Oct 23The Burden of Proof of Systemic RacismNearly two decades ago, I founded the Year Up expansion site in the DC area. Year Up helps young people who have experienced barriers to academic and professional careers. Whenever I raised money for Year Up, I often felt like large donors needed proof that our students were “adequately disadvantaged”…Racism5 min readRacism5 min read
Sep 22How to Win the Woke WarThe last few years have been an emotional roller coaster that is hard to put into words. The shared global fear of a health crisis that reduced each one of us to our most basic elements. The mix of horror and validation of violent racial injustice that displayed our most…Woke6 min readWoke6 min read
Aug 21Sydney’s Jewelry Shop: A case study in equitable impactMy eight-year-old daughter, Sydney, loves jewelry. Her love of jewelry started very young, and as she got older, she was more and more interested in making her own. My husband and I bought her different jewelry-making kits, but she ignored them because she thought the materials in the kits were…4 min read4 min read
Jul 25Keeping the Faith: How faith institutions are supporting equitable impactFaith-based and religious institutions have a long history of supporting impact investing. Much of the principles of modern-day impact investing come from the experiences of early religious investors, driven by their faith to improve society through their capital. The development of a robust investment market took time to materialize because…Faith4 min readFaith4 min read
Jun 14Private Equity Firm Profitably Promotes Equitable OutcomesPrivate equity firms have a pretty straightforward business model: They buy a company, work with the management team to make changes in their operations to maximize efficiencies, which, they hope, leads to increased profits for the company, which can then lead to returns for the private equity firm or a…Private Equity3 min readPrivate Equity3 min read
May 16Spending for Recovery in New Orleans Promotes Equal OpportunityAs we all know, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans hard. It’s been years since that disaster, but while much of that city has recovered, many areas of the city and its people are still struggling. Recognizing that New Orleans had a long road to recovery, civic and business leaders founded…New Orleans4 min readNew Orleans4 min read
Apr 19Embedding Equity: Walmart Comes to DCI started working with Walmart in early 2010 as they were planning their first expansion into the broader Washington, DC market. This was one of their first tests of “urban” stores; most of their retail locations at that time were in rural, suburban, or ex-urban markets. They were experiencing challenges…Walmart4 min readWalmart4 min read
Mar 22Create equitable impact and harness the true potential of your businessIn my latest book, The Social Impact Advantage, I talk about how businesses need to shift their focus from short-term profit maximization to long-term value-generation and increasing overall well-being. Today business leaders can easily get distracted by a “winner take all” mentality and miss out on important opportunities to do…Esg5 min readEsg5 min read
Jan 20What will be the “e-business” of social impact?I began my career before everyone had a cellphone or an email address. Many of my bosses and higher-ups didn’t use computers, even though I was working for the industrial giant, GE, within its “eBusiness” division. …Social Justice5 min readSocial Justice5 min read
Dec 14, 2022The inherent worth of being humanDo you feel valuable? Or do you feel valued? The end of the year is always a time for reflection and looking inward. I was lucky enough to spend some time earlier this month hosting the annual B Lab conference, which brought together close to a thousand B corps from…Racial Justice4 min readRacial Justice4 min read
