Vibrant Communities are places where people want to live, grow old together, and create a better future for the next generation. The smaller nonprofit and business leaders we support are building a healthier, more prosperous region.

Steel that built America. Coal that fueled its growth. For the first half of the 20th century, these industries helped Pittsburgh serve as a hub for innovation providing opportunity to African Americans during the Great Migration and to Europeans seeking a new start. Hard work and entrepreneurship became part of our regional identity. During boom times many communities in the shadow of these industries thrived. But while some enjoyed vast wealth, extractive industry left many communities impoverished, less healthy, and vulnerable to climate-related impacts in a cycle that continues today.

New Sun Rising works to lift up local communities affected by these challenges by building resilient leaders, stronger organizations, deeper collaboration, and increasing investment. We serve as an adaptive tool, offering services and programs at all phases of development to ignite early stage ideas, launch projects and organizations, and grow their impact.

Together we’re transforming communities through healthier spaces, diverse local economies, access to green and tech careers, and climate resilient infrastructure. As a result, people have more agency over their future, working together towards a just economic transition. NSR experiences communities as living systems and therefore, supports a wide range of intersectional projects that enhance culture, sustainability, and opportunity for all.

Have a question? Chat with Sonny, our Virtual Assistant

Photo Credit: South Breeze Photography, NRP Alumni Retreat 2024

VISION. MISSION. VALUES.

Since 2005, New Sun Rising has supported 500+ nonprofits, social enterprises, and funders to invest $20+ million in projects that develop Vibrant Communities across 75 neighborhoods in the Greater Pittsburgh region.

NSR envisions a future where all communities are vibrant places of culture, sustainability, and opportunity. Our mission is to support community leaders with the skills, funding, connections, and data to overcome the challenges of our time. We are committed to our core values of inclusion & equity, adaptation, and asset-based practices.

Watch the Building Vibrant Communities Video

Read our 2024 Annual Report

ABOUT THE VIBRANT COMMUNITIES FRAMEWORK

As globalization, technology, and institutional power have grown, people in local communities became increasingly convinced that their education, health, wealth, and happiness depends largely on factors outside of their control. But for most of human history, the opposite has been true.  Wherever people have organized their resources and relationships around a shared vision, they have realized the ability to both lead and benefit from the change they wish to see. Established in 2019, the Vibrant Communities Framework helps local leaders to identify and develop assets for community-driven change at the intersection of culture, sustainability, and opportunity.

Unfortunately communities here in Greater Pittsburgh, across America, and throughout the World are experiencing conditions which are simply unsustainable. It is imperative that we transition from an extractive economy that centralizes wealth and power, to one where opportunity and sustainability co-exist to the benefit of all.  This transformation requires a new development mindset that disincentivizes development which harms people and the environment in pursuit of endless economic growth. The Vibrant Communities Framework seeks to reinstitute a natural, mutually beneficial, and regenerative balance between institutions and the community ‘markets’ they have grown to serve.

The good news is that many people are waking up to our socioeconomic realities, rejecting stale paradigms, and building the foundation of this new future together. Through 20 years of practical experience earned by walking alongside a wide range of leaders, organizations, communities, and funders, New Sun Rising realizes that far too often, development investments are made without respect for the readiness, participation, or to the benefit of local stakeholders. The Vibrant Communities Framework guides the creation of your community-driven plan through 18 practical strategies organized in three development phases: Ignite, Launch, and Grow.

NSR utilizes the Vibrant Communities Framework as an adaptive tool to support a diverse and growing set of community leaders to build local power and transform ideas to impact.

Read the Vibrant Communities Toolkit