Woodstock Institute Welcomes UIC Law Professor to the Board
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WOODSTOCK INSTITUTE BOARD WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS, THANKS FOUR ROTATING OFF BOARD
CHICAGO–Woodstock Institute recently welcomed three new board members and thanked four others, three of whom served more than five years, for their service.
“I’m delighted to have the support of these three individuals as we enter a big year with our 50th anniversary in June and a full agenda of research and policy issues,”President and Chief Executive Officer Horacio Mendez said. “I’m grateful to our board members who have given their time, talent and treasure – several for more than 10 years.”
The three new board members of the organization are:
Domenika Lynch: As Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Latinos and Society Program, Lynch leads initiatives to empower Latino communities and advocate for economic growth. For two decades she has helped lead nonprofit and academic institutions including serving as President and CEO of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. She is based in Washington, D.C. She serves on the Council on Underserved Communities, which provides the U.S. Small Business Administration with input, advice, and recommendations on strategies to help strengthen competitiveness and sustainability for small businesses in underserved communities and is a Member, Commission on Presidential Scholars.
Michael Seng: As Director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center, Seng leads work to provide legal assistance to private or public organizations that seek to eliminate discriminatory housing practices. In 2021 he was selected by the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work. He has also received the Elmer Gertz Human & Civil Rights Award from the Illinois State Bar Association given for an exceptional commitment to protection or advancement of human rights, and an honorary law degree from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. We welcome Michael Seng as a returning board member after serving several years and rotating off the board last year. We featured Michael, who is a longtime supporter of Woodstock Institute’s mission, in our 2021 annual report.
Quentin Strode: As President and CEO of Los Angeles’ NEW Community Investments, Quentin Strode works to bridge the capital access gap for underserved women, women of color, veterans and other underrepresented small business owners. Collaborating with community and government partners including the U.S. Small Business Administration, State of California, LA City, and LA County, Quentin has launched multiple business centers, entrepreneurship incubator programs, and developed a comprehensive suite of alternate financing options which include microlending, crowdlending as Kiva's LA representative, and crowdsourcing through NCI’s proprietary platform Impresario, to support capacity building and financial stability of underserved business owners. He also has extensive senior leadership experience at large financial institutions like Bank of America and U.S. Bank.
The organization also recognized its outgoing board members: Natalie Abatemarco - Managing Director, Citi Community Development; Eva Brown - Head of Business Growth & Entrepreneurship and Financial Health and Wealth, Advancing Black Pathways, at JP Morgan Chase; Bobbi Ball - Housing & Financial Education Consultant, and Jesus Hernandez - JCH Research.
Mendez noted that the retiring members of the board all provided significant leadership for the organization reflected in both their long service and substantive support for the organization. Abatemarco and Ball each served on the board for more than 10 years and Eva helped lead the organization nearly as long. Bobbi, Eva and Natalie provided leadership from the banking community; all three served in leadership roles on the board as board chair, vice chair and development committee chair, respectively. Jesus helped steer research priorities of the organization in recent years as a member of the board research committee that helped inform the direction of Woodstock Institute's research and community analysis.
About Woodstock Institute Heading link
Originally envisioned in 1973 as a conference center in Woodstock, Illinois where participants would debate and plot solutions to social justice issues, the Woodstock Institute evolved into a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance economic justice and racial equity within financial systems through research and advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. Woodstock Institute envisions a society where all people experience economic security and prosperity.
In the past two years Woodstock Institute helped spearhead a coalition of advocacy and policy groups seeking to provide safer and more affordable loans to consumers with a 36% APR cap on payday, auto title and other consumer loans in Illinois. Woodstock Institute also helped advocate for an Illinois Community Reinvestment Act that includes credit unions and mortgage companies, which is currently in the process of being implemented.
It also rebooted its intensive annual analysis of lending in the seven-county Chicagoland region, its Community Lending Fact Book, and works in partnership with area grassroots groups to make sense of and develop new economic policies to close the racial wealth gap. For example, the organization championed Chicago’s 2021 Lending Equity Ordinance, which added new transparency requirements for banks seeking to hold city deposits.
Past innovations it helped champion included the Illinois Secure Choice, a state-managed retirement program for employees of small businesses, and Illinois Child Savings Accounts, currently in process of being funded. Woodstock Institute also helped document the disparate impact of fines and fees in Black and Latino communities in Chicago, helping to end abusive ticketing penalties.
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Woodstock Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance economic justice and racial equity within financial systems through research and advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. Woodstock Institute envisions a society where all people experience economic security and prosperity. More at woodstockinst.org.
For more information, contact:
Gordon Mayer, Communications Consultant, 312-307-0133 | gordon@gordonmayercommunications.com
Horacio Mendez, CEO, 312-368-0310 x2026 | hmendez@woodstockinst.org