CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For Sherri Chisholm and her family, the move from Detroit to Charlotte signaled growth.
“So, we came to Charlotte like many other people do because Charlotte is a community of longtime residents and also tons of transplants,” Chisholm told WCNC Charlotte. “I actually came here in September 2020 seven months pregnant.”
Not only was Chisholm’s family expanding, but her professional career was also growing.
In 2020, she started her role as Executive Director of Leading on Opportunity (LOO).
LOO was started in 2017 after the Chetty study from 2014 ranked Mecklenburg County 50th out of the 50 largest metro areas in the country for economic mobility.
“The Leading on Opportunity team is very reflective of the fabric of Charlotte,” Chisholm said.
Previously, Chisholm served as the founding Executive Director of Urban Alliance Detroit, a youth workforce development nonprofit that aims to expand access to economic opportunity for youth from under-resourced neighborhoods through paid internships, job skills training and mentoring.
“We provide data, strategy and policy to funders to help them make smarter investments in economic mobility. Those same set of skills to nonprofits to help them deliver programming,” Chisholm explained. “And the hope is to create alignment between those two institutions.”
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Since joining the team, Chisholm has helped establish the Opportunity Compass. She said it serves as a guide to see how Charlotte is trending when it comes to economic mobility.
“We look at high school graduation rates, we look at homeownership, (and) we look at employment," she said. "We’re able to see on a 2–3-year basis how we are moving across demographics."
It tracks data across 33 key drivers of economic mobility to help guide decision-making and data-based solutions.
“It’s something that doesn’t have the silver bullet solution. I think in a community like Charlotte, one that’s particularly a banking town, we can sometimes say if we focus on it, and we put a lot of money into it we’re going to solve it. That’s not how it works,” Chisholm explained.
Not only is LOO continuing to track Charlotte’s growth, but Chisholm said they are also shifting the narrative toward finding more tangible solutions.
“I think that we have been able to shift the narrative in Charlotte into something that we can solve, into something that is a condition that we will always consider and that’s pretty tremendous,” Chisholm said.
Chisholm said the next steps are integrating their work into policy.
In March, Chisholm was honored by the Charlotte Hornets for her work. She was a recipient of the team’s Social Justice Power Forward Program.
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