NeighborWorks® America's Sustainable Business Initiative helps community-based NeighborWorks organizations strengthen their foundations and grow revenue. In 2024, the SBI provide seed grants to seven network organizations with promising earned revenue strategies. Over the next few weeks, as part of Small Business Month, NeighborWorks will highlight some of those outcomes.
For nearly four decades, St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society has been supporting transformation in Camden’s neighborhoods. From its roots in East Camden, New Jersey, SJCS has helped thousands of families purchase, repair, and sustain affordable homes while empowering residents and investing in neighborhood stabilization.
The organization remains deeply embedded in the community, tackling aging housing stock, affordability gaps and the lack of skilled local contractors. By reestablishing its in-house construction program, SJCS sought to better manage the rising costs of development while providing job training and employment pathways for Camden residents.
Meeting the Need
For years, SJCS maintained a small construction crew that supported both internal rehabilitation projects and work for other Camden organizations. However, as SJCS’s rental portfolio grew, that team was redirected to property management, leaving limited capacity for new development or external projects.
At the same time, the organization’s workload was expanding through new homeowner repair, lead remediation, and weatherization programs — all requiring reliable, cost-effective construction support. Recognizing the strain on timelines and quality control, SJCS saw an opportunity to rebuild an in-house general contracting initiative to manage projects directly and strengthen long-term sustainability.
During the pandemic, SJCS acquired a vacant building just half a block from its main office. With earlier technical assistance from the NeighborWorks Sustainable Business Initiative, the organization developed a business plan for the space, envisioning it as a hub for workforce development, property maintenance, and construction operations. That planning work laid the foundation for formalizing this capacity through the SBI Seed Grant.
A Business Plan Takes Hold
SJCS developed a plan to formally restart its general contracting operations, which had been inactive for several years. The plan sought to formalize this construction arm by purchasing capital equipment and hiring a construction foreman to reestablish internal capacity. These efforts aimed to make the organization self-sufficient in managing its construction pipeline, strengthen cost control and increase project efficiency.
Under the new structure, the construction foreman would expand a small in-house crew responsible for both new builds and rehabilitation projects. The long-term vision was to establish a full construction team capable of taking on outside contracting work, generating earned income while advancing community impact.
To achieve this, SJCS needed start-up capital for staffing, equipment, and workforce training, and looked to fill the gap through the NeighborWorks SBI seed grant.
“The organizations that received the Seed grants had all demonstrated strong potential for sustainable business growth,” said Alicia McCoy, interim vice president, National Homeownership Programs and Lending. “With the help of the grants, they met that potential.”
Seeding Opportunity
The $75,000 SBI seed grant enabled SJCS to turn its business plan into action. The organization used the funds to hire a construction foreman, purchase a work truck and specialized tools, and cover start-up expenses for relaunching internal contracting operations.
The investment has already produced measurable results. Construction timelines have dropped from an average of 10 months per home to roughly seven, and cost savings have been reinvested into expanding SJCS’s pipeline of affordable homes.
“The SBI grant has been good fuel for this engine and really helped us be able to put these pieces together,” said Director of Neighborhood Development Enrique Rivera, PP, AICP. “The support has been instrumental in helping us look at what small wins we can use to support our work.”
The effort also helped SJCS deepen its commitment to workforce development. Using its newly outfitted building as a training hub, SJCS partnered with a local technical high school and community organizations to create hands-on learning opportunities in construction and home repair. The organization reintroduced internships for three Camden youth, pairing them with its construction team to gain practical experience on active job sites. While small in scale, these early internships demonstrate how the expanded construction arm can also serve as a pipeline for training and employing residents, connecting the seed grant’s operational investments directly to community impact.
Continuing the Impact
Looking ahead, SJCS plans to expand its construction crew, take on additional home repair and rehabilitation projects, and build new partnerships with workforce development agencies.
“What’s exciting about where we are now is that all these different pieces are finally coming together,” said SJCS Executive Director, Pilar Hogan Closkey, PE, PP, AICP. “It feels like the good kind of perfect storm — a lot happening at once, but it’s all pulling together in the right direction.”
The organization is also exploring opportunities to manage construction projects for other nonprofits and small developers, generating new income streams to help sustain its community programs.
“We were excited to see how this could be a model of repairing the neighborhood using local, homegrown people and keeping that investment in the city of Camden and the neighborhoods that we work in,” said Rivera. “It's worthwhile, it's hard work, but it's doable. You just need the right kind of investment.”
