People

NC3’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Chris Miller

Special Projects Consultant, PlaneWave Instruments, Board Chair, NC3
Location: Michigan

Chris is the Special Projects Consultant for PlaneWave instruments in Adrian, Michigan. 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.

Formerly the City of Adrian’s lead economic developer, Chris speaks across the nation on economic development strategies, centering on the principles and practices of community capital. He has personally worked on and invested in community capital raises for private businesses, and contributed to the creation of Michigan’s nation-leading Public Spaces Community Places program, where communities raise local funds to create wonderful public spaces and receive matching funds from the state.

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 Board Chair, 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.

Michaela (Mica) Fisher

Project and Operations Manager, Start.coop
Location: New York

Mica is an organizer and advocate for economic democracy. At Start.coop she leads our fiscal sponsorship program and oversees the processes and systems that allow Start.coop to grow beyond the startup phase.

Mica has deep experience with cooperative development, having previously been the Managing Director for NC3 and having managed NYC’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative.

Based in NYC, Mica originally hails from Southern California and is learning to love seasons on the East Coast. Outside of work, you can find her gardening, reading, going to see a movie at a local theater, or listening to one of her favorite podcasts.

Brian Beckon

Managing Attorney, PathLight Law; Secretary, NC3
Location: California

Brian is an attorney with thirty years of experience working for nonprofits, start-ups, and publicly-traded companies. As a principal of PathLight Law, based in Oakland, California, Brian’s work is focused on direct public offerings, corporate structuring, and strategies for community capital to help build a more equitable economy. Brian has served as General Counsel for RSF Social Finance and Clean Power Finance; and before that as Corporate Counsel for Sybase and Catellus Development Corporation. He earned his J.D. from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law and started his legal career with the North Bay law firm of Gaw Van Male. Brian is a member of the California Bar and also serves on the boards of Neto Community Network and Cowell Homeowners Association.

Judith Benkert

Active Retired
Location: Michigan

As an Adrian Dominican Sister, I have ministered in the health care field in Nursing and as a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) and Nurse Practitioner (NP). My ministry has taken me to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Oakland California. I became a member of the clinical faculty with the University of California San Francisco, Midwifery Education Program.

I have also lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later, on sabbatical, ministered in rural Guatemala in the cultural home of the refugees I was seeing in Clinical midwifery in San Francisco.

I retired from clinical work to accept a position in leadership for our Congregation. Later, I remained in San Francisco volunteering with seniors and homeless men and women. I returned to Adrian in April of 2022.

I look forward to working with NC3 in their mission to educate, advocate, and to activate community capital.

Bill Huston

Investment Crowdfunding Strategy Consultant, Crowd Max
Location: Kentucky

Bill is an Inc. Magazine top 19 global crowdfunding expert, national speaker on the topic of investment crowdfunding, returning NC3 Board Member, and the founder of Crowd-Max.com, an investment crowdfunding education and coaching agency focused on helping Black-owned businesses raise capital using investment crowdfunding and identifying and converting retail investors. Crowd-Max strives to close the racial wealth gap. Their core mission is to help Black entrepreneurs raise capital and scale via crowdfunding. They have raised $1.5 million (& counting) on Wefunder, Buy The Block, Fund Black Founders, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo.

Bill is the Executive Director at the American Dream Marketplace, a free social marketplace app created for Black businesses and entrepreneurs. The ADM promotes building Black wealth by offering Black businesses cash grants and resources from corporate partners.

Eric Davis

Chief Investment Officer and Principal at Revalue
Location: Michigan

Eric is a licensed Investment Advisor and the Chief Investment Officer and Principal at Revalue, a B Corp values-based investment advisory firm and leader in the community capital movement. Eric studied at Eastern Michigan University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and an MBA with a specialty in Finance. During his time in college, Mr. Davis played on the Eagles’ football team, eventually earning a scholarship and becoming a captain by his senior year. He blends his curiosity about how companies execute their strategy with how analysts determine their actual value, not just their stock price, in his analyst work at Revalue. He is also grateful to be with a company that can align his skills in finance towards impacting local communities. In addition to providing investment research at Revalue, Eric is an assistant facilitator at PCS Insight, the Technology Investment Analyst at Automation Alley, Systems and Support Analyst at MVS Alliance, and the Offensive Coordinator for Southgate Anderson High School Football team. Mr. Davis has passed Level II of the CFA Program.

Topiltzin Gomez

Head of Capital Strategies, Honeycomb Credit
Location: New York

Topiltzin Gomez is the Head of Capital Strategies at Honeycomb Credit, a community capital platform where small businesses can issue investment offerings to raise capital from their fans, community, and the growing network of Honeycomb impact investors. With prior professional experience in technology, entrepreneurship, and community developments Topiltzin's professional passion is to create new markets that align financial success with social progress.

Topiltzin sits on the board of the Lake County Community Foundation, the Adelante Center for Entrepreneurship, and the National Coalition for Community Capital. Topiltzin is a graduate of Yale College where he studied Ethics, Politics, and Economics.

Jenan Jondy

REI Coordinator, Michigan State University's Center for Community and Economic Development
Location: Michigan

Jenan Jondy is the REI Coordinator at Michigan State University's Center for Community and Economic Development. With a Bachelor of Science in Biology, a minor in Chemistry, and a Master's of Social Work from MSU, her academic focus included policy and advocacy. A Flint native, Jenan has dedicated herself to promoting systemic equity in local communities.

Her career spans over two decades in outreach, resource development, and program development, with contributions at both national and international levels. Jenan co-founded the Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village (SBEV) and played a role in its response to the Flint water crisis, including establishing health clinics for residents.

Jenan continues to work with students from underserved communities in pursuing higher education. Her experience with low-income populations, including refugees and immigrants, has shaped her approach to economic and social issues.

Outside of her professional life, Jenan enjoys outdoor activities and traveling.

Angela Barbash

Chief Executive Director, Revalue
Location: Michigan

Angela is a mom, anthropologist, entrepreneur, and an unabashed challenger of the status quo. She has dedicated over 20 years in service as an investment advisor in the Metro Detroit region, including founding Revalue as a values-driven investment firm in 2013. Angela has contributed countless hours to field building, public education, and infrastructure development to help build a more compassionate industry centered on solidarity economy principles. You will often find her educating on the topics of financial resiliency, community capital, and conscious business management. When she’s not
sleeping and breathing regenerative finance, she can be found
playing with her husband and two kids, enjoying the fresh air of the outdoors, or playing D&D with her family.

Pablo Bravo Vial

Retired
Location: San Francisco

A trusted ‘action-producer’ of more than 30 years, Pablo has assembled countless local and regional networks to build health and prosperity frameworks for the disadvantaged while serving as a beacon for capital flow.

As System Vice President of CommonSpirit Health, Pablo created and implemented a strategic roadmap that aligned 144 hospitals across 21 states into one community health department while providing vision and direction that enabled the successful merger of Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiative.

Simultaneously, he led cross-diagonal teams and shepherded more than $500M in investments to 89 organizations nationwide, which bolstered infrastructures impacting housing, food, transportation, culture, micro-lending, and a spectrum of health and social services.

He co-founded Health Anchor Network and Religious Communities Impact Fund, is currently on the Board Loan Committee at Primary Care Development Corporation, and formerly served on the boards of CommonSpirit Health Investment Committee, Dignity Health Medical Foundation, Medicaid Innovation Collaborative, and Locus Corp., and as treasurer of OnePiece Community Resilience Fund and San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund.

He is fluent in Spanish and earned his BS in Economics, MPA, and Masters in Humanities from the University of San Francisco, Financial Analysis Certificate from Harvard University, an Endowments Management Certificate from the Yale School of Management, and Nonprofit Lending Certificate from the National Community Lending School.

Pablo was born in Chile and lives in San Francisco with his partner of 28 years. He has a true love for travel (20+ countries to date) and spends his spare time bike riding, fishing, skiing, reading, watching old movies, and spending time with the other joy of his life, (dog species) named x.

NC3’S STAFF:

Katharine Gilman

Executive Director
Location: Durham, NC

Katharine comes to the world of community capital with a passion for rebuilding connections with what sustains us. Working on farms in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Montana, and rural Nepal, she and her husband are now pursuing a subsistence lifestyle with their own dairy cow, bee hives, chickens, pigs, and gardens. Interacting with the food that literally sustains us, Katharine is continually reminded of how disconnected all of our sustaining systems have become, but how beautiful they are when connected. She used to avoid working with money since it drives so much of this disconnection, however she now sees it as the root of where our reconnections can begin again.

Studying Politics at Bates College, Katharine wrote her thesis on best practices for community organizing, looking to the processes of evolution for insights on making societal progress. Soon after, Katharine became the Director of Operations at the Ecology Learning Center, where she was a founding team member to establish this public charter high school in rural Maine working to connect students with real-world learning opportunities in Maine's ecological and societal learning communities. Katharine brings community-rooted leadership to NC3 with an excitement to see this organization live into its name by building a robust coalition, supporting transformation through working with community capital.

Katharine would love to talk with you at any time about partnership opportunities, membership questions, requests for resources, event planning, or simple introductions to what community capital is - please don't hesitate to reach out ([email protected])!