WHO WE ARE
Meet Our Team
SHANNON DICKERSON
Systems Design + Learning Lead
Shannon serves as the primary liaison and “guide on the side” to our Sustaining Neighborhood Investment Partners in the Dutchtown Neighborhood.
DARA ESKRIDGE
CEO
Dara spends her days advancing our work into new areas, connecting our regional dots to neighborhood transformation, growing our coalition of partners and investors, and dreaming very big.
KENAN ENDER
Operations Director
Kenan helps shape and uphold efficient and effective internal practices and processes that maximize our human, financial, and intellectual assets to the benefit of our mission and achievement of our vision.
NIYA FOSTER
Neighborhood Solidarity Partner
Niya serves as a primary liaison and “guide on the side” to our Sustaining Neighborhood Partners.
LORIN JACKSON
Collaboration Support Partner
Lorin facilitates harmony between neighborhood anchors, residents, and consultants, investigating challenges to find opportunities, and elevating efforts for optimal impact.
DEREK LANEY
Neighborhood Solidarity Partner
Derek Laney serves as the primary liaison and “guide on the side” to our Sustaining Neighborhood Investment Partners in the West End and Visitation Park Neighborhoods.
MICHAEL PAGANO
Narrative + Communications Partner
Michael crafts and shapes our storytelling, working closely with the team to listen for, weave together and raise up the experiences of our neighborhood partners and the people they serve.
EMILY SEIPLE
Neighborhood Solidarity Partner
Emily serves as a primary liaison and “guide on the side” to our Sustaining Neighborhood Investment Partners.
MICHELLE WITTHAUS
Policy Design + Activation Lead
Michelle designs projects that will influence future policymaking with an emphasis on investing in people, not just place.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
How we move is core to who we are and what we do.
- We are motivated by the belief that every person deserves to live in a neighborhood in which they can create the life they want, and we are grounded in the conviction that anything less is unacceptable.
- We are guided by an activist spirit while mobilizing institutional resources.
- We are committed to rigorous self-examination and transparency about our successes, failures and learning.
- We are dedicated to untethering the past from what’s possible in the future by refusing to accept the restraints of generations of systemic anti-Black racism.
- We act with urgency, because the unconfronted injustices of generations of anti-Black systemic racism continue to compound with time.
- We elevate lived experience and use evidence-based learning without being bound by it.
- We acknowledge and address generations of harm created by systemic anti-Black racism, particularly harm created in the name of community development.
- We measure success in multiple ways that reflect the complexity of this work.
Board of Directors
Blake Strode
Arch City Defenders
Christina Dancy
US Bank
Henry Webber, Chair
Consultant
Karishma Furtado, Secretary
Urban Institute
Loura Gilbert, Treasurer
Retired, Commerce Bank
Nicole Hudson
Washington University
Reyna Spencer
Ameren
Ryan Rippel
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
people | power | place | systems
QUICK LINKS
CONTACT US
EMAIL
info@investstl.org
CALL
314-399-8812
VISIT
5600 Delmar Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63112
PO Box 300010
St. Louis, MO 63130