Introducing From the Ground Up: Building Power With Land

This April, we are continuing our yearly theme with From the Ground Up: Building Power With Land, in collaboration with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, The Guild and the Kensington Corridor Trust at the Shirley-Eustis House. In this series, we’ll explore how communities are reclaiming land and building grassroots governance as tools for collective liberation.

Through conversations with organizers and practitioners on the ground, participants will explore real-life models of community control, gain insight into the power of land stewardship, and build strategies to root movements in place-based power. Together, we’ll learn how community land trusts and community-led governance structures create pathways for long-term stability and economic justice.

Power in Systems: April 9, 2025 | RSVP

In this first workshop, Adriana Abizadeh of Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT) will introduce us to community land trusts and community-led governance. Adriana will explore how the KCT is using community-led governance and systems change strategies to build long-term neighborhood power.Together we’ll learn about the Trust’s innovative model, how it centers resident voice in decision-making, and the ways it challenges traditional development systems to create more equitable outcomes.

Reclaiming Land, Building Power: April 16, 2025 | RSVP

In this workshop, we will explore how The Guild is building community-owned models of land, housing, and real estate to support self-determination for Black, working-class, and marginalized communities. Led by Nikishka Iyengar, founder and CEO of The Guild, we will discuss the strategies and challenges involved in creating shared equity land models and community-controlled spaces. Participants will learn how The Guild's approach creates long-term stability and economic justice, and will have the opportunity to discuss how similar models can be applied in their own communities.

Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street: April 23, 2025 | RSVP

In the last two April workshops, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) will host a two-part movie screening and discussion of Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street. The documentary explores DSNI’s innovative grassroots organizing and how a generation of young leaders worked together to prevent foreclosures and create youth jobs in the neighborhood.

Discussions will focus on building and sustaining community wealth and power. Participants will reflect on questions such as: How do movements in the past impact and influence movements of today? What are the lessons we can learn in fighting against the housing crisis, wealth gap, and climate injustice. How are young people of today involved in the struggle? Through observation and conversation, this workshop will highlight the power of collective action and emphasize the importance of continued efforts toward community-driven change.

Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street: April 30, 2025 | RSVP

In the last two April workshops, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative will host a two-part movie screening and discussion of Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street.

About our Facilitators:

Adriana Abizadeh is the executive director of Philadelphia-based Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT). The mission, duty, and purpose of the KCT is to utilize collective ownership to direct investments on the corridor that preserve culture and affordability while building neighborhood power and wealth in Kensington. Abizadeh is also a policy fellow at Princeton University and Rutgers University.

With deep interests in public policy, Abizadeh has taken every opportunity to utilize her privileged position as a nonprofit leader to speak out for what she believes in and to lift the voices of impacted community members. Immersed in policy initiatives, she has facilitated community collaboration to address the intersectionality between immigration status, housing, poverty, and race.

Abizadeh has a BA in Political Science from Rutgers University with a minor in Security Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. She also has an MS in Public Policy from Drexel University. She has committed herself to serving on several boards that reflect some of her deepest passions: immigration, racial and health equity, and youth development. When she isn’t serving her community, she is at home with her two children and their dogs.

Nikishka Iyengar, a social entrepreneur, community organizer and media-maker with over a decade of experience building economic democracy, is the founder and CEO of The Guild, where she develops community-owned models of land, housing, and real estate to foster self-determination for Black, working-class, and other marginalized communities. She also leads Groundcover, a $30M fund dedicated to investing in shared equity land models. A current Loeb Fellow at Harvard, Nikishka co-hosts the Road to Repair podcast focused on moving beyond a “business-as-usual” economy toward solidarity and collective liberation.

The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative's (DSNI) mission is to empower Dudley residents to organize, plan for, create and control a vibrant, diverse and high-quality neighborhood in collaboration with community partners.

DSNI was formed by Dudley residents seeking to reclaim a neighborhood that had been ravaged by disinvestment, arson fires and dumping. When many had given up, DSNI organized neighbors to create a comprehensive plan and a shared vision for a new, vibrant urban village. To secure development without displacement, DSNI gained eminent domain authority, purchased vacant land, and protected affordability. This process led to family stability and the creation of a community land trust. Today, the once garbage-strewn lots have been rebuilt with quality affordable houses, parks, playgrounds, gardens, community facilities, and new businesses.

Through service on DSNI’s Board, residents lead an effort that includes all neighborhood stakeholders in a democratically-elected, community process. Together, DSNI has created greater civic participation, economic opportunity, community connections, and opportunities for youth. They have built a community across our diversity of language, race, ethnicity, and age. They have invested in our young people and the youth in turn have invested in the community.