Why Jumpstart?
Jumpstart is a new model of community development that provides training, mentoring, networking, and financing options for aspiring local developers. Jumpstart:
- creates opportunities for local residents to invest and develop in their neighborhoods
- builds wealth locally
- supports scattered-site rehabilitation (as opposed to urban renewal)
- encourages a healthy mix of affordable and market-rate housing
- improves neighborhood safety and raises property values through blight reduction
- helps first-time investors become more attractive to traditional lenders
- increases diversity, changing the face of real estate development
Three Jumpstart Initiatives
Training and Mentoring
9 hours of instruction and access to an experienced mentor
Developers' Network
A speaker series and online forum for sharing resources
Loan Program
Financing options for acquisition and construction
Resources To Get Started
what people are saying about jumpstart
“The Mt. Airy-based redeveloper is doing more than renewing Northwest Philly’s commercial buildings—he’s preparing a new generation of developers to do the same for distressed homes in Germantown and beyond.”
Philadelphia Magazine
Sandy Smith | 5/9/17
“Hundreds of people applied for the course at launch—including many women and people of African-American descent; demographics largely excluded from the existing property development industry.”
Red Bull Amaphiko
Claire Wasserman | 2/23/17
“A longtime real estate developer in northwest Philadelphia has settled on an ingenious mechanism to revitalize the neighborhood and generate wealth by training and funding newbie developers.”
Keystone Edge
Elise Vider | 2/20/17
“What started as the developer's bootstrapped effort to revitalize Germantown has become a scalable program other neighborhoods are coveting.”
Generocity
Tony Abraham | 1/27/17
“Jumpstart offers a . . . ‘model of effective, equitable development’ for North Kensington, [Impact Services Corp. President Casey] O‘Donnell said, ‘instead of replicating the unaffordability of other neighborhoods.’”
Philadelphia Inquirer
Alan J. Heavens | 10/3/2016
“[Ken Weinstein] developed a sort of crash-course curriculum on all the ins and outs of developing properties in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, his company Philly Office Retail provided mentees with 85 percent financing for the purchase and acquisition of small, vacant or deteriorated properties.”
Curbed Philadelphia
Melissa Romero | 2/7/17
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