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The Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community Initiative, funded by Congress in 1994, offered geographically-targeted funding and tax incentives to distressed urban communities. The community involvement component of the program separated it from traditional economic development initiatives, aligning it more fully with the core goals of community economic development. Did the programmatic strategies emphasize economic opportunities over fostering community partnerships or vice-versa? We examine how much emphasis was placed on fostering community partnerships as opposed to more traditional economic development approaches. We assessed how effective these initiatives were at fostering socioeconomic gains. Findings indicate that the more traditional market-based economic development strategies received the majority of funding, despite the mandated requirement of building community partnerships. Despite this, the initiative significantly decreased the percentage of residents living below the poverty line and those unemployed. The lack of emphasis on the fostering of community partnerships in Chicago's zone did not result in failure. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise and institutionalization of CSR in sport is captured in a growing body of work in sport management; however, this research tends to highlight trends across teams, obscuring the opportunity to learn from positive outliers. In particular, we need a better understanding of the evolution of CSR in sport towards more strategic approaches that are smart, thoughtful and genuine. The purpose of this paper is to present and analyze a case study of a professional sport team in the U.S. that has reinvented, and reorganized around, a significant component of their CSR - their community relations approach. We use qualitative data to explore the case of the Detroit Lions as they evolve their community relations approach from a broad philanthropic model to a more strategic and authentic partnership-focused model of economic development. We draw out themes around the Lions' approach, process, and partnerships, and highlight best practices. In doing so, we hope to stimulate discussion and future research in the areas of CSR in sport, sport-community partnerships, and sport and city revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]