Zombie Homes, Part 2

In this episode, LISC's Interim CEO & President, Lisa Glover, interviews LISC board member, Michelle de la Uz who is also the Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn, NY.  The conversation highlights the work of the Fifth Avenue Committee around COVID, environmental initiatives and climate change, community advocacy, and affordable housing. It’s a great conversation that celebrates the importance of community partnerships in an ever-changing urban landscape.  

For our latest Community Wise podcast, LISC COO Annie Donovan caught up with Gregory B. Fairchild, the Isidore Horween Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and a member of LISC's national board of directors.

Fairchild recently published "Emerging Domestic Markets: How Financial Entrepreneurs Reach Underserved Communities in the United States," an investigation of new models that local entrepreneurs are using to promote inclusive economic development in long-underinvested American places. In the podcast, he discusses how the book, which combines history, social psychology and behavioral economics among other disciplines, also reflects the very personal story of his family's past and his own journey as an academic working on behalf of social justice.

In our most recent podcast, which honors two of the most oft-invoked figures of African American history, Maurice A. Jones speaks with Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., the great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass, and the great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington. Morris co-founded the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI), an anti-racist and abolitionist education organization whose mission is to build strong children and end systems of exploitation and oppression. Erica Mock, the group’s VP of strategic partnerships, joins this fascinating and personal conversation about the origins and work of FDFI and the future of social justice work in America.

This month, Maurice is joined by Connie Lewin, Director of Individual Philanthropy, to discuss the launch of Project 10X, LISC’s initiative to upend the racial health, wealth and opportunity gaps that keep tens of millions of Americans from sharing in our country’s prosperity and realizing their personal potential. 

A roundtable discussion with LISC CEO Maurice A. Jones and Verizon’s Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Officer Rose Stuckey Kirk, moderated by LISC board member and UVA business professor Greg Fairchild, delves into what it will take to get to economic equity for our country.

In this episode, former LISC CEO Maurice A. Jones interviews Paul Taylor, director of the RVA League for Safer Streets in Richmond, Virginia. The League was founded in 2017 by Paul, and the late Jawad Abdu, both returning citizens, to address issues of gang violence in their communities. Before stepping foot on a court, participants attend workshops on problem solving, critical thinking and conflict resolution. In this powerful conversation, Paul shares stories of transformation–of individuals working together to forge opportunities that change lives and heal communities.

In the first episode of 2020, Maurice speaks with LISC COO Annie Donovan about her journey before coming to LISC, lessons learned from community development finance and the continuous success of the CDFI model.  Annie also reflects on her experience as interim leader of LISC’s Bay Area office and work being done there around homelessness, income inequality, racial equity, and displacement with an eye on the year ahead.

In the final episode of 2019, Maurice calls in from Puerto Rico where he is celebrating an exciting initiative, Play Ball Again. In partnership with Marc Anthony’s Maestro Cares Foundation, Bad Bunny’s Good Bunny Foundation, Cubs Charities and Javier Báez, as well as local officials and families, LISC celebrated the opening of a renovated baseball field at Parque de la Comunidad La Ceiba in Loíza, which was demolished by hurricanes in 2017. Play Ball Again aims to restore up to 25 athletic fields and related facilities that will serve 17,500 youth across the island.

Following the discussion of Play Ball Again, Maurice reflects on 2019, the year ahead and the goal we are all tasked with…to make the impossible possible. Thanks for another great year and we hope you will tune in in January!

In this episode, Maurice is joined by Esther Udehi, a member of LISC’s Emerging Leaders Council and a PhD candidate at the Wharton School. Esther and Maurice discuss how language choices affect our interactions with people and the communities where we work. By putting personhood before circumstance and choosing words that do not further stigmatize, we can bring about real change and support greater inclusion.

This month, Maurice sits down with Tope Folarin, LISC’s vice president of storytelling and content and the author of A Particular Kind of Black Man. Listen in to hear how Folarin’s youth and education inspired a career dedicated to storytelling, why sharing stories is so critical to the work of LISC, and how it all connects to his debut novel.