People

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority has appointed Preston D. Pinkett III as senior vice president of programs. He previously served as a senior vice president with PNC Community Development Bank and has extensive experience in community and economic development. Pinkett is a board member of the National Housing Institute.

Allen Fishbein has joined Consumer Federation of America as director of housing and credit policy where he will work on policies and initiatives that improve protections and regulatory oversight for homebuyers and other mortgage borrowers. He was previously general counsel and leader on community reinvestment issues for the Center for Community Change. He also supervised oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for HUD from 1999 to 2000.

Long-time organizer Dave Beckwith was appointed executive director of the Needmor Fund in Boulder, CO, earlier this year. Beckwith had been a field consultant in community organizing for the Center for Community Change.

Bruce Brooks was elected board chair for the Northwest Area Foundation. He joined the foundation’s board in 1996 and has served as vice chair for three years. He is director of corporate and community affairs for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle and previously served as director of community affairs for Microsoft. Brooks also once served as deputy mayor in Seattle.

The James Irvine Foundation announced the appointment of Anne B. Stanton as program director of its youth programs. Stanton was most recently the executive director of Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco.

Seedco has elected Diane Baillargeon as its new president. She will oversee day-to-day operations and direct its Non-Profit Assistance Corporation. She will also serve as the chair of EarnFair LLC and president of the Community Childcare Assistance Corp., two other Seedco subsidiaries. William Grinker, founder of Seedco, will remain as chief executive officer and secretary of the board of directors. Seedco has also appointed two new senior vice presidents: Grady B. Hedgespeth as chief financial officer and Robin Barnes as senior vice president for program operations and capacity building. Mr. Hedgespeth comes to Seedco from the ICA Group, a national nonprofit economic development intermediary in Brookline, MA, where he was president and executive director. Ms. Barnes joined Seedco in 1998 as a program manager.

The Washington Low Income Housing Congress, an organization focused exclusively on policy advocacy, has merged with the Washington Low Income Housing Network, a grassroots education and advocacy group formed by the congress to work for better housing policy and funding. The merged organization will be known as the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. www.wlihn.org.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded $800,000 to the Illinois Facilities Fund for its work providing technical assistance, financing and construction management expertise to nonprofit organizations in the state. The grant will help boost the fund’s efforts in community development finance. www.macfound.org.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Miami received a $1.4 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to build 34 homes in the historically African-American town of Overtown. The Knight grant will help increase minority homeownership in an area whose property values are expected to increase in the near future. www.knightfdn.org.

The Local Initiative Support Corp. (Chicago) selected 16 neighborhoods for its ten-year New Communities Program, a community development effort that will work with leadership organizations to design and implement neighborhood development plans. The program received a five-year $12.5 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation and is connected to Living Cities: the National Community Development Initiative. www.liscnet.org.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation awarded grants totaling $9.9 million to 26 community-based organizations that provide leadership and advocacy training to low-income youth, parents and caregivers interested in improving their communities. www.caseygrants.org.

Some organizations who are using the internet to expand their services and provide information and resources to more people:

With assistance from HUD, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund of Washington, DC, has launched a new web site, www.fairhousinglaw.org. The site, developed in conjunction with a new advertising campaign on fair housing launched by the Ad Council, provides information on what to do when confronting housing bias.

OMB Watch has launched NPAction.org, an online resource that supports capacity building for nonprofit advocacy by collecting the best practices of seasoned advocates and engaging newcomers with a wide range of updated topics and tools.

The Economic Policy Institute recently launched JobWatch.org, which tracks jobs and wage trends, and monitors the performance of the 2003 tax cuts in generating jobs.