A Critical Evaluation of Enterprise’s Investments in the Northwest Bronx

For eighteen years, Enterprise has worked to provide low-income people in New York with affordable housing, safer streets and access to jobs and child care through substantial, community investments in the form of loans, grants and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations that are building and revitalizing local neighborhoods. The objective for the Capstone team was to develop a replicable tool for a critical evaluation of the impact of Enterprise’s work in communities and apply this tool to a model community, namely, the Fordham/Bedford section of the Bronx. To this end, the team developed an evaluation model that utilizes quantitative as well as qualitative measures of change and impact. The quantitative part of the model involves a pre-/post-intervention comparison of indicator values, while the qualitative part of the model involves conducting interviews with key individuals.