Sarah McKinley serves as NACEDA Director of Special Projects, where she heads up the Managing Neighborhood Change (MNC) and Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) initiatives as well as the Economic Impact Study of the Community Development Field. She oversees the pilot sight testing and implementation of MNC, works to successfully market and apply OCA, and manages the completion and reporting of the Study. Sarah is deeply committed to the ideals of community empowerment and very excited to be on board at NACEDA where she can help to give a national voice to the needs of community groups.
Ms. McKinley has a diverse background in community development having worked with the Greater Southwest Development Corporation on Chicago’s south side – one of the city’s oldest and larger CDCs that is best known for creating TIF and Enterprise Zones to retain jobs and stabilize business. While at GSDC, Ms. McKinley acted the Coordinator of Industrial Development, liaising between local industry, the city and community stakeholders in an effort to build relationships and negotiate agreements to the benefit of residents. She also edited the organization’s monthly newsletter, maintained a database of all available resources on job development, developed and administered a survey of the local commercial corridor, organized community meetings as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s New Communities Program, and devised a plan for using art as economic development in the community.
Ms. McKinley has also worked for the International Organization for Migration in Mexico City where she conducted bilingual research on human trafficking and worked to educate government officials on how to best protect against this human rights violation. While at Cornell she worked as a lead coordinator in drawing up plans to rebuild the 9th Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Ms. McKinley also worked as the manager of the Progressive Cities and Neighborhood Planning Archives Collection while studying at Cornell.
Ms. McKinley received her Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. While at Cornell, she focused her studies on community and economic development. She has a Bachelors Degree in American history from the University of Chicago and a certification in economic development from Southern Illinois University.
