Hello! We’re so glad you’re here.

If you’ve met Redesign through a small business service, one of our buildings in the neighborhood, an affordable housing project, or a community event, you may know one part of our work. But how does it all fit together?

At its core, Redesign listens, invests, and builds for the long term.

We work alongside residents, businesses, and community partners to understand the needs and opportunities in the Longfellow Community Area. We use the tools and resources we have – including property ownership, real estate development, affordable housing, small business support, community planning, and partnerships – to make thoughtful investments that strengthen the community.

These aren’t separate programs operating independently. They are interconnected tools that allow us to respond where our mission, expertise, resources, and relationships can make a meaningful difference.

Who Is Redesign?

Redesign is a nonprofit community development corporation rooted in the Longfellow Community Area of Minneapolis.

For decades, we’ve worked alongside residents, businesses, organizations, and community partners to strengthen the neighborhood and create greater economic opportunity.

Our work is grounded in a simple belief:

Neighborhoods are strongest when people have opportunities to build stability, participate in the local economy, and shape the future of their community.

That means our work doesn’t fit neatly into a single category.

A healthy neighborhood needs stable housing, strong local businesses, places to work and gather, community organizations, investment in buildings and public spaces, and people who have opportunities to build economic stability. These things depend on one another.

Our role is to listen, understand where we can contribute, and bring the tools, resources, and relationships we have to the work.

What Does “Community Development” Mean to Us?

Community development is investing in the people, places, and businesses that help a neighborhood thrive.

That can mean helping an entrepreneur strengthen their business. It can mean preserving commercial space so local businesses and community organizations have a place to operate. It can mean creating affordable homes that allow families to remain in the neighborhood. It can mean restoring an important community building or bringing new investment to a neighborhood corridor. Each investment matters on its own. Together, they can help create the conditions for a stronger community.

Community development also means doing this work with a long-term perspective, making thoughtful, long-term investments in the places and people we serve.

Supporting Small Businesses

Small businesses are an important part of a strong neighborhood.

They create jobs. They provide goods and services. They activate commercial corridors and contribute to the character and vitality of a community. When local businesses have the opportunity to grow, the benefits can extend beyond the business itself, to employees, customers, neighboring businesses, and the broader local economy.

But businesses don’t all need the same kind of support.

That’s why Redesign provides a range of tailored small business services – from technical assistance to lending, storefront improvement grants to brokerage services and more.

A business owner may work with Redesign to strengthen their financial plan. That preparation can help them qualify for financing. A loan can help them make an investment in their business. A commercial space can give them a place to put that investment into action.

When that business succeeds, the benefits extend beyond the owner: employees have jobs, customers have access to goods or services, and an active storefront contributes to a more vibrant commercial corridor.

Supporting a business can be an investment in both the individual entrepreneur and in the neighborhood at large.

Why Does Redesign Own and Manage Property?

Property ownership is another tool we use to support the community.

Redesign owns or co-owns 9 commercial buildings and 6 residential properties throughout Greater Longfellow. These properties provide space for local businesses, nonprofits, artists, community organizations, and families.

Owning property allows Redesign to take a long-term approach to neighborhood investment. It gives us an opportunity to preserve commercial and community-serving space, support tenants, invest in buildings, and consider both the financial sustainability of a property and the role it plays in the neighborhood.

Property isn’t the mission. It’s a tool that helps us accomplish the mission.

As a nonprofit, Redesign doesn’t have shareholders or private owners who receive profits from our work. Revenue generated through our properties and programs helps sustain that property’s operations and supports the ongoing stewardship and improvement of the building.

Real Estate Development

Sometimes strengthening a community means creating something new.

Redesign uses real estate development to bring investment to places where it can create long-term community benefit.

Development can transform an underused property, preserve an important neighborhood asset, create affordable housing, provide space for businesses and organizations, or help strengthen a commercial corridor.

Our role isn’t simply to develop property and move on.

We consider what a place can contribute to the community over the long term and how development can support the people and businesses already here while creating opportunities for the future.

Our goal isn’t to develop everything. It’s to help create the right opportunities in the right places, in ways that contribute to long-term community strength.

Partnerships Are Crucial to the Work

Redesign can’t do this work alone.

Strong community development depends on relationships with residents, businesses, nonprofits, artists, developers, lenders, funders, government agencies, and other community partners.

Partnerships allow us to bring together resources and expertise that no single organization has on its own.

Sometimes Redesign provides financing. Sometimes we provide a building. Sometimes we provide technical expertise or project leadership. Sometimes we connect people to another organization that can provide what they need.

Our role is to listen, identify where we can contribute, and bring the tools and relationships we have to the work.

How Does It All Connect?

Redesign’s programs aren’t a collection of unrelated activities.

They are different ways of responding to the interconnected needs and opportunities of a community.

A local business needs a place to operate? By owning property, we can provide that space or work with the business owner to purchase their own.

That business needs capital to purchase equipment or make improvements? Our low- or no-interest loans can provide the financing.

The business owner needs help understanding their finances or preparing for growth? Redesign’s free technical assistance can help build their capacity.

The neighborhood needs more affordable homes? Real estate development can help create them.

A community asset needs investment and long-term stewardship? Our property management can help preserve it and improve it.

A project requires resources or expertise Redesign doesn’t have? Redesign’s partnerships can help bring those pieces together.

Communities have complex and changing needs. We need more than one tool to respond to them.

Different Tools. One Mission.

The specific work may change depending on what the community needs and where Redesign can make a meaningful contribution.

But the purpose remains the same: to use the tools, resources, and relationships we have to strengthen Greater Longfellow and advance economic justice through equitable community development.

How Does Redesign Decide What to Work On?

In addition to listening to the community, we also ask:

• Does this align with our mission?
• Do we have the expertise and relationships to contribute?
• Do we have the financial and organizational resources?
• Can our involvement create lasting value rather than simply address an immediate need?

We can’t do everything. But we can be intentional about where we can contribute.

That is part of being a responsible long-term community partner.

Looking Ahead

Our neighborhoods will continue to change.

The needs of residents and businesses will change. New opportunities will emerge. New challenges will require new approaches.

Redesign will continue to evolve, too. But our purpose remains: To use the tools, resources, and relationships we have to respond to community needs and build a stronger, more equitable neighborhood.

The people, projects, and programs may change over time.

Our commitment to the community is the constant.