Cara is a versatile leader, working with and contributing to an array of community-supporting efforts that have helped transform good ideas and community enthusiasm into results. Through Mill City Consulting, she supports community efforts and organizations to more effectively meet their missions and make positive impacts on the world, through non-profit management and organizational development, policy development and advocacy, and program development and coordination.
A few of the projects on which Cara has worked include:
City of Lakes Community Land Trust, Founder
In 2001, the housing market was red-hot, and housing prices were rapidly exceeding that which most families could afford. Minneapolis neighborhoods, affordable housing developers, and funders were interested in expanding ownership opportunities. As Executive Director of the Stevens Square Community Organization (SSCO) and a board member with Seward Redesign, Cara learned about the community land trust model, especially as it was applied in Burlington, Vermont and the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul. This model makes a home affordable for a working family. Then, through a shared equity plan, preserves the affordability when the home is sold to the next family. She approached Powderhorn Residents Group (PRG) about their interest in pursuing a community land trust in Minneapolis. They were interested, but wanted partners. The Minneapolis Community Land Trusts Initiative was born as a project of PRG, the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association (PPNA), Seward Redesign, and the Lyndale Neighborhood Development Corporation (LNDC). Cara facilitated the collaborative, including all fundraising from private and public funders. She built support for the community land trust model with affordable housing stakeholders throughout the region, and designed the organizational mission, goals and structure. In fall 2002, the City of Lakes Community Land Trust was legally established. The City of Lakes Community Land Trust continues to grow and now provides affordable homeownership opportunities to 175 families, housing over 400 adults and children. Learn more here: http://clclt.org/
Racism, Rent and Real Estate: Fair Housing Reframed series Project Lead
In 2017 – 2018, in partnership with the Minnesota Housing Partnership and the Mapping Prejudice Project at the Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota, Cara led the creation and implementation of the Racism, Rent and Real Estate: Fair Housing Reframed series of 8 events with over a dozen presenting partners as a way to mark the 50th Anniversary of the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The series was designed around a series of community conversations that took people from the history of racial segregation in housing in Hennepin County that instigated the passage of the Act in 1968 through to a conversation about current racial disparities in housing. One of the main goals of the project was to educate people about the role that structural racism has played in the persistent racial wealth gap, driven in large part to the system of segregation in housing led by racially restrictive covenants and red-lining, and to build the political will to do something about it. Cara’s role was from nuts to bolts, conceiving the series, reaching out to potential coordinating and presenting partners, securing financial sponsorships, problem-solving logistics along the way. The Mapping Prejudice Project provided much of the historical research and analysis, with the Minnesota Housing Partnership serving as the fiscal agent for the project and providing communications and logistical support. To read more about the project and a recap of the events in the series, go to: https://mhponline.org/communications/racism-rent-and-real-estate-fair-housing-reframed/
Interim Executive Director: Lyndale Neighborhood Association
In April, 2003, Cara was asked to step in as the Lyndale Neighborhood Association’s Interim Executive Director after the sudden departure of several staff members, including the Executive Director, and resignation of several board members. The Lyndale Neighborhood Association had become well-known and admired for its innovative, resident-led, asset-based model of community building, yet some of the remaining board members and staff were not fully aware of the roots or benefits, nor how to continue to support this unique approach through leadership transitions. As Interim Executive Director, Cara focused on rebuilding the capacity of volunteer Steering Committee and staff, including designing and setting up training systems for board and staff transitions so as to continue its resident-led asset-based model of community building. She also strengthened the financial management systems, rebuilt the organizing staff capacity, and supported the transition to a new Executive Director. The Lyndale Neighborhood Association continues to do great work. Check them out here: http://www.lyndale.org/
Project Coordinator: Lake Street Council’s Museum in the Streets: Lake Street
In 2011-2012, Cara worked with the Lake Street Council and community members to research, interpret, and design the Museum in the Streets: Lake Street project, which includes three separate bi-lingual historic walking tours along Lake Street in South Minneapolis. Together, the three distinct tours – Uptown: Minneapolis’s Lakes District; Midtown: A Place to Call Home; and 27th and Lake: Industry and Transportation Infrastructure include over 50 individual historic sites that tell the stories of the people, places, trends, and forces that make Lake Street what it is today. Cara continues to host guided walking tours and give talks on the history of Lake Street. To learn more, and to download a copy of a tour brochure, go to: http://lakestreetcouncil.org/programs/museum-in-the-streets
Day on the Hill Coordination and Advocacy Training
Cara has worked in multiple capacities – including community organizer, policy advocate, and lobbyist – to empower people in becoming advocates with elected officials on issues of importance to them. Through Mill City Consulting, LLC Cara organized Day on the Hill events in 2012 and 2013 for Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP-MN) advocating for health care for all. For these events Cara organized meetings, and led publicity efforts, message strategizing, and How-To-Talk-To-Your-Legislator training. She has also developed a training workshop that can be delivered to a wide variety of audiences.
Strategic Planning: St. Paul Women on Bikes
St. Paul Women on Bikes (WoB), a program of St. Paul Smart Trips, works to make it safer and easier to ride a bike in St. Paul. With Cara’s help, WoB kicked off an in-depth strategic planning process in late 2014 to develop a 3-5 year strategic plan, and a one-year work plan that both spells out the best balance of programmatic activities and identifies how they can best integrate their strategies into community and city systems. The strategic planning steps include conducting an initial Discovery Phase focused on one-on-one interviews with stakeholders and focus groups with “unbiked” communities, holding work priority-setting sessions with the Advisory Group, drafting then testing the draft plan with external partners before the plan is finalized. Through Mill City Consulting, LLC Cara has also facilitated shorter strategic planning workshops and priority-setting sessions with leadership boards. To learn more about Smart Trips and St. Paul Women on Bikes, go to: http://www.smart-trips.org/for-advocates/about-women-on-bikes/
Additional Projects and Clients
Blue Green Alliance (pro bono)
City of Lakes Community Land Trust
Dinkytown Business Alliance
Harrison Neighborhood Association
Lake Street Council’s Museum in the Streets: Lake Street Project
Lyndale Neighborhood Association
MACC
Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association / Dinkytown Business Alliance
Minneapolis Public Schools
Minnesota Housing Partnership
Neighborhood House (pro bono)
Project for Pride in Living /Lowry Corridor Business Association
Soap Factory
St. Paul Women on Bikes (a project of Smart Trips)
We The People MN