President

Focused Community Strategies

Having spent more than 20 years in place-based community development, Jim has deep expertise in mixed-income housing, neighborhood-based economic development, and holistic neighborhood development. Jim has led and participated in multiple workshops on Reimagining Charity, Inclusive Mixed-Income Housing, and Neighborhood Dynamics of Redevelopment.

Jim supports multiple organizations at the consultant and/or board level, assisting them as they develop thinking and best practices around organizational structure, strategy and culture, board governance, and team development.

Jim and his wife, Jolyn, have four children. They have lived in the Atlanta area since 1995. Jim is an avid runner and tennis player and loves all Mexican foods.

Founder & CEO

Cerca Solutions

For over 25 years Kirk Wester-Rivera has been leading and supporting holistic neighborhood revitalization strategies and organizations. For 13 years he led the organization he founded, Growing Together, a highly successful neighborhood development organization in Tulsa, OK that aligned the Purpose Built Communities pillars and centered on the belief that by creating a thriving neighborhood by which children can thrive that we set the stage for a future of economic success and vitality. This work oversaw the creation of over 500 units of mixed-income housing (including a mixed-income neighborhood trust), neighborhood school transformation and the development of a CDFI to provide access to capital for neighborhood businesses.

In 2023, Kirk transitioned to Colorado where he founded Cerca Solutions, a consul ng firm focused on developing capacity for organizations and leaders across the country that align with the same mission of creating thriving neighborhoods for under-resourced neighborhoods. Since that me, he has launched the Thriving Neighborhoods Lab, a collection of expertise in housing, education, economic development, community organizing and leadership development/capacity-building in order to meet the complex needs of efforts desiring a truly inclusive and just approach to advancing thriving neighborhoods.

Cerca Solutions

Vice President, Community Impact

Greater Houston Community Foundation

Diana, a proud Houston native from an immigrant family, is dedicated to building a more equitable region that remains a place of opportunity for everyone. As Vice President of Community Impact at the Greater Houston Community Foundation, she leads the organization’s community impact work, from Understanding Houston—a regional indicator initiative developed with Rice University’s Kinder Institute—to the Greater Houston Disaster Alliance, which strengthens disaster response and resiliency. Her team also leads a new grantmaking initiative enabling the Foundation’s 800 fund holders to support high impact solutions advancing economic mobility and addressing intergenerational poverty in Harris County. Diana is deeply engaged in an emerging multi-sector initiative focused on collaborating with communities in Houston’s Northeast neighborhoods to advance their vision of economic prosperity through a holistic, place-based approach.

Prior to the Foundation, Diana worked closely with Angela Blanchard and led the data and design team at BakerRipley—one of the largest community development organizations in Texas. There, she worked to further develop the organization’s Appreciative Community Building approach and supported the design and development of an 8 acre, 3-building, 87,000 sq ft Aldine community center that serves 70,000 residents. Prior to BakerRipley, Diana served as a junior policy advisor under the Obama Administration, focusing on economic mobility and place-based strategies. Her work is rooted in equity and expanding opportunities for families and communities.

She holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor’s in psychology and cultural anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. Diana completed the CFLeads Executive Leadership Institute in 2022, was named one of Houston’s 40 Under 40 in 2023, and is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum Houston Chapter. She serves on the Board of FuelEd and spends her free time with her husband, Luis Negreros, and their three children.

President & Founder

Healthcare Anchor Network

David Zuckerman has been leading the Healthcare Anchor Network since its launch in 2017 and serves as the president of the network. He is a national thought leader on the role of health systems as anchor institutions in building community wealth and inclusive economic development.

David is the co-author of several reports that have helped propel forward the anchor mission movement, including Hospitals Aligned for Healthy Communities toolkit series. He is also the author of Hospitals Building Healthier Communities: Embracing the Anchor Mission and a contributor to Can Hospitals Heal America’s Communities. He is the lead author of a National Academy of Medicine discussion paper, Building a Culture of Health at the Federal Level and a contributor to 2020 Surgeon General’s Report on Community Health and Economic Prosperity.

David has been an invited speaker at key sector events to promote the anchor mission movement: World Health Organization, American Hospital Association, Association of Academic Health Centers, the National Academy of Medicine, American Organization of Nurse Executives and Modern Healthcare’s Leadership Summit.

He previously served on the Board of Trustees for the Consumer Health Foundation from 2016-2021, including as Treasurer. In this role, he led the expansion of their place-based impact investing strategy.