C-W.org Interviews with Community
Builders
 Hilary Abell has served at Executive Director of Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security (WAGES), an incubator of green housecleaning worker co-ops in the San Francisco Bay Area, since 2003. At present, the WAGES network includes five worker co-ops that provide living wages and business ownership for their largely Latina workforce of 85 worker-owners. WAGES is also working to expand the model beyond the Bay Area. In this C-W.org Interview, Abell discusses the challenges of putting the principles of worker ownership into practice and efforts underway to expand the WAGES model beyond its northern California base.
interview-abell.pdf (260KB)
C-W.org Interviews Archive
Steven McCullough, CEO of Bethel New Life (Chicago, IL)
The twelfth interview in our continuing series of conversations with community wealth-building leaders, this edition we feature Steven McCullough, CEO of Bethel New Life, one of the nation’s leading community development corporations, based in the West Garfield neighborhood of Chicago. In this interview, McCullough talks about community development corporations, transit-oriented development, green building, and the challenges facing community wealth builders in the current economic recession.
interview-mccullough.pdf (200KB)
Dan Kildee, Treasurer, Genessee County (Flint, MI)
Dan Kildee has been Treasurer of Genesee County of Michigan since 1997. He is the Founder and CEO of the Genesee Land Bank - Michigan’s first land bank - and is President of the Genesee Institute, a research and training institute focusing on smart growth, urban land reform, and land banking. In this C-W.org Interview, Kildees discusses the state of the economy in his hometown of Flint, the state of land banking in the United States, land banking policy objectives, and current challenges faced by reclamation activists operating in the context of the nation’s record wave of foreclosures.
interview-kildee.pdf (200KB)
Mark Pinsky, CEO of Opportunity Finance Network (OFN)
 Mark Pinsky is CEO of Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) a position he has held since 1995. OFN is the nation’s leading trade association of community development financial institutions. Through 2007, OFN members had originated more than $19.8 billion in financing in underserved urban, rural, and Native communities. In this C-W.org Interview, Pinsky discusses the state of community development finance, the movement’s vision and policy initiatives, and current challenges faced by CDFIs in this period of economic crisis.
interview-pinsky.pdf (200KB)
Ramón Léon, founding Executive Director of Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC)
Ramón León is the founding Executive Director of Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC), a nonprofit organization serving the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. The group was founded by Latino community development leaders and is dedicated to creating economic opportunity for Latinos. Prior to joining LEDC, Mr. León was the founding President of Mercado Central, which today is a thriving marketplace with 47 businesses, with the market itself owned by the vendors as a cooperative. In this C-W.org Interview, León discusses the group’s business development model as well as broader issues facing asset builders in the nation’s growing Latino community.
interview-leon.pdf (150KB)
Rodney North, worker-owner of Equal Exchange
Rodney North has been a worker-owner of Equal Exchange for over a dozen years, where he serves as “the Answer Man” responsible for public relations and Vice Chair of its Board of Directors. The Massachusetts-based cooperative has 80 worker-owners and $34 million in annual sales, making it among the nation’s leading worker co-ops. In this C-W.org Interview, North discusses the group’s unusual funding model, its relations with consumer and agricultural co-ops, and current challenges faced by worker co-ops in the United States.
interview-north.pdf (140KB)
John Logue, Founder and Executive Director of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State University
John Logue is Founder and Executive Director of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, based at Kent State University. Over its first 20 years has helped more than 81 companies became partly or wholly employee owned, creating 14,685 new employee owners. Follow-up research on data through 2003 for 49 of these firms found that they had created $349 million in equity for their employee owners. interview-logue.doc
interview-logue.pdf (215KB)
Eric Weaver, Founder and Executive Director of Lenders for Community Development, San Jose, California
 Executive Director of Lenders for Community Development (soon to be Opportunity Fund), a community development financial institution based in San Jose, California. Since its formation in 1993, Lenders for Community Development has disbursed over $5.6 million to more than 2,300 savers through its individual development account (IDA) program, the nation’s largest. The group has also made over 600 loans worth over $8 million to support local microenterprise and has directed over $115 million in community investment into affordable housing and community facilities.
interview-weaver.pdf (180KB)
Maggie
DeSantis, President, Warren-Conner Development Corporation,
Detroit, MI
 The Warren-Conner Development Corporation is a community-based
organization that has been working for more than two decades
on Detroit's Eastside. Founded in 1984, Warren-Conner
has undertaken a number of initiatives, including youth development,
community organizing, business development, and affordable housing.
Over the past two decades, the group's work has helped
create 200 jobs and generate nearly $20 million in private investment.
interview-desantis.pdf (148KB)
Tony
Brown, President/CEO, Uptown Consortium, Cincinnati, OH
 Founded in 2003 as an alliance of the University of Cincinnati,
three nonprofit health care organizations, and the city zoo,
the Uptown Consortium has employed a mixed-use (commercial,
retail, and residential) approach to community development in
the Uptown neighborhoods where the anchors are located. To date,
the University of Cincinnati alone has allocated $100 million
from its $1 billion endowment to support the effort, helping
leverage over $400 million for community revitalization work.
interview-brown.pdf (164KB)
Seema
Agnani, Executive Director of New York City's Chhaya
CDC
 Seema Agnani is founder and Executive Director of Chhaya
Community Development Corporation, based in the Queens
borough of New York City. Founded in 2000 to serve New York
City's rapidly growing South Asian community, high land
prices have forced Chhaya to innovate in its affordable housing
strategy. Rather than developing new housing, the CDC has
worked with City officials, architects, and homeowners to
improve and legalize New York City's growing market
(which now numbers over 100,000 units citywide) of “in-law”
or “informal” housing. C-W.org interviews Agnani
to get her perspective on current issues facing CDCs and the
South Asian community, both in New York City and nationally.
interview-agnani.pdf (104KB)
Rosalind
Greenstein on Community Land Trusts
 Rosalind Greenstein is Senior Fellow and Chair of the Department
of Economic and Community Development at the Lincoln Institute
of Land Policy, based in Cambridge, MA. Founded in 1974, Lincoln
focuses its educational work on land policy and land-related
taxation. Through its Community
Lots initiative (www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/CL/) Lincoln provides
technical assistance to a number of community groups—including
the growing community land trust (CLT) movement. C-W.org interviews
Greenstein to learn her perspective on current issues facing
community land trusts, as well as the movement's future
prospects.
interview-greenstein.pdf (112KB)
Ron
Phillips on Community Wealth Building Trends
 For nearly
30 years, Ron Phillips has been CEO of Coastal Enterprises,
Inc. (CEI), a Maine-based community development corporation
(CDC) and community development financial institution (CDFI).
Founded in 1977, CEI provides financing and technical assistance
to job-creating small businesses, natural resources industries,
community facilities, and affordable housing. CEI's primary
market is Maine, but, in recent years, it has expanded several
programs to northern New England, upstate New York, and beyond.
C-W.org interviews Phillips to get his perspective on CDCs,
CDFIs, and overall trends affecting community wealth building
nationwide.
interview-phillips.pdf
(116KB) |
