About
Our mission is to educate, advocate, and activate community capital.
Vision
We envision a sustainable and democratic economy that works for everyone and intentionally includes individuals and communities historically excluded due to class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Our goal is a community investment fund imbedded in every community; locally invested, locally controlled, local wealth-building.
We value inclusivity, equity, local empowerment, and collective prosperity.
Our Principles
Community Capital and building community investment funds is more than working with a set of legal and financial strategies. At its core, it is about democratizing investment by engaging all investors regardless of wealth. Communities are empowered and share prosperity.
Community Capital is Inclusive
Community Capital practices, including building community investment funds, provide opportunities for people of all levels of wealth and all demographics to fully participate in the economy as investors. Widening the investor pool creates more opportunities for diverse stakeholders to receive investment from their neighbors and build enduring wealth.
Entrepreneurs who receive capital from their community’s investment fund tend to reflect the demographics of the investors who do the funding. Entrepreneurs in the US have historically been excluded from funding based on race, class, ethnicity, gender, and so on. This is largely because the investor class lacks diversity. To systemically diversify the pool of entrepreneurs who receive funding, it is necessary to diversify the investor base.
At the same time, the vast majority of the population who are not wealthy have historically lacked opportunities to invest and build durable wealth. Community capital levels the playing field for both investors and entrepreneurs.
Community Capital Empowers and Serves All Stakeholders
Projects funded by local investors work to incorporate the perspectives and interests of a diverse set of local stakeholders in their design and management. Development projects are commonly designed and governed by wealthy investors, investment managers, and other gatekeepers who are primarily interested in their financial returns. In contrast, community capital projects intentionally balance the needs of many stakeholders fairly and equitably and ensure that none are harmed by the venture’s activities.
Traditionally, the American capital marketplace has been tilted steeply in favor of the wealthy. The investment opportunities that provide the highest rates of return are reserved for the wealthiest investors, who rapidly increase their wealth. The non-wealthy have been limited to investments with relatively low and risk-adjusted returns, discouraging the non-wealthy from investing at all.
The terms of a community capital offering should never penalize those with lesser resources. For example, while the rate of return promised to investors of financial capital may vary according to the level of risk assumed by investors, the rate of return should not be lower simply because the amount of investment is less or because the investor does not meet certain wealth criteria. In some community capital raises, the rate of return may be higher for non-wealthy individuals in an effort to address historic and systemic inequity.
Finally, a venture’s need for capital should be balanced against the need to protect the interests of shareholders. A venture that is raising community capital should take extra care to provide clear and effective disclosure of any unfavorable factors and risks.
Community Capital is Fair and Equitable
Another key element of readiness for a community capital raise is clarity around your finances. Not only do you need to understand where you are, but you and your team should also have as much clarity as possible about where you are headed. This will shift through time as well, so continue to revisit it to ensure that this clarity remains.
Understanding your project’s potential revenues and expenses is likely a good place to start. From this, you may consider what the reality is of how much funding will need to come from your community capital raise and how much you might need to seek from alternative sources.
Community Capital Facilitates Shared Prosperity
Community Capital projects strive to grow wealth and well-being for local individuals and communities. When investors are also customers, financial beneficiaries, and partners, both the venture and the community prosper.
When a venture raising community capital effectively balances the needs of all its constituents, the benefits create positive feedback loops for all those constituents. These feedback loops contribute to resilient local economies, more equitable wealth distribution, safer communities, more jobs, higher tax revenues for local governments to fund services, and a healthier environment.
These positive effects can benefit everyone in a community, earn support from across the political spectrum, and signal a much-needed change in culture from a focus on benefiting the few at the expense of the many to a focus on benefiting all of us together.
Why Community Capital?
Engaging community capital has many benefits.
Wealth-building for Every Community
By investing locally, every community member has the opportunity to build wealth and secure their financial future. With local investments, communities can fund their own resilient solutions and innovative ideas.
Resilient Businesses
Community capital unlocks opportunities for all entrepreneurs, especially through partnerships with traditional capital-raising strategies. Community capital supports the longevity of startup businesses through holistic community support.
Flexible Capital
Local investments can be directed towards any venture or entrepreneur. Community Investment Funds can provide financing options not available from more traditional capital sources.
Control of Capital
Local banks have disappeared while big box stores and online shopping delivery trucks have replaced locally-owned businesses. Community capital presents pathways to rebuild local empowerment and control.
Our People
Board of Directors
Chris Miller
Special Projects Consultant, PlaneWave Instruments
Chief Executive Officer, NC3
A founding board member of NC3, Chris led the establishment of Michigan's investment crowdfunding law in 2013. Today, as founder and principal of StreetSense Consultants and NC3 Chief Executive Officer, Chris is focused on new community capital projects and is working with the Michigan legislature on a first-in-the-nation state law that would provide an income tax credit to every Michigan citizen who invests in any Michigan business.
Chris is also the Special Projects Consultant for PlaneWave instruments in Adrian, MI. PlaneWave is the global leader in the design and manufacture of high-tech observatory class telescopes and is also a committed and energized community partner, investing in and hosting community organizations, businesses and events. PlaneWave is committed to creating a strong and equitable local economy and a vibrant place to live.
Jenan Jondy
Regional Economic Innovation (REI) Coordinator, Michigan State University's Center for Community and Economic Development
Board Member, NC3
Jenan Jondy is the Regional Economic Innovation (REI) Coordinator at Michigan State University’s Center for Community and Economic Development. She leads federal grant engagement, applied research, and statewide partnerships through MSU’s EDA University Center, focusing on Michigan’s under-resourced communities. A Flint native, Jenan co-founded the Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village and directed its health response during the Flint water crisis. Her career spans policy advocacy, program development, and inclusive community finance, with a publication on higher education’s role in economic innovation.
Kate Redman
Executive Director, Commongrounds Foundation
Board Member, NC3
Kate is a community enterprise attorney and organizer. She co-founded Commongrounds, a community-owned real estate cooperative located in Traverse City, Michigan. She currently serves as the executive director of the Commongrounds Foundation, a sister 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed to incubate future community-driven real estate with an emphasis on placemaking, mixed income, and mixed-use projects. Her areas of legal specialty include legal and tax structure, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, real estate cooperatives, hybrid nonprofit/for-profit entities, and collaborative governance. She spends her free time with her family and friends and soaking up the many joys of northern Michigan—no matter whether running, kayaking, biking, skiing, camping, or just meandering along a beachy forest trail somewhere.
Angela Barbash
Chief Operation Officer, Revalue LLC
Board Member, NC3
Angela champions values-based and community investing, with 20+ years of leadership in the field, and a passion for mentoring first-gen wealth builders. She’s driven by Revalue’s ensemble model, client-employee parity, and commitment to cross-class service. Nature and her children ground her in grace, reminding her of the joy and responsibility in this work.
Brian Beckon
Managing Partner, PathLight Law
Board Member and Secretary, NC3
Brian is a Partner at PathLight Law, a mission-driven law firm based in Oakland, California, where he specializes in community capital, entity structuring, corporate governance, and charities compliance. Before PLL, Brian served as General Counsel for Clean Power Finance and RSF Social Finance; Corporate Counsel for Sybase and Catellus Development; and began his career with the law firm of Gaw Van Male. His J.D. is from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.
Judith Benkert
Active Retired
Board Member, NC3
As an Adrian Dominican Sister, Judith has ministered in the health care field in Nursing and as a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) and Nurse Practitioner (NP). Her ministry has taken her to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Oakland California. Judith became a member of the clinical faculty with the University of California San Francisco, Midwifery Education Program. Judith has also lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later, on sabbatical, ministered in rural Guatemala in the cultural home of the refugees she was seeing in Clinical midwifery in San Francisco. Judith retired from clinical work to accept a position in leadership for our Congregation. Later, she remained in San Francisco volunteering with seniors and homeless men and women. Judith returned to Adrian, MI in April of 2022.
Jackie Koney
Executive Director, LISC Kalamazoo
Vice Board Chair, NC3
Jackie brings 30+ years of nonprofit, government, and private-sector experience, focusing on community development, revitalization, and partnerships. As Executive Director of LISC Kalamazoo, she leads investments that build thriving, inclusive neighborhoods. Previously, she directed planning for the $150M Mill at Vicksburg redevelopment and held leadership roles with Salzburg Global Seminar and YMCA of Greater Seattle. A Michigan native, Jackie holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Seattle University. She enjoys hiking, traveling, and time with family.
Pablo Bravo
Retired
Board Chair, NC3
Pablo Bravo Vial is a seasoned community health executive and equity steward with over 30 years of experience. A trusted "action-producer," he has built countless networks and frameworks to improve the well-being of disadvantaged communities and has been a beacon for capital flow. As System Vice President at CommonSpirit Health, he spearheaded a strategic roadmap that aligned 144 hospitals across 21 states into a single community health department and shepherded over $500M in investments for housing, food, and other social services. He also co-founded the Health Anchor Network and the Religious Communities Impact Fund. Pablo is known for being a transparent, mission-focused leader who pushes individuals to innovate.
Eric Davis
Chief Operating Officer, Project DIAMOnD at Automation Alley
Investment Analyst, Revalue LLC
Board Member and Treasurer, NC3
Eric Davis is Treasurer of the National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3), providing financial stewardship and governance to expand community-based investment. He is COO of Project DIAMOnD at Automation Alley, overseeing operations and finance for an additive manufacturing network. Eric is a registered investment advisor at Revalue, LLC with deep due-diligence experience across public and private companies. He holds an MBA and BBA (Finance) from Eastern Michigan University and is a CFA Level III candidate.
NC3 Staff
Katharine Gilman
Director of Operations
Katharine comes to the world of community capital with a passion for rebuilding connections with what sustains us. Writing her thesis on effective practices for community organizing, Katharine worked to start a public charter high school in rural Maine following college. This experience exposed her to the intersection of local organizing, educating young people, and creating an ecologically-grounded institution. This allowed her to explore one outlet of her interest in community-level sustainability and governance. From this, Katharine became more interested in the economic systems that dictate the infrastructure through which communities make decisions, bringing her to the work of community capital and NC3. With community-rooted leadership and systems thinking, Katharine looks to support communities with clear access points to NC3 and the tools of community capital.
NC3 Economic Recovery Corps Fellow
Sydney Davis
ERC Fellow
Sydney is a Western University Michigan grad, mom of 2 and Kansas City Chiefs fan (her hometown). She is passionate about empowering entrepreneurs and with her technical expertise and commitment to innovation, she is a dynamic force for economic development transformation. When she moved to Michigan, she fell in love with the community and has dedicated her work around it through non-profit leadership in Kalamazoo, being a main street business owner in Downtown Jackson and running a tech startup out of Detroit. She has raised community and VC capital, had 2 exits and now manages investment funds to accelerate tech startup growth in Michigan. The work of NC3 is very much aligned with her area of expertise and passion.
Sydney is excited to work with NC3 to develop a community capital curriculum that can serve as a roadmap for Entrepreneurship Support Organizations (ESOs) across Michigan, and promote community capital investment success stories to help others embrace this vision. Sydney is excited to work with NC3 through 2027.
History
Factoids
NC3 was officially formed during ComCap 17 in Monte Ray, California, followed by ComCap 19 in Detroit, Michigan, and roundtables in Washington DC, California and Vermont.