From strategy
to action.

Regional initiative development

Building a regional model
for housing opportunity.

In 2018, The Housing Collective (then Supportive Housing Works) asked me to explore how it could build on a decade of collective impact work in homelessness to launch a regional initiative for affordable housing. I worked with community foundations and local partners to define what they could accomplish together and how to organize the work.

I led the design and launch of the Fairfield County Center for Housing Opportunity, securing funding and putting the partnerships, governance, and staffing in place. I then helped expand the model across three Connecticut regions and developed and secured funding for research partnerships to inform housing decisions.

As part of the leadership team, I also helped shape the strategy that reorganized Supportive Housing Works around three lines of work and became The Housing Collective.

Organizational growth & positioning

Connecting building performance
to housing affordability.

New Ecology’s building scientists bring deep expertise in making homes more energy efficient and resilient. They needed a way to show housing leaders and funders why energy efficiency is a critical part of the housing affordability story. For residents, rent and energy bills are part of the same housing cost.

We started with a scope that fit New Ecology's priorities, staff capacity, and budget. Working with leadership and staff, we sharpened how New Ecology describes its role in housing and climate, then built the tools to act on it: shared messaging and case studies, a development plan, and a prioritized funder pipeline. Together we designed an opportunity-tracking process that teams across the organization now use to decide which opportunities to pursue, who owns them, and how they follow through. I continue to connect New Ecology with funders and partners as those opportunities take shape.

Housing preservation & shared learning

Making established practice
useful to a wider field.

Capital for Change and New Ecology asked me to tell the story of a decade of affordable housing preservation in Connecticut so other markets could learn from the work and adapt it. The goal was to show how lenders, technical experts, and funders can each play a defined role in bringing funding and financing, energy improvements, and technical support together to keep existing homes affordable.

I worked with both teams to frame the story, interviewed stakeholders, and brought together national research, related studies, and project data to show how the approach works and why it holds up. I then developed a co-branded paper, case studies, talking points, and a presentation that leaders from both organizations use to share the model with lenders, funders, and policymakers.