A leader for a $105 million mission

Alaina Beverly has a big job ahead of her — raising $105 million as executive director of the Greenwood Trust.

Her credentials, though, suggest the job is not too big.

A career built for coalition work

A graduate of Stanford University and the University of Michigan Law School, Beverly has a developed a broad network of contacts during a career that has included civil rights law, a stint in the Obama White House, television commentary, policy consulting and academia.

Most recently, she directed place-based investments as executive vice president of the Black Economic Alliance Foundation, a nonprofit working to overcome discrepancies in Black household wealth.

“What brought me to Greenwood is the story of Greenwood and the story of community excellence and the belief that structural disinvestments and racial terror are the things that limited Greenwood (from) becoming what it should have been,” Beverly said. “We are here to reverse that.”

What the Greenwood Trust is aiming to do

The Greenwood Trust is an initiative of Mayor Monroe Nichols to address economic disparities in Tulsa’s Greenwood District. The goal is to raise $105 million in private funds for a permanent endowment to fund housing, capital improvements, educational opportunities and economic development on the city’s near north side.

“What we are doing is place-based investment,” Beverly said. “It has the potential to be a model for what reparative economic development

looks like. You’re centering people based on history and legacy, but you are ensuring that the entire community thrives.

“That is a unique model that there is interest in, there’s hunger for, especially today in this context where we’re seeing the erasure of Black history,” she said.

A voluntary model with national potential

Beverly said the Greenwood Trust concept is unusual in that it is based on voluntary rather than legal action.

“To my knowledge, there is not another model like this,” she said. “It has the potential to be a national model for cities that are grappling with similar circumstances.”

Link to story on Tulsa World – https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/article_1095571c-8030-4bfe-9bfa-1c803f005986.html