Show Summary Details

Expanded and updated each section to reflect recent developments in Community Economic Development financing, funding, and education. Citations and bibliography updated.

Updated on 4 November 2013. The previous version of this content can be found here.
Page of

PRINTED FROM the Encyclopedia of Social Work, accessed online. (c) National Association of Social Workers and Oxford University Press USA, 2019. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the applicable license agreement governing use of the Encyclopedia of Social Work accessed online, an authorized individual user may print out a PDF of a single article for personal use, only (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 06 December 2019

Abstract and Keywords

Community economic development (CED) is an integrated and community-driven approach to development aimed at generating wealth, capabilities, and empowerment in low-income and low-wealth communities. Nonprofit organizations partner with public and for-profit interests to develop social and economic investment strategies for community economic renewal and revitalization. Social workers in CED engage in interdisciplinary work in community organizing, leadership development, program development and implementation, social-service management, and policy advocacy. To achieve large and sustainable success, CED requires solidarity with and investment in poor communities by society as a whole.

Keywords: asset building, community development, economic development, sustainable development, social capital, social development, community practice

Margaret Sherrard Sherraden

University of Missouri, St. Louis

Lisa Reyes Mason

Lisa Reyes Mason is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work. Dr. Mason’s research focuses on the intersection of social and environmental issues. Specifically, she examines how gender and resource distribution relate to vulnerability and adaptation to environmental change, in domestic and international settings. Dr. Mason earned her PhD and MSW from Washington University in St. Louis, and her BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Access to the complete content on Encyclopedia of Social Work requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription. If you are a student or academic complete our librarian recommendation form to recommend the Oxford Research Encyclopedias to your librarians for an institutional free trial.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.