Kim Graziani
Technical Assistance Senior Advisor
Kim Graziani is the Technical Assistance Senior Advisor at the Center for Community Progress (Community Progress), America’s nonprofit leader for turning “Vacant Spaces into Vibrant Places.”
Over the past ten years, Graziani helped build and lead Community Progress’ National Technical Assistance Program, which has served over 300 communities in 35 states. She is considered one of the leading national experts in land banks – an equitable, effective, and efficient tool utilized by hundreds of communities across the country to acquire properties that are causing the most harm and transfer to responsible ownership according to local community goals.
Prior to her national work, Graziani served as the Director of Neighborhood Initiatives to the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was instrumental in developing and implementing innovative policies and strategies for the equitable reuse of vacant and abandoned properties that prioritized resident engagement, neighborhood preservation, and community wealth-building. She created several policies and programs recognized by the National League of Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors focused on participatory budgeting and how to engage residents in the allocation of federal funds for local uses such as affordable housing, rental assistance, and the creative reuse of vacant land.
Graziani also has expertise in affordable housing and community organizing through her work with multiple community development corporations, private foundations, and social service agencies in Atlanta, New York City, and Pittsburgh. She is a certified Housing Development Finance Professional through the National Development Council and received her master’s degrees in Public Administration and Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh where she also served as part-time faculty.
Graziani currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama and is the President and CEO of Indigo Collaborative LLC, a national consulting firm dedicated to building trust and sharing power between local government and residents to equitably revitalize communities.
Graziani’s most recent publications include:
- Reimagine Delinquent Property Tax Enforcement: How to Reduce Vacancy, Advance Racial Equity, and Improve Public Services
- Land Banks and Community Land Trusts: Emerging Partners for a Resilient and Equitable Recovery, a chapter in the research volume from the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Cleveland entitled Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts after the Great Recession
- Land Banks and Community Land Trusts: Partnering to Provide Equitable Housing Opportunities Now and for Future Generations