By Linda Fischer
Editor

A few years back, Paul C. Light was not necessarily a welcome sight to community development organizations. In fact, they would hold their collective breath when they saw him coming. He says, with a grin, that he was known as “The Coroner.”

Light was referring to the days when he visited businesses and organizations that had been deemed innovative to discover what made them so. What he often found were organizations that had at one time been innovative but were unsuccessful at sustaining innovation. Instead of declaring them innovative, Light would report that their culture of innovation was dead.

Light, a professor at NYU Wagner, was one of several keynote speakers at Exploring Innovation: A Conference on Community Development Finance from May 2-4 in St. Louis, sponsored by the Community Affairs Office of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. More than 200 people attended to learn how to be innovative and how to apply the process to community development. ...FULL STORY

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