We are excited to announce many of the sessions that will be featured on the Main Stage at Neighborhood Economics in San Antonio, February 26-28.
As always, the focus is on delivering economic justice to neighborhoods that are often left behind. We will showcase several funds that are getting money to these neighborhoods. Uniquely, we will focus on the role of congregations and faith leaders as central to helping local economies thrive in every neighborhood. We are continuing our emphasis on asset creation as the path to intergenerational wealth for marginalized communities, with more sessions on innovative housing solutions, more on community-focused commercial real estate, and more on entrepreneurship.
The role of faith-based groups in creating thriving communities has also been significantly expanded for San Antonio, as allies, as catalytic investors and donors, and as practitioners. The conference will feature more than twice as many sessions for people of faith and faith leaders as we did in Jackson in May 2023.
And two new themes have been added: shared ownership, including employees buying businesses, and an increased role for venture philanthropy, people giving to invest to provide the missing capital to make change happen in a community. Our policy initiative on subverting redlining has a significant new powerful ally on board this time, with the San Antonio board of realtors joining the new urbanists of Strongtowns.org, who know the planning and zoning boards and tax assessors who can make taxation fair.
In addition, we are also deepening our focus on investing in local businesses in every neighborhood, with partnerships with Main Street Journal and Impact Alpha, the Wall Street Journal of Impact Investing.
All told there are more 40 breakout sessions this time, and four deep-dive labs will meet across the three-day event. Their topics are:
- Applying Best Practices of Corridor Models: In San Antonio & Beyond
- Seminaries: Equipping Faith-Leaders for the Future
- For Faith Communities: Taking It Back Home
- Leveraging Catalytic Capital for Neighborhood Transformation
Some of the speakers on the main stage are:
- Chuck Mahron of Strong Towns
- Henry Cisneros, former US Cabinet Member and San Antonio Mayor
- David Erickson, Senior VP of Outreach and Education for the New York Federal Reserve
- Lisa Greenwood, President of the Methodist Foundation
- Carol Naughton, CEO of Purpose Built
- Sidney Williams of Crossing Capital
- Aisha Benson, CEO and President of the Non Profit Finance Fund
- Alison Clark of the MacArthur Foundation
- Leslie Payne of the Irvine Foundation
- Stephanie Swepson Twitty of Eagle Market Streets
- More being added daily …
To register for Neighborhood Economics: San Antonio, go to:
www.neighborhoodeconomics.org/san-antonio/
Information about the location and the preferred hotel for the event can all be found on the website.