Kevin Jones began his career as a weekly journalist in the poorest county in Mississippi. Along with his wife and business partner, Rosa Lee Harden, he went on to run a number of successful publications and trade journals in the state. In the mid-90s, Kevin launched the first web-based legislative monitoring and legal opinion service in the country, the same year the Netscape browser came out. Having a profitable internet-based business in the year the web launched enabled him to understand the business potential of the web, which he leveraged to create the first business-to-business internet conferences. In 2008, Kevin partnered with Tim Freundlich to create one of the first impact investing funds. While the fund was successful, Kevin and his partners quickly realized that the ecosystem needed to change for impact investing to succeed. This led to the creation of SOCAP, which grew over ten years from 600 to 3000 participants and is credited with changing the narrative on impact investing. Now, Kevin and Rosa Lee have launched Neighborhood Economics to let Christians get their money and their beliefs in line in order to do the hard, catalytic, patient work the world needs and Neighborhood Economics to pull together investors, practitioners, and planners to address economic issues in local communities. 

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Paula Garrett is the Director of Communications for Faith+Finance and Neighborhood Economics. Paula also teaches “American” literature, interrogating assumptions about identity in national literature, and she teaches queer and southern literature and tries to offer insights into literature by writers of color. She presently serves as chair of the Department of English, returning to the classroom after having previously served for a decade as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC. She previously taught English and American Studies and directed the Writing Program at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, and served as clinical instructor of medicine and writing coordinator of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Paula holds a B.S. Ed and a Master’s in English from Baylor University and a Ph.D. in English from Louisiana State University. Paula has written and published broadly on 19th Century American women, rural healthcare, LGBTQreproductive legalities, and contemporary civil rights. She currently focuses her writing as a public intellectual, posting op-eds on contemporary religious, legal, and civil rights issues. She also works closely with values-centered projects to secure funding for their work.

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Jeremiah Robinson is a passionate advocate for equitable access to financial, human, and social capital. As the Entrepreneur in Residence at Mountain BizWorks, he launched the Multicultural Catalyst Program to support underrepresented entrepreneurs and increase equity within the startup landscape. Drawing from his own experiences as an entrepreneur, Jeremiah is committed to helping fellow entrepreneurs of color build successful businesses, grow with confidence and strengthen the local economy.

Contact: Jeremiah Robinson

Tim Soerens is the co-founding director of the Parish Collective, a growing network and global movement of Christians reimagining what it means to be the Church in, with, and for the neighborhood. His latest book is called “Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church, Right Where You Are”. His co-authored first book “The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Transform Mission, Discipleship, and Community (Intervarsity Press, 2014) won multiple awards, including Christianity Today’s award of merit. Tim has launched multiple sold-out conferences including the Inhabit Conference, New Parish Conference UK, Conspire Gathering, and Neighborhood Economics Conference. He also co-founded Neighborhood Economics to catalyze entrepreneurship as a path to wealth for marginalized communities which has helped to raise over 3 million dollars. A popular speaker, Tim speaks to a broad cross section of organizations and denominations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Closer to home, he and his wife are co-founding owners of Resistencia Coffee, a neighborhood coffee shop and have 3 boys.

Anna Golladay thrives on curating creative, spiritual & entrepreneurial possibility. As a highly accomplished and multi-talented creative, marketing and branding expert, she has over 25 years of blended corporate, independent and not-for-profit experience. 

Via her social enterprise Work of Place she helps urban churches understand how their underutilized facilities can work alongside burgeoning entrepreneurs, often lacking in resource and financing, with the intent of sparking both neighborhood revitalization and an increase in ideators who change their communities. Additionally, she works as the Sr Director of Communications and Marketing for the Convergence and the Curator of Creative Engagement and Advocacy for the Activist Theology Project.

She is a minister in the United Methodist Church. Her ministry is focused on social justice and any inequity that exists both inside and outside the walls of the corporate church. She is diligent in her advocacy of full inclusion of all persons in the United Methodist denomination. As a queer justice advocate via faith and social construct arenas she boldly enters spaces of difference and stands firmly in the gap.

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Tim Freundlich is the founder and executive director for strategic development at ImpactAssets. He develops partnerships and new client relationships, as well as industry field-building and innovation. While previously at Calvert Impact Capital for 12 years, Tim conceived of and launched the ImpactAssets Donor Advised fund. He was also instrumental in building the now $500M Community Investment Note with more than $2 billion raised, deployed over and over into community development loans globally. Tim is a sought-out industry speaker and is regularly featured and quoted in media outlets worldwide, including Forbes, Barron’s, CNBC, TheStreet, Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and ThinkAdvisor. He received a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from the University of San Francisco.