About two years into her job, Nellie Catzen decided to throw a party. Not just any party, though. As the executive director of the Committee for a Better New Orleans, Catzen’s goal was to reimagine civic engagement in the city via this celebration.
“Civic engagement is an uphill battle and public meetings are usually poorly attended,” Catzen says, who wants to make civic engagement actually engaging.
“What could we accomplish for our community if we got people together in a fun and inviting setting … We accomplished a lot!”, she says of the Better New Orleans Block Party, which she launched in 2023.
At the inaugural event, CBNO had over 350 attendees who learned about the budget and how to get civically involved, plus connected with 20 community partners helping make the city a better place. CBNO is planning to bring the event back in March and expand it in the future.
The block party is just one of the CBNO programs. The group, founded in 1966, is “a civic engagement organization that works to build leaders and transform systems to make a more equitable and thriving city,” says Catzen. “It’s been an absolute joy and absolute struggle, but it is so rewarding to help people realize their power in civic systems.”
Among its current programs and initiatives, in addition to the block party, include: Bryan Bell Metropolitan Leadership Forum, which brings together 50 emerging leaders each year to focus on the biggest challenges New Orleans has and how they can help; Building the Future, which is a campaign to bring federal funding to New Orleans and ensure it is distributed equitably; Better Bus Stops, a 2024 collaboration with the Regional Transit Authority to overhaul New Orleans’ bus stops; Changemakers, a monthly event that trains New Orleanians to get civically involved; and the People’s Budget Project, in which the organization helps demystify the city budget for residents, who can then give input to the process.
CBNO is a natural fit for Catzen, whose road to community building and giving back started in Baltimore, where she was born and raised.
“I’ve always been an activist of some sort, though it really picked up in high school, as I was learning more about the problems our society faces,” says Catzen.
“I was a theater kid, and was always looking to find plays and scenes that got people thinking about making change. My senior year of high school, I directed an anti-war short play where two opposing soldiers learn they have more in common than they have differences. I’m always trying to get people to think about their roles in making the world a better place. Where can we find common ground?”
She ultimately won her high school theater program’s Social Justice
Award in 2009.
After receiving a bachelor of arts at University of Pennsylvania, Catzen landed in New Orleans for a fellowship at Catholic Charities. It was here she met one of her mentors, Martin Gutierrez, who is now its vice president of Mission and Community Engagement.
“We had over a dozen programs in our portfolio, but he always made time to help other people in need. I called it ‘finding trouble,’ and he really went out of his way to make space to be a helper. He also taught me the invaluable lesson that time spent building relationships is never wasted. That’s been so important to my activism and advocacy.”
She moved on to becoming the founding program director for the Friends of Lafitte Greenway (2015-2021) where she got to play a role in the development of the park into a community asset. She started its free fitness programming, public art programs — which includes Supernova, an interactive art and music event — and helped develop the plaza where the Crescent City Farmers Market is.
“I’m so proud of the place it has become and the way it’s brought eight really diverse communities together,” she says of the Greenway connecting the French Quarter, Bienville Basin, Treme, Lafitte, Tulane-Gravier/Lower Mid-City, Mid-City, Faubourg St. John and Navarre.
Catzen’s focus is finding ways to engage citizens in making the city a better place to work and live.
“Most of my day-to-day revolves around this. But I think it really boils down to using our strengths. I’ve been focusing on bringing the ‘community’ back to community engagement. The things that best motivate people are fun and other people. These should be the drivers of our civic systems,” she says.
Catzen has also been active in the community outside of her jobs: board of directors, Grow Dat Youth Farm (2016-2021, vice chair 2019-2021); co-chair of FitNOLA (2017-2018); co-chair, New Orleans Complete Streets Coalition (2022-present) and a member, Big Easy Budget Coalition (2022-present), which is a project CBNO helped form.
“As a community builder, it can be really hard to measure the accomplishments — because it’s longwinded work, often without major inflection points,” said Catzen. Among her proudest accomplishments are “the relationships I’ve built and the reputation I’ve earned. To be trusted, loved, and accepted as a member of the community, looked to for help and cared for as a neighbor.”
