable safety outcomes and offer prompts for putting those lessons into action in community development work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/2c992c9c-2044-40af-956e-1b7629c65081/EnvironmentalJusticeResource.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. Now more than ever, strengthening the links between environmental justice and equitable development is critical. In this resource, we take a look at the intersections between policy and practice, examine some particularly strong cross-sector practices and map out an initial game plan for pushing your work even farther. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/00c636bb-3406-47de-8601-5b78feecc324/PromisingLeadership+Practices.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab. Even after you recognize how important community development leadership is, it can still be tough to figure out how best to support more equitable approaches. In this resource, we pull together prompts for considering your own leadership support work, as well as promising community development practices from across the country. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/a719ef4e-8caf-4cbe-8150-3437d3c5f7c1/DevelopmentSoSpooky.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out If you’re tired of explaining why equitable community development matters, it turns out spooky movies have been making the case to us all along. In this resource, we take a look at where communities went wrong in 21 different creepy films. The we consider what the resulting catastrophes say about why long-term, place-based, resident-led change matters so much. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/5861c65e-86cf-428b-8150-f58e172f78b9/FiveWhys.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Folks doing place-based change work often have to address challenges from morning to night. But if we focus too narrowly on the problem facing us today, we might miss the longer-term, bigger picture. This exercise gives individuals and groups a framework for stepping back and thinking about root causes and what kinds of solutions could start to attack challenges at their source. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/7072f9e7-ae52-40a7-9d6e-9395813c2022/ValueinConflict.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out We might avoid conflict in place-based change work to protect people’s feelings, to avoid losing time on things, or just to stay away from the drama. But the conflict’s there whether we pay attention to it or not. This exercise explores how we can process conflict, talk about it openly … and maybe even find some ways for it to support our work instead of getting in the way. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/a9ef74e1-c886-4292-9b28-70aa15fde965/ReexperiencingPlace.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Even when we’re committed to place-based change work, we can still take places for granted. Parks, business corridors, even people … We can get stuck in our thinking and stop prioritizing learning about “the where”. In this exercise, we use an observation practice to pay attention to our senses, emotions, and critical understanding and use that as a powerful learning tool. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/ffe42f75-603f-464d-86b5-c7bc97b67d9e/ThisIsOurTarget.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Even when we agree that getting resources into communities is important for increasing equitable outcomes, we might not have the same read on where we should put those resources — or why. This exercise shares some sample community descriptions to help teams think through the theories of change and values behind their decision-making about resourcing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/31e53524-a734-4c6d-8fb2-4a309c4bc5c0/IntentCapsule.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Folks doing place-based change work often have to address challenges from morning to night. But if we focus too narrowly on the problem facing us today, we might miss the longer-term, bigger picture. This exercise gives individuals and groups a framework for stepping back and thinking about root causes and what kinds of solutions could start to attack challenges at their source. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/db6c3a6b-b082-4dc1-b122-c8c464bbbb95/ResidentVoice.png Get Inspired. - Make it stand out Prepared with ThirdSpace Action Lab and the Community Opportunity Alliance. Community development work rarely centers resident voice as much as it should. Whether you’re a resident group, grassroots organization, or national or state organization, these prompts give you a starting point for candid conversation around expanding resident voice. http://www.spireandbase.com/great-together daily 0.75 2014-09-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1389183475366-LMYI5JSADIDGQ0JI51SL/WelcometoCleveland44Large.jpg Together, we can make it happen. http://www.spireandbase.com/great-community daily 0.75 2014-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1389181729285-ONKK8PKWOC2KY8D7NP4U/WelcometoCleveland38Large.jpg Great community is possible. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1393876665713-H7MSBJ61KFH33Z12HQML/ArtsCollinwood1.JPG Great community is possible. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1393875355415-ZT9GNLNLEEPE71VT7SGY/image-asset.jpeg Great community is possible. http://www.spireandbase.com/great-base daily 0.75 2014-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1389181229866-NLZWN59ZJW2GDXZB14XP/WaterlooArtsFest9.jpg It starts from the ground up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1393877356597-2GCVHGA34UVPBZQ5VJBN/ArtsCollinwood1.JPG It starts from the ground up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1393877262441-3BUGI94JU7D7EI7K23A0/Map+%281%29.jpg It starts from the ground up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1389191855495-O8JFFZ872Y6OFU4QABJ5/image-asset.jpeg It starts from the ground up. http://www.spireandbase.com/great-spire daily 0.75 2014-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52cb0bdee4b0d96837392339/1390156854240-K2515ANB8LCX67JGVP9B/Shotgun2Large.jpg It reaches toward the sky.