Program Officer Shona Sen Brings Years of Experience and Passion for Justice Oriented Community Development to the LISC LA Team
10.02.2020
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LISC StoriesLeadership Development
This summer, LISC LA saw their portfolio of local investments rapidly grow, and along with it, their expert team of community development leaders. The latest addition to the team, Shona Sen, brings her years of experience in the field and passion for community development to LISC LA. In her new role, Sen will be leading efforts on economic mobility and equity in Los Angeles neighborhoods as an Economic Development Program Officer. It seems the transition was only a matter of timing, as Sen has known about and followed LISC’s efforts for over ten years. Now she has joined the team taking on her dream role of working on locally-focused, justice-oriented initiatives in Los Angeles.
Shona Sen has always had a passion for justice, but it was through her first job out of college that she realized that community development would be the channel for her passion. Sen started her career as a community liaison with the City of Houston’s Health Department where she grew up. In her new role, Sen helped launch a public health initiative with the linguistically-isolated populations of Houston, a major refugee resettlement city. She traveled to different neighborhoods throughout Houston to partner with community leaders to deliver public health programming and workshops in multiple languages and cultural contexts. But as Sen moved throughout the city, she was confronted by the stark gap in access to resources, public spaces, job opportunities and living conditions that varied from neighborhood to neighborhood.
As Sen describes it, “The neighborhoods varied significantly in what they had been given, and that’s when I realized it was a policy and systems issue. Decisions were made by local, state and the federal government, as well as the business community, to invest a lot in some neighborhoods and very little in others.” At a deeper level, Sen saw how these decisions directly contributed to outcomes for children, parents, and older adults, and even how neighborhoods right next to each other could expect a 20 year difference in life expectancy based on access to healthcare, safe housing, clean air and water, good schools, reliable transportation, healthy food, and living wage jobs – more broadly referred to as the social determinants of health.
“The revelation that we can improve a community’s quality of life by dismantling traditional power systems, making strategic investments, and listening to and being led by those with lived experience… was a big “aha” moment for me. From a young age, I was acutely aware that inequities existed, but it was not until I first worked in community development when I realized that inequitable systems and policies are designed, and therefore preventable and fixable.”
From there Shona Sen began her career with a focus on building more equitable neighborhoods. Her experience led her to earn dual master’s degrees in public policy and nonprofit management from Brandeis University with a plan to ultimately apply her education to locally focused work. After graduate school, Sen gained experience in the philanthropic sector with the Episcopal Health Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and CCS Fundraising. With these organizations, she had the opportunity to manage programs focused on building capacity in community health centers, expanding education and career prospects for transition-aged foster youth, and expanding housing options for unhoused pregnant women. Working as a project manager in grant-making and fundraising roles gave Sen a unique and nuanced understanding of how capital flows from institutions and individuals to communities, as well as who gets a seat at the decision-making table.
After experiencing both sides of philanthropy, Sen knew that pursuing a role with an intermediary organization that is an investor, capacity builder, convener and innovator would be the ideal next step. LISC was a natural fit. Sen finally joined LISC in Los Angeles – a city she loves and considers home.
A recent American citizen, Sen attended her citizenship ceremony and proudly voted for the first time in Los Angeles in June of 2018.
At LISC LA, Shona Sen has taken on a role as an Economic Development Program Officer, doing what she describes as “community-driven development with an equity lens.” As a program officer, she focuses on three major programs: Financial Opportunity Centers, the Americorps program, and the HUD Section 4 program. Sen says about the role, “I look forward to being involved in creating a diverse pipeline for the field of community development. That’s a big part of my role - to foster an environment where a neighborhood’s development is being led by the people who live, work, and play in that neighborhood. That's really exciting to me.”
And after years of working both directly and indirectly in the community development space, the new position with LISC LA truly feels full circle for Sen. Sen has now lived in LA for three years, and she says Los Angeles is a lot like Houston. In Los Angeles, she sees a similar diverse demography, and with it, similar place-based inequities and disinvestment. But Sen is hopeful about the impact LISC LA can have: “We know that policies like redlining and exclusionary zoning continue to impact neighborhoods across the country. That LISC is intentionally investing time, energy, and resources in impacted neighborhoods is important. I like the local and place-based focus of the work, and am encouraged by the conversations we are having around racial equity and embracing an assets-based approach to community development.”
Just as Shona Sen is excited to take on this new role with LISC LA, the local CDFI is ecstatic to have her as a new addition to the team, bringing years of passion, knowledge, and experience to community development in Los Angeles.
