Economic Mobility Learning Series: Leading on Opportunity
The Economic Mobility Learning Series continued with important insights on how Leading on Opportunity (LOO) in Charlotte, North Carolina uses strategy, policy, and data to advance economic mobility across the region it serves.
The Economic Mobility Learning Series serves as part of Greater Houston Community Foundation’s ongoing work to convene leaders, share knowledge, and spark informed conversation around Houston’s most pressing challenges. Through events, learning opportunities, and thought leadership, the Community Foundation continues to bring together donors, partners, and community stakeholders to explore ideas shaping the future of our region.
In this recorded webinar, the Community Foundation is joined by Sherri Chisholm, Executive Director, and AJCalhoun, Managing Director, at LOO. LOO, an entity of the Foundation For The Carolinas, supports Charlotte on its generations-long journey to improve economic mobility for all. Using strategy, policy, and data, it helps partners across Charlotte-Mecklenburg solve complex social challenges that no single person or organization can tackle on their own.
Sherri Chisholm is a champion for opportunity and systems-level change, leading with a belief in the collective power of communities to create lasting change. She brings a deep commitment to lifting communities through strategic action and human-centered vision. Sherri has led a remarkable transformation of LOO, empowering stakeholders, funders, the community, and her team to steadfastly enable change through an intentional blend of strategy, policy and data. While a recent study shows Charlotte moved from No. 50 to 38, Sherri reminds everyone who will listen that economic mobility is generational work.
AJ Calhoun leads a team of designers and social scientists to build inclusive, data-driven tools to advance economic mobility. Before LOO, AJ worked on similar projects with the United Way, Knight Foundation, World Resources Institute, Chicago Community Trust, and Consultive Group to Assist the Poor at the World Bank.
This session offers valuable lessons and practical insights for Houston leaders, funders, and partners working to create lasting pathways to opportunity.
Key Takeaways
Data tells you what the problem is, not the solution.
Data is the starting point that tells you what to focus on; strategy is what moves people toward action, and policy is what changes the underlying conditions. But data can also do more than diagnosing. It can also help wrap indicators around shared language, so every partner can see how their work connects to common goals.
Influence the influencers by reframing issues.
LOO’s primary stakeholders are Charlotte’s most senior civic, corporate, philanthropic, and nonprofit leaders, because that is where their influence is greatest. They remain community-informed through grassroots representation on their leadership council and a policy team embedded in neighborhood-level spaces, but their leverage comes from translating community needs into language and priorities that move decision makers to action.
Small wins buy time for the harder work.
Systems change happens over generations, not overnight; but funders and partners need to see momentum. To engage people and build credibility, it is important to understand what matters most early on. Even though LOO’s Opportunity Compass took more than two years to build, they were gathering small wins by getting the right team in place, building a narrative that was simple, and providing smaller data tools along the way.
A third path beyond collective impact and decentralization.
Collective impact works well for discrete, programmatic challenges, but it was cautioned that it may be a harder fit for economic mobility, which spans too many outcomes and too long a time horizon. Charlotte experienced this firsthand when a collective impact approach led to a decentralized response. LOO’s response was to build a movement infrastructure by creating shared language, data resources, and leadership inviting organizations to align, rather than directing them toward a central node.
Fund the work for as long as you intend to do it.
If the commitment is 30 years, the funding mechanisms should reflect that from the start. LOO’s lesson learned was that raising money in phases can create uncertainty that pulls focus away from the work.
Building community data tools is a political problem, not a methodological one.
AJ offered three principles for anyone building community data infrastructure.
- Math is easy; relationships are hard. Getting people to buy into the tool matters more than getting the methodology perfect.
- A good tool must work for everyone, from the practitioner deep in a single indicator to the CEO who wants one number on a predictable timeline. An index, built with layered levels of detail, can serve both if built thoughtfully.
- There is no real dichotomy between quantitative data and community voice. The goal is to bring all of it together into something that is useful, trusted, and reflects the people it is meant to serve.
Greater Houston Community Foundation invites you to join our Economic Mobility Learning Series, which are virtual presentations and discussions on models that advance economic mobility, featuring proven and emerging approaches from across the nation. Each webinar will explore real-world cross-sector efforts and research that help individuals and families move up the economic ladder.
Webinars are virtual and open to anyone interested in learning about and exploring ideas that could inform efforts to improve economic mobility in Houston, including:
- Nonprofit, philanthropic, public sector, and civic leaders working on economic mobility or related issues.
- Funders and donors interested in learning about evidence-informed strategies and models that advance economic mobility.
- Researchers, practitioners, and community leaders who are curious about what’s working, and why, in other regions.
More Helpful Articles by Greater Houston Community Foundation
- Economic Mobility Learning Series: Child Action Poverty Lab
- Purposeful Giving: Place-Based Philanthropy
- 2026 Community Impact Showcase
- Houston Opportunity Scholarship
- Inaugural Houston Economic Mobility Summit
This website is a public resource of general information that is intended, but not promised or guaranteed, to be correct, complete, and up to date. The materials on this website, including all comments and responses to comments, do not constitute legal, tax, or other professional advice, and is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, nor should it be considered an invitation for, an attorney-client relationship. The reader should not rely on information provided herein and should always seek the advice of competent legal counsel and/or a tax professional in the reader’s state or jurisdiction.