Our partner programs—working together to create a vibrant and diverse Pittsburgh
Catapult Greater Pittsburgh
Catapult Greater Pittsburgh connects families to emergency resources, peer-to-peer support, wealth building, trauma-informed financial counseling, and policy advocacy to ensure that systematically disenfranchised communities can meaningfully achieve economic justice and lead dignified and equitable lives. They do this through a host of different programs.
We work directly with Catapult’s D.O.O.R. and K.E.Y. programs to prepare individuals and families for homeownership and build generational wealth.
Gallery on Penn
An extension of the Catapult Startup to Storefront program, Gallery on Penn is a retail incubator space for minority and women-owned businesses on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. With the support of ELDI, several Catapult businesses operate out of the space at a very low cost, allowing them to test and market their ideas without the burden of expensive overhead. (Gallery on Penn is temporarily closed but its space on Penn Avenue is secure.)
“With the development of a physical Catapult: Startup to Storefront space, we’re really excited to be able to offer this new opportunity to allow our companies to incubate their retail businesses on one of the busiest streets in the city,” said Tammy Thompson, executive director of Catapult Greater Pittsburgh.
Rising Tide Partners
The many successes in East Liberty, along with failures and struggles, have taught us valuable lessons on how to restore communities. These are lessons that can be useful to other Pittsburgh neighborhoods, which is why ELDI supported Kendall Pelling, our former director of land recycling, to launch Rising Tide Partners in 2020. This regional land recycling nonprofit employs a unique model of community development, helping other neighborhoods across Pittsburgh take advantage of land recycling tools to acquire the land needed to realize their community plans while preventing displacement.
Main + Elm Development Company
In 2024, we supported former ELDI Director of Real Estate Development Jonathan Huck, former ELDI Project Manager Shivam Mathur, and former ELDI Construction Manager Don McCartan to launch Main + Elm Development Company.
Main + Elm is a real estate project management company that will help communities do the hard work of actually building their community visions. With a pipeline of homebuyers from Catapult and a pipeline of properties from Rising Tide, Main + Elm will partner with these organizations and others across the city to develop the properties needed to address the city’s homeownership and blight crises.
Learn more about Main + Elm Development Company (coming soon)