SVP

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

David Erickson is head of Community Development at the NY Fed. His research areas include community development finance, affordable housing, and economic development. His current focus is on how banking partners can play a role in developing robust markets that invest in the upstream determinants of economic opportunity in LMI communities.
Erickson’s books include: The Housing Policy Revolution: Networks and Neighborhoods (2009), published by Urban Institute Press and The Fifth Freedom: Guaranteeing an Opportunity-Rich Childhood for All (2023), published by Brookings.
He co-edited Investing in What Works for America’s Communities (2012); What Counts: Harnessing Data for America’s Communities (2014); What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Futures of Families, Communities, and the Nation (2015); What Matters: Investing in Results to Build Strong, Vibrant Communities (2017); and What’s Possible: Investing Now for Prosperous, Sustainable Neighborhoods (2024).
Erickson has a Ph.D. in history from UC, Berkeley and an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College.

Senior Manager, Community Initiatives

NeighborWorks America

As the Senior Manager of Community Initiatives at NeighborWorks America, Rachel manages technical assistance, grant, and training programs that assist network organizations in developing and implementing impactful resident-led, place-based strategies. Prior to joining the Community Initiatives team, Rachel worked for five years leading evaluation programs and efforts for NeighborWorks network organizations, other nonprofits and real estate developers. Rachel holds a Master of Public Administration degree from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Board Member

Principles for Peace

Deborah Frieze is an author, entrepreneur and professor with a focus on community-based investing, blended finance and economic democracy.

She serves as Senior Economic Advisor and Board Member of Principles for Peace, a Geneva-based organization that embodies a new approach to peace and security at the global, regional and local level. Through her work at P4P, she co-founded the Palestinian Impact Initiative, an impact investing fund that seeks to be a source economic stabilization and recovery in the West Bank.

Deborah is founder of the Boston Impact Initiative, an impact investing fund working to close the racial wealth divide in New England and co-founder of Unlock Ownership, a pooled multi-donor impact investing fund focused on building the ownership economy. She has taught Community-Based Investing around the world, including at Tufts University, where she helped design and launch a certificate program in Impact and Sustainable Investing.

Executive Director, Trinity Leadership Fellows

Trinity Church

Rob Garris designs education and leadership programs that prepare people to create positive change in their communities and the world. As Executive Director of Trinity Leadership Fellows and Managing Director of Leadership Development for Trinity Church’s philanthropy,
he trains rising leaders from around the world who are inspired by their faith to deliver real results for the congregations and communities they serve. Earlier, at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Columbia SIPA,
the Rockefeller Foundation, and Schwarzman Scholars, he built programs expanding access to top-tier education for high-potential global
leaders. Rob holds a PhD in History from UNC Chapel Hill and is
committed to creating challenging, mind-opening, multi-perspective
learning environments that strengthen leaders of positive change in
the world.

Director of Community Building Strategies

CommunityWorks

As the Director of Community Building Strategies at CommunityWorks, Megan works with local leaders across the country to create connected neighborhoods where every person's gifts are valued and every community has the power to shape its own future. In her role, she provides municipal, nonprofit, and neighborhood leaders with the learning, tools, and peer support needed to sustain inside-out transformation. This includes initiatives such as The Community Building Hub, Discover the Gifts Civic Leader Cohort, and the Unlocking Neighborhood Gifts workshop. She lives in the Azalea Park neighborhood (Orlando, FL) where she is the President of the Azalea Park Neighborhood Association, a co-founder of Orlando Good Neighbor Week, and builds community with her neighbors and her dog Juniper.

Executive Director

Poughkeepsie Children's Cabinet

Jill Roche Gomez is the inaugural Executive Director of the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet, a cradle-to-career initiative uniting government, schools, nonprofits, business, philanthropy, families, and youth to reach our Northstar goal of building pathways to economic mobility. Jill leads implementation of the Cabinet’s 10-year strategic plan that advances fundraising, data-driven planning, and cross-sector collaboration to connect over 5,000 young people and their families to opportunity each year by 2033.
A results-oriented leader, Jill previously served six years as Executive Director of the Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx. Earlier, she worked with Education Pioneers, state education departments, and the New York State Courts.
Jill holds a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and an LL.M. in International Law & Human Rights from Maastricht University. She was also in the first cohort of the Cradle to Career Leadership Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s EdRedesign Lab.

Chief Innovation Officer

Noble Schools

Dr. D. is a proud Chicago native and Chief Innovation Officer reimagining how schools evolve to meet students’ needs. Working at the intersection of innovation, equity, and systems design, he transforms bold ideas into meaningful, scalable change. Across Chicago’s education landscape, he’s helped organizations move beyond intention into action, strengthening culture and rethinking student experiences.

A doctoral graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, D. Nigel researched how family, identity, and lived experience influence whether children of Black educators enter teaching. His mission remains building more responsive, representative, and sustainable education systems, starting in Chicago.

Grounded in community and shared responsibility, he embraces Jay-Z’s philosophy: “Nobody will fall ’cause everyone will be each other’s crutches.” Off duty, he’s chasing sneaker drops, exploring new states, bonding with his nieces and nephews, or curating the perfect playlist for the moment.

Program Manager, Health and Wellbeing

National League of Cities

Megan Greig (she/they) is a Program Manager on the Health and Wellbeing team at the National League of Cities, where she guides city government staff and officials across the country in developing policies and programs to meet community health needs. She recently obtained her master’s in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, with a certification in applied data science for public health. Prior to her work at NLC, Megan worked in implementation research supporting health care organizations providing accessible care to vulnerable populations. She believes deeply in the power and goodness of people and is proud to translate this belief into her work every day. Outside of work, Megan can be found cycling through the streets of her home city of Washington, DC, or in rehearsal for her next community theatre show.

Fellow

The Brookings Institution

Tracy Hadden Loh is a fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she integrates her interests in commercial real estate, infrastructure, racial justice, and governance. She serves on the boards of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and Greater Greater Washington. She previously served two years on the city council of Mount Rainier, a small town in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Executive Producer

Neighborhood Economics

Rosa Lee grew up with ink in her veins. Her family ran The Itawamba County Times in Mississippi, where her career began; later she and her husband, Kevin Jones, spent more than a decade owning the Mississippi Business Journal.

Then came a mid-career leap. They moved to California, where Rosa Lee attended seminary and led Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in San Francisco for ten years. The adult congregation doubled, and the children’s community grew from two kids to more than 60.

In 2008, she and Kevin launched SOCAP, which grew into the premier global gathering for impact investing. Before the pandemic, it drew more than 3,000 people a year from over 60 countries, hoping to build an economy that puts positive impact first.

In 2014, they and Tim Soerens launched Neighborhood Economics, convening people from every sector to build local economies that work for everyone. It’s her full focus today.

Co-founder, Program Director

Neighborhood Village Project

August Elliott is co-founder and Program Director of the Neighborhood Village Project (NVP), where he designs the curriculum and facilitates the cohorts that train residents to build community on their own blocks. He has spent more than a decade in community-focused work. His background spans education and youth development, including wilderness therapy, along with curriculum and experience design, group facilitation, and somatic coaching. He has also lived in cooperative housing and organized on its behalf. At NVP he puts that experience toward one practical question: what does it take for neighbors who start as strangers to keep showing up for each other after a program ends? NVP stewards are now at work in more than 160 neighborhoods across 10 countries. August lives in Boulder, Colorado.

CEO

The Learning Tree

De’Amon Harges is the original Roving Listener as a neighbor, church member, and staff person at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. His calling in life is as an artist in a wide variety of ways, including with people. This led to him being hired to do what he was already doing, identifying the gifts, talents, dreams and passions of his neighbors in order to build community, economy and mutual delight. He continues that work today as a church member of Broadway and as a neighbor and as the founder and staff person for the Leaning Tree, a business he has built with his neighbors that has taken him (and others) around the world to help people remember the ways in which community is present and powerful everywhere - particularly in places where people are pushed to the margins.

Legal and Data Director

Advocates for Community Transformation (Act)

Evangeline graduated cum laude from Davidson College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and French and obtained her J.D. from Duke University Law School. Prior to joining Act, Evangeline practiced law at Baker Botts LLP, where she also served as a volunteer attorney with Act. Evangeline joined Act in 2017 and currently serves as the Legal and Data Director, where she directs legal and data strategy, program evaluation and impact measurement.

CEO

The WRK Group

Logan Herring is the CEO of The WRK Group, which includes The Warehouse, REACH Riverside, and Kingswood Community Center. This unique collaboration of three tax-exempt businesses is responsible for overseeing a 600-million-dollar community revitalization in the Riverside neighborhood, including housing, health, education, and economic vitality.

Logan has received recognition, both local and national alike, such as: 40 Under 40; CEO of the Year; Most Influential Delawarean Hall of Fame; DEI Award from the National Institute of Building Sciences; and the Philly Titan 100 Award.

Growing up in Wilmington’s West Center City neighborhood, Logan understands that many people contributed and guided him to his success, and his life-long commitment is to pay it forward so individuals, families, and communities can be empowered to do the same.

CEO

Cohere

Todd Hornback is Partner and Chief Executive Officer at Cohere, a national placemaking and community management firm.

Previously:
 Owner/President - Todd Hornback & Associates – Nonprofit Leadership Consulting
 President/CEO Positions - Parents Anonymous of Arizona, Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits, and Scottsdale LINKS/Scottsdale Healthcare
 Faculty Associate - ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Innovation

Awards/Recognition:
 Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist Southwest Region, Ernst & Young
 Frank Hodges Alumni Achievement Award, Scottsdale Leadership
 Tin Man Award, Litchfield Park Rotary
 West Valley 24 Mover & Shaker, West Valley Magazine
 Forty Under 40, Phoenix Business Journal
 Distinguished Graduate Award, National University
 Co-Author, Background Report on Civic Engagement, AZ Town Hall

Education:
 Master’s degree in human services administration, National University
 Bachelor’s degree in health education, San Diego State University
 Executive Leadership Certificates in Finance, Stanford University & Design, Harvard University