Responding to Gentrification and Local Job Retention
- Impact Stories
- Network Leaders
The Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley had no local investments in 2016, despite strong interest in local economies and holding over $50 million in assets. March Gallagher joined Common Future’s 2016 Foundation Circle as the previous President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley to create pathways for local investment through policy adoption and investment identification. Through peer-to-peer learning and conversations with experts, March was able to develop and see through to fruition a series of local investments for the Foundations and provide critical services to the community.
March’s connections through the Common Future network enabled her to host workshops on succession planning for businesses in the area with Common Future Fellow Tomás Durán, and to connect with people in her region developing new models of economic change like Fellow Matt Stinchcomb of the Good Work Institute. Cohort learning with other place-based foundations helped March develop language and concepts to support the transition of a percentage of her foundation’s capital to local investments.
Since March’s participation in the Foundation Circle, the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, now at over $75 million in assets, has made investments in two local angel funds (the Hudson Valley Startup Fund and LaunchNY) and initiated a nonprofit loan fund that provides below market rate bridge finance. They are also working on a rent-to-own affordable housing program with a local affordable housing partner.
