The Great Communities Collaborative is a unique cooperative relationship between four Bay Area nonprofit organizations – Greenbelt Alliance, the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, and Urban Habitat – and the national nonprofit Reconnecting America. The East Bay Community Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, and The Silicon Valley Community Foundation are also part of the collaborative.

The goal of the Collaborative is for half of the Bay Area’s new homes, between now and 2030, to be located in walkable neighborhoods near transit. These neighborhoods will have a mix of jobs, shops, community services, and homes affordable to families of all income levels. The members of the collaborative are committed to promoting this vision of sustainable and equitable development and to ensuring that residents are deeply engaged in planning for transit-oriented development (TOD) in their neighborhoods.

Members of the collaborative are combining their respective expertise and working with partners around the region to:

• Shape plans for specific transit-oriented developments in Bay Area communities and encourage resident participation in planning for those developments.
• Create tools that will help community leaders make better decisions about transit-oriented developments across the Bay Area and help citizens better understand, participate in, and influence plans for TOD.
• Secure increased private and public funding that will help to catalyze sustainable and equitable transit-oriented development in the Bay Area.

Collaborative members have close working relationships with a wide array of other stakeholders on TOD issues in the Bay Area. Among the partners that the collaborative members work with are regional agencies such as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), local governments, other nonprofits including community-based nonprofits, other foundations, developers, planning experts, and the business community.