President/CEO – Housing & Community Economic Development

The main attractor of funding in this burgeoning field is not local need, but local capacity to address local needs. As communities organize themselves to plan and implement their redevelopment, the private sector is recognizing the strength of markets that had long been abandoned and is responding to cogent local proposals. This community-based, capacity-building approach to development has given birth to a new industry, with growth rates of up to 20 per cent forecast over the next 5 to 10 years. New career paths are taking shape in finance, real estate and business development.

 

Boulware at Work

At Issue: A Washington, D.C. based national trade association of over 500 community development organizations contacted us for help in finding a President/CEO. The association sought a leader who would increase membership and raise visibility at the federal level for the community development industry. The position required both in-depth knowledge of the concerns of local member organizations and an insider’s knowledge of the federal programs, procedures, funding criteria, policy shapers and community leaders.

At Stake: A new industry and strategy to help communities nationwide rebuild themselves at the grassroots level.

 

Our Firm’s Response

We drew on our knowledge of nonprofit and for-profit strategies for fostering growth in economically distressed communities to identify individuals who have a substantive understanding of the issues.
We also combed our senior-level contacts in the fields of housing, community development and economic development to identify individuals with extensive networks and long experience in the interaction of federal policy and local programs.
Having discovered after several conversations that our most respected source might be a candidate, we worked patiently and discretely with him to maximize his interest in the position and his readiness to leave his senior position with a federal development agency.

The Result: The successful candidate, a veteran federal official, has a reputation for responsiveness to local concerns that federal officials often overlook. In five years since he took the position, he has grown association membership by 60% from 500 to 800 members. Using his extensive networks, he developed bi-partisan federal support for community development as a growth industry. Under his leadership, the association also secured $8 million in multi-year funding commitments from a consortium of national foundations.

 

Housing and Community Development Clients

City Lands Corporation
Bethel New Life, Inc.
Capital Region Workforce Development Board
Center for Community Change
The Community Builders
Chicago Community Loan Fund
Chicago Housing Authority
City of Detroit – Director, Department of Housing
The District of Columbia Coalition for the Homeless
DevCorp North, Chicago (formerly Howard/Paulina Development Corp.)
Greater New Orleans Foundation
Hispanic Housing Development Corporation
Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership
Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion (IBA)
Institute for Social and Economic Development
Kenwood Oakland Development Corporation (KODC)
Latino Economic Development Corporation
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
Mercy Housing
Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership
Mid-South Planning & Development Commission
Neighborhood Housing Services of Elgin, IL
Neighborhood Housing Services of Rochester, NY
Neighborhood Progress, Inc.
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
New Detroit
New Orleans Jobs Initiative
Northern Initiatives
Private Industry Council of Boston
University of Illinois at Chicago
Upper Albany Neighborhood Collaborative
Workforce Alliance