Smith, who serves as EVP and chief risk officer at Morgan Stanley, joins a 20-member LISC board comprised of some of the nation’s top financial and community leaders. “Charles brings a tremendous range of financial experience to our board and will be a strong voice for strategies that drive creative, financially sound, high-impact community development investments,” said LISC CEO Lisa Glover.

Bank of America’s Karen Fang is bringing her tremendous experience in sustainable finance and ESG investing to the LISC board. "She has a fierce commitment to putting capital to work in ways that help build a more broadly shared prosperity throughout the country,” said Maurice A. Jones, LISC president and CEO.

LISC has named an expert on community and population health to its national board, which helps guide the organization's investments in housing, businesses, health and jobs.

LISC has elected Dr. Gregory Fairchild, one of the country’s leading academics on economic development, to its board of directors. The University of Virginia business professor has, for decades, focused his research on the underpinnings of wealth-building in communities and the ways that social enterprises and entrepreneurship can drive economic opportunity.

Randy Oostra, CEO of Toledo-based ProMedica Health System, brings 40 years of health care and management expertise to LISC’s national board. His appointment comes at a time when LISC is intensifying its work to upend health disparities across the U.S., by investing in the well-being of people and places. It’s a strategy that Oostra has pioneered through ProMedica, boosting good health outcomes and opportunity for local communities.

In a New York Times op-ed, Robert Rubin makes the case for a federal jobs initiative, citing the success of LISC’s work readiness programs in connecting people to the workforce and the reins of economic opportunity. A national approach should be seen not “as a social program but as a public investment with a high rate of return,” wrote Rubin--and as an imperative for the health of our economy and society. We couldn’t agree more.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury and chairman of LISC for 18 years, warns against the dire pitfalls of cutting anti-poverty programs. Government initiatives that help low-income people are not just social imperatives for the richest country on earth, but also work as "automatic stabilizers" for the economy and keep commerce strong.

Calling out the “moral disgrace” of childhood poverty and the failings of our criminal justice system in a Washington Post op-ed, LISC board chair and former treasury secretary Robert Rubin describes the ways smart public investment and targeted spending on infrastructure, innovation and social programs could help our growing economy benefit everyone.