LISC’s Local Advisory Committees (LACs) serve as guides and champions for the organization’s many local offices and rural program. Women leaders from the finance, philanthropy, government and community development worlds bring a special—and especially important—set of skills and insights to this critical, behind-the-scenes part of our work to strengthen communities.

By Destiny Allen & Michelle Harati

This Small Business Week, we are highlighting how the Community Navigator Pilot Program, administered by the Small Business Administration, is investing in local and national partnerships with trusted organizations to reduce the barriers entrepreneurs face in accessing critical support. Partners work with small business owners across the country, including veterans, women, people with disabilities, and those from rural places and communities of color.

In collaboration with the Walmart Foundation, LISC announced funding to help eight community-based nonprofits increase access to healthy, affordable food in under-resourced communities. Located primarily across the Southeast region, grantees will undertake efforts ranging from farmer-led urban agriculture to mobile food markets to the establishment of a community food policy council.

Not really a top ten, because we heard and told so many great stories this year—of challenges overcome and impact made—that it would be impossible to pick that few. But here is a selection of our favorites from 2022 (okay, ten) in words, pictures and social media characters. They help narrate some of what happened over the past 12 months, and we think they're too good to miss!

With support from public, private and philanthropic leaders, LISC has unveiled an ambitious community investment effort in Louisville. Led by Scott Love, a long-time economic development leader in Kentucky, the new LISC Louisville program is focused on catalyzing economic opportunity, fueling pandemic recovery and driving racial justice.