Tag: Center for Civic Innovation

The excitement about new development obscures an awkward fact that the city and developers have to reckon with: Downtown already has more buildings than it has people who want to occupy them. It already has more road, rail, and bus capacity than any eastern U.S. downtown south of Washington, D.C. On weekdays, there are plenty of people there. The problem is that, at 5 p.m. on Fridays, the place clears out. Downtown Atlanta is often filled with a large, diverse group of people, but not many of them are residents.

Nonprofit Startup Atlanta that creates an annual “ecosystem guide” to help entrepreneurs find what they’re looking for, from funding to mentorship.

Bill Bolling founded and was executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank for more than three decades. Rohit Malhotra is founder and executive director of the Center for Civic Innovation. Latresa McLawhorn Ryan is an attorney and the inaugural executive director of the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative.

In 2016 Monica Campana, the cofounder and executive director of Atlanta street art festival Living Walls, and Marian Liou, the founder of We Love BuHi, a social media love letter to Buford Highway, met while applying for fellowships at downtown’s Center for Civic Innovation. Soon after, they decided to partner and bring Living Walls to Buford Highway.

Ryan Shepard launched Human Capital Theory to connect local businesses and nonprofits with talent from underserved communities. Allie Bashuk is helping artists create studio space in vacant downtown buildings. Rohit Malhotra founded the Center for Civic Innovation. Dar Vanderbeck develops opportunities for Teach for America alumni to flex their entrepreneurial muscle.