As LISC announces its new leadership team, a blog from interim CEO Lisa Glover and President Denise Scott outlines their priorities for the coming year—to deepen LISC’s impact on economic opportunity and racial justice, fuel an expanding lineup of investment products and programs, and support the organization's ongoing growth.
There are days when it can be difficult to see beyond the last 18 months. A deadly pandemic, a painful racial reckoning, a worsening housing crisis, escalating climate disasters, and uncertainty surrounding businesses, jobs and incomes have consumed much of our daily lives.
But the challenges and opportunities for millions of families run much deeper than this point in time and so, too, should the work of community development organizations like LISC. We must invest with urgency to address immediate concerns and at the same time take a long view, laying the groundwork for a future in which race, class, gender and geography are no longer defining indicators of a person’s quality of life.
All of which is to say, this is a remarkable time for us to be working together to lead LISC.
We are so proud to serve as interim CEO and as president of this resilient, creative organization. LISC has grown significantly in recent years: in 2020 alone, we invested a record $2 billion in grants, loans and equity. Those investments are nearly double our annual activity of a decade prior, and they reflect a diversity of program and investment activity that LISC has developed over many years, from small business relief to affordable housing development to childcare, health, safety, and employment training.
Our job now is to make sure we have the programs and structures in place to accelerate social and economic gains in underserved communities, as well as to effectively manage our rapid growth, both operationally and programmatically. LISC is a much larger, more complex organization than it was 10 years ago. And so, our board determined that having both a CEO and a president would help us strengthen our organizational infrastructure, spark program innovation and sustain growth.
In this, we enjoy the great advantage of having worked together on various LISC initiatives for many years. In the months to come, we will focus on expanding LISC’s ability to be bold, responsive and efficient as we work to bridge racial and socio-economic gaps throughout the country.
That includes collaborations with new funders on initiatives like Project 10X, a $1 billion strategy to address systemic racial inequities, and the LISC Rural Promise, which aims to catalyze 20 percent of our impact in rural communities. And, we will continue to expand our services for small businesses to ensure an equitable recovery from the pandemic.
It also includes expanding our reach into new geographies. We have opened new program offices in recent years, especially in the South, and we are looking for other strategic opportunities to meet the needs of urban and rural communities, particularly in places that struggle to attract the capital and services they need to thrive.
And, lastly, this ongoing work will span a broad range of products, funds and services—both existing and emerging—so we can continue to fuel locally driven impact. We will be working side by side with community partners, business leaders, impact investors, philanthropy, municipal agencies, advocacy groups, and policymakers, as we have for more than 40 years.
At the forefront of all of this is LISC’s truly extraordinary staff. Every day, they work to break down historical barriers to opportunity. They are entrepreneurial and driven, and they care deeply about people and places that have not been able to share in America’s rich landscape of opportunity. We are honored to have the chance to lead them and LISC into the future.
Learn more about Lisa, Denise and LISC’s senior leadership team here.
About the Authors
Lisa L. Glover, Former LISC CEO
Lisa L. Glover served as LISC’s CEO from February 2021 through September 2023. She wasn a member of the LISC National Board of Directors from 2010 through 2023. An active community leader, she previously served as the Chair of LISC Milwaukee’s Local Advisory Committee. Lisa is a former Executive Vice President at U.S. Bank, retiring in March, 2020 after a 33 year career that included leadership roles in Community Affairs, risk management, and process improvement. Lisa holds a BBA in Corporate Finance from Iowa State University and a Master of Library and Information Science from University of Wisconsin.
Connect on LinkedIn
Denise Scott, President
With more than three decades of experience in community development, Denise leads LISC’s investment in 38 local offices in cities and rural communities across 49 states with a firm commitment to ensuring local leaders have the platform and capacity to drive strategies for equitable community change. She is responsible for providing vision and setting the strategic direction for local offices and national programs and leading implementation of enterprise priorities like Project 10X. Denise previously served as LISC’s Executive Vice President for seven years. In this role, she elevated the field agenda and refined a service delivery system for national resources, investments and technical assistance to maximize LISC’s impact.
@LISCDeniseScott