About Howard Snyder

Hard-Earned Community Economic Development Expertise

Howard Snyder, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, and Mayor Tom Barrett at the opening of one of the CDC’s OCS projects, Lena’s Grocery Store

Howard Snyder is an author and independent consultant focusing on community economic development. His roots are in community and industrial organizing with a lifelong emphasis on job creation and retention in economically depressed neighborhoods.

He founded the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation in 1983, retiring in December 2019 after 37 years as its Executive Director. In those 37 years, Howard and his team revitalized a dying commercial strip, organized an area-wide industrial council, partnered with an alternative school and industrialists to establish the Northwest Opportunity Vocational Academy (high school), and led a dynamic community-organizing effort covering nearly a third of the City’s population.

Howard and the Northwest Side CDC team successfully managed 21 Office of Community Services Community Economic Development Project grants, creating 1,080 new full-time jobs for neighborhood residents, as well as six Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) grants. Under his leadership, the CDC has made over $11 million in loans in small businesses in Milwaukee’s neighborhoods. After a successful, multi-year community organizing campaign to prevent the closing of the Villard Avenue Library, Howard and the Northwest Side CDC partnered with a private developer to obtain Low Income Housing Tax Credits to build a mixed-use library/ grand family housing building. This innovation became the model for the Milwaukee Public Library’s reinvestment in libraries across the City of Milwaukee.

Howard’s Tedx talk, How a Few Kids (and a lot of adults) Changed Milwaukee’s Libraries tells this remarkable story.

Many neighborhood-based economic development organizations established in the 1980’s did not survive, falling victim to dwindling government support, weakened ties to community residents, and overly ambitious, financially shaky deals. The Northwest Side CDC has survived due to Howard Snyder’s leadership; its success is profiled in Navigating Community Development, Harnessing Comparative Advantages to Create Strategic Partnerships by Robert O. Zdenek and Dee Walsh. Howard and the Northwest Side CDC have received three MANDI (Milwaukee Award for Neighborhood Development Innovation) from the Milwaukee Office of LISC and been recognized nationally at numerous OCS and industry conferences.

Howard brings real world nonprofit management experience, understands the complexities of working in diverse communities, and is able to sort out difficult projects and deals so that they become manageable and achievable. He knows how to navigate projects and organizations out of danger so all partners succeed and thrive.

Areas of expertise:

  • Nonprofit management including board development, staff mentoring, and strategic planning
  • Partnership development and investment throughout the life of a project
  • OCS Community Economic Development Project implementation
  • CDFI formation and implementation
  • Project implementation within a context of neighborhood diversity and political challenges

Contact info:

  • hisnyder84@gmail.com
  • 414.732.8487