My name is Avery Kaplan (they/them) and I’m honored to join JCUA as the new Community Development Program Manager. I will be stewarding the Community Ventures Program, JCUA’s zero-interest loan fund for affordable housing and community development projects. 

I began this role on June 1st, which was coincidently (or cosmically) the one-year anniversary of moving to Chicago with my girlfriend. Although I grew up in Massachusetts, I have roots in Chicago planted by my paternal great-grandfather, who brought my family to Chicago in the early 20th century and then sponsored dozens of Jews to come here from Poland after WWII. These values are mirrored on my maternal side, who all landed in Boston. I once asked my 102-year-old grandmother, who has always been curious and civically active, how she got so woke. Her reply, “I learned to be open-minded from my father, he was a businessman and also a socialist who fled the old country.”

There are stories like this in every generation of my family: people who gave help generously because they had received help when they needed it. I have always felt I was born into a larger circle of care, or circle of indebtedness. This kind of circle is the shape of a revolving loan fund; it is a circle that recycles money through projects and communities who are locked out of mainstream finance, so we may all have access to the resources we need to thrive. 

Long before I knew the term “community development professional,” I knew that I wanted to work in a circle. l Growing up in Massachusetts, I loved nature and being outside, and first learned tikkun olam in my reform synagogue’s social justice activities. I went to college to study Environmental Science with a focus on climate resilience. My first exposure to organizing was the Sunrise Movement, and the history of environmental justice in Hartford, CT where I interned for the city. Graduating into the upheaval of 2020, I strung together many different types of jobs, and realized I didn’t want a vocation where I had to impose my vision onto other communities. I want to connect people to the resources that foster personal and communal agency, and in our society that resource is most often money. I moved to Washington, D.C. where I worked for two years on the membership team at Opportunity Finance Network, a national network of community lenders. I supported 160 loan funds across the country, understanding their unique histories, strategies and challenges so I could connect them to network resources. This period was my “loan fund grad school,” I got to learn by working for the experts. 

And now I’m in Chicago. In my first year here I’ve fallen in love with the city, met incredible people, and had the opportunity to volunteer for 10 months with Village of Leaders Thriving in Solidarity (VOLTS), launching a loan fund that will serve their co-operatives owned by formerly incarcerated women. Two of their co-op properties are CVP projects, bringing them into this circle that, since 1991, has provided more than $10.6 million in zero-interest loans for 75 projects in 31 neighborhoods, leading to the creation or preservation of about 5,400 affordable housing units and 1,600 quality jobs.

In my new role I am committed to being a student and steward of this circle, from the community members who put their money in the CVP fund in a tangible act of faith, to the CVP partners who use and then recycle our zero-interest loans to build a more affordable and supportive city, and the JCUA organizers who show us all how to fight for the policies we deserve.

I look forward to meeting the many JCUA community members soon, and hope you will join me in the ever growing circle that is our community’s revolving loan fund.