The City of Riverside created an Office of Neighborhoods in February of 2001.The mission of the Office of Neighborhoods is to provide neighborhood-organizing support, community leadership training, and act as an advocate/liaison for neighborhoods at city hall. As active partners in the community, residents provide valuable leadership, energy, and commitment in helping the City to maintain and improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods.

Most communities address problems with no more than 10 percent of their capacity. The other 90 percent is needed! The City of Riverside recognizes residents as the its greatest resource in problem-solving and through the Office of Neighborhoods implements an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach to neighborhood improvement.

Instead of focusing on a community's needs, deficiencies, and problems, ABCD helps communities become stronger and more self-reliant by discovering, mapping, and mobilizing untapped, unconnected local assets. All neighborhoods possess many assets:

• The gifts, talents, and abilities of its residents, from youth to the disabled, from thriving professionals to starving artists;
• The dedication and combined power of its citizens associations--churches, culture groups, clubs, neighborhood associations, PTAs, boy and girl scouts;
• The resources and know-how of its formal institutions --businesses, schools, libraries, community colleges, hospitals, parks, social service agencies.

Following the lead of other communities around the country, the Office of Neighborhoods supports neighborhood organizing and works to identify and bring together community resources in imaginative ways, bringing them out of the closet and into creative synergy with each other in problem-solving and community-building.

Programs and services provided by the Office of Neighborhoods include an annual Neighborhood Conference and Neighborhood Leadership Academy, the Jack B. Clarke Good Neighbor Award, the Neighborhood Pride Awards, the "Neighborhoods That Work" Awards and the Neighborhood Matching Grant Program.