Nov. 16, 2021

Readers know the tale: An academic comes to town, says people have a hard time getting ahead. Charlotte’s leadership class is concerned or embarrassed, orders a study, issues a report, creates a small group to birddog the report’s recommendations into reality. Where will this tale end? Where will the buck stop?

At the moment, it stops at the desk of Sherri Chisholm, executive director of a five-person group called Leading on Opportunity. A Detroiter with experience in business, nonprofits, even school districts, Chisholm sees the group not as a fixer of all things but as “a strategy organization that can help and consult nonprofits that are already doing really great work.”

Later, Chisholm said that for her, one part of the “help” that Leading on Opportunity can offer is to shine light on organizations doing good work without many headlines, thereby “bringing new players to the table who offer a new perspective.”

“Chetty is not coming back…. We need to hold ourselves accountable” and make the changes that are needed, she said.

Sarafina Wright’s report for QCityMetro on Chisholm’s presentation is here.

Leading on Opportunity had some initial funding that is now depleted, so Chisholm said her first priority is fund-raising. But another project near the top of her list is to reshape the Council, a group of Charlotteans guiding the organization in the way a board of directors might. “When it was commissioned, the commitment was that it would be 50% corporate and 50% community. It does not look like that now.” She said she was recruiting new board members from community spheres, to join the Council over the next two years.

What issues that limit children’s social mobility in Charlotte will she tackle? At one point, Chisholm said she would bring issues to the table that “no one organization can solve, that we can solve as a collective.”

When asked how the community could help, Senior Manager for Policy and Community Advocacy Tonya Jameson said she is looking to build “alliances that we haven’t necessarily seen before in the community to really help make change.”

There was no package of slides this morning. Below the video is some material added to the chat box by participants.

 

 

Material from the chat box

Excerpts:

Tonya Jameson: Sherri Chisholm’s bio is here.

Jennifer De La Jara: Per my comments earlier, Link to the full NC budget can be found in this article.

Yvette Townsend-Ingram: A WBTV report of a call for federal probe of CMS history of handling Title 9 complaints is here.

Tonya Jameson: The Leading on Opportunity council members are listed here.

Keba Samuel: On behalf of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission, please be sure that you submit feedback on the first draft of the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). More info here.