The solutions outlined in this report, from removing zoning codes to refinancing debt, are powerful, but like any structural change requiring advocacy, they are also fragile. During the summit’s pre-mortem exercise, participants identified specific reasons why most of these solutions could fail: our tendency to retreat into silos when resources get tight.

We cannot solve a systemic crisis with a programmatic mindset. If we treat these solutions as a menu of independent quick fixes without changing how we relate to one another, they will fail. We must stop trying to simply survive the New Normal individually and start building the infrastructure to master it collectively. Real systems change cannot be achieved by a single organization in a single grant cycle.

It requires radical collaboration where partners share risks, data and balance sheets over a decade, not just a fiscal year. Shared data is the common language of this collaboration, allowing us to align diverse interests and prove the ROI to skeptical partners. We must transition from transactional relationships, where we simply ask for money, to transformational partnerships, where we share the mission. This is how we can build an ecosystem strong enough to withstand economic volatility.

Here are some actionable next steps and mindset shifts required to make the solutions a local reality, broken down by role:

• To the Community Development Practitioner: Stop competing for scraps and start consolidating for collective power. Seek out shared service models, joint funding applications and mergers. Hoarding data or clients to protect a grant metric is a strategy for extinction. Survival in this New Normal environment will depend on our ability to share risks and resources.
• To the CDFI: Stop merely hunkering down and start specializing. Given that you are the financial engine of this coalition, use your agility to provide the Capital Plus technical assistance and debt consolidation products that traditional banks cannot. Your value proposition is your ability to rescue viable businesses from predatory financial traps where others see only risk.
• To the Bank: Stop only managing risks and start underwriting the future. The old risk models are pricing you out of your potential impact in communities in need. You must recognize that mission-driven projects with waiting lists are safer bets than speculative commercial deals. Eliminate the distinction between good business and community development by creating specialized tracks for affordable housing and small business lending.
• To the Funder: Stop buying programs and start investing in the sector’s resilience. The era of the restricted, short-term grant needs to be over. To save this sector, you must cut the quarterly reporting cord and fund the essential back-office infrastructure of those you fund. True capacity building requires multi-year, unrestricted commitments that allow organizations to hire talent and weather financial storms.
• To the City Official: Stop enforcing processes and start facilitating outcomes. Your job is no longer just compliance; it is acceleration. If a permit takes 12 months to review, you are the barrier. Enforce 30-day approval mandates, cap fees and view the nonprofit developer as a partner solving your city’s crisis, not a vendor to be regulated.
• To the Employer: Stop being a consumer of talent and start actively producing it. You can no longer rely on a fractured system to deliver work-ready employees. You must treat training budgets as essential operating costs, not perks. Pay for the certifications needed to fill your higher-skilled, in-demand jobs and dismantle the barriers that block skilled workers from entering the middle class.