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.
As Women’s History Month draws to a close, we at LISC are not only reflecting on women’s past accomplishments in community development—and there are so many—but also shining a light on the hardworking women leaders who are moving the field forward today.
That leadership is an engine driving the local advisory committees (LACs) that guide and champion LISC’s work across the country. Nearly all LISC’s 37 local offices and its rural program have an LAC. LAC members bring relationships and expertise from their past and ongoing work in philanthropy, banking, government, and community development, along with a close understanding of local market dynamics and needs. Nearly half (46 percent) of LAC members are women, and women chair 12 LACs.
While much of that work takes place quietly and behind the scenes, LAC members “are like landscape barometers for us,” says Tahirih Ziegler, LISC senior vice president for national market excellence and former longtime executive director of LISC Detroit. LAC members help refine strategies and determine when and where they’ll be most impactful, she says, in large part by leveraging extensive networks that span sectors. “Women are really good at that,” observes Ziegler. “They're very good at navigating ecosystems that traditionally have shut them out, and they have figured out ways to be at the table.”
In fact, a huge body of research indicates that women leaders are particularly skilled at forging relationships, maintaining diverse networks and multiple roles, and prioritizing inclusion and empathy—abilities that, in LAC members, promote innovation and better outcomes for communities.
C.J. Eisenbarth Hager, LISC Houston LAC chair, previously served for several years on the LAC for LISC Phoenix. When she moved to Phoenix in 2008 to work in health philanthropy, she already had deep experience working on affordable housing in the government and nonprofit sectors. “One of the first things I did was ask, ‘Who’s the local LISC office in Phoenix? I found them and introduced myself and said, ‘You don’t know me, but I know your work at a national level and by association I’m assuming you’re awesome.’ And they were.”
When she came to Houston in 2021, Hager’s work tackling health inequities as assistant vice president for innovation and integration at the Episcopal Health Foundation once again dovetailed with LISC’s mission, and she approached the local office: “First, ‘I’m here. I want to be helpful.’”
Women, remarks Hager, “often are socialized to fill in gaps, to be that bridge builder or bridge maintainer,” and as LAC chair she’s prioritized getting to know the other LAC members to ensure “their time and talent and treasures are acknowledged and being used to the highest potential.”
LAC members also function as a force of stability and institutional memory, says Ziegler. “Even when executive leadership changes, the LAC is there, providing that continuity.” She points to long-serving women leaders like Sherry P. Magill, chair of LISC Jacksonville’s LAC, who has led the committee for more than eight years, helping steward the office past a period of transition to the selection of Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen, who has now been executive director for nearly four years.
Lisa Price, vice president and lead social impact and sustainability specialist at Wells Fargo, also acts as a powerful connector as chair of the LISC Phoenix LAC. “It was a natural fit for me to begin serving [on the LAC], not only for what knowledge and expertise I could bring, but also what they could bring to me in helping me to understand the landscape and various efforts in Phoenix.”
Moving into a national role at Wells Fargo, leading programs for financial health, broadened her knowledge and network, allowing for even richer cross-fertilization among organizations and between local and national scales. When Wells Fargo put out an RFP for a financial coaching and counseling program, she recalls, “I wanted to make sure that we had LISC at the table,” says Price, “because I was aware of their Financial Opportunity Center model just by serving here on the local LAC.” She’s also aware of best practices emerging in places across the country and can share them with LISC Phoenix—and that, says Ziegler, is a key role that LAC members play.
Price believes women’s leadership is critical not only for that connectivity, but also for the perspective that women bring from lived experience—something that’s certainly relevant to boosting households’ financial health. “We work to help the household,” says Price, “but at the same time, we are often responsible for childcare and eldercare as well. I think that perspective is important to bring to the table.”
For LISC Charlotte, launched in 2019, the LAC is chaired by Jada Grandy-Mock. She brings to that position her life experience growing up in a public housing community and becoming a first-generation college graduate (and MBA)—along with top leadership experience in business and financial services and strategic philanthropy.
Grandy-Mock pursued a career in banking “to be a bridge to create economic opportunities for others and help them to pay it forward by doing the same,” she says. Senior vice president and chief corporate community and economic development officer at Fifth Third Bank, Grandy-Mock has been instrumental in guiding and supporting LISC Charlotte, not least through a seasoned leadership style that emphasizes authenticity and relationship-building. “Remember,” she writes in her blog, “the most impactful leaders are those who are true to themselves and genuinely committed to the welfare of their teams.”
Women LAC members are also keen to acknowledge that the strength of the community development field rests on the shoulders of people—many of them women—working at the grassroots.
“It’s well known that more than half of small community-based organizations, those with budgets of less than a million dollars, are led by women,” says Philadelphia LISC LAC chair Paige Carlson-Heim. “And it speaks to me. We have to recognize the contributions that women are making, but also that the path taken to those accomplishments is often unique. There’s not a model. Women are expected to do a lot of things all at the same time. And we do. Some of these organizations are started sort of off the side of the desk of a woman who has another completely different full-time job and is raising a family and is volunteering in her community.”
Carlson-Heim, director for charitable and community giving at TD Charitable Foundation, brings the conversation back to connection in describing what women need to carry the work forward. “It’s important,” she says, “to create space where they can come together to listen to each other, to learn from each other, and to be celebrated and recognized by other women. Because I think in the end it’s what empowers them, gives them confidence to continue.”
To learn more about LISC local offices and our LACs, you can find their websites here.