William Blair recently sponsored “The Power of Place” fireside chat and networking luncheon with Historic District Development Corporation (HDDC), a William Blair Private Wealth Management client, in Atlanta, Georgia. The event brought community leaders together, and focused on the importance of place-based strategies in developing and maintaining affordable housing and leading revitalization efforts within Sweet Auburn, Martin Luther King Jr.’s childhood neighborhood.
Cheneé Joseph, President and CEO of HDDC, opened the event with a video highlighting the organization’s impact, with interviews from members of the community and snapshots of HDDC’s residential and commercial properties, which now include a senior living facility. She also highlighted the organization’s Front Porch development – a community-driven project that will help combat social and racial inequity through a master-planned, mixed-use development comprised of over 100,000 square feet of green space, retail, and residential units with opportunities for home ownership and affordable rentals. Fireside chat panelists shared their history with the organization, their role in implementing HDDC’s placed-based strategies, and the importance of HDDC in Sweet Auburn and the city of Atlanta.
“The Sweet Auburn neighborhood started as a thriving economic community for African Americans, and our organization’s focus is to ensure that African Americans can always consider Sweet Auburn a destination for continued support,” said Joseph.
William Blair works as a financial and philanthropic advisor for HDDC and leverages its capabilities to increase the organization’s access to capital. HDDC’s values emulate the firm’s mission to empower its clients, colleagues, and communities.
“Wealth creation, sustainability, and generational wealth growth through community building are core to our partnership with HDDC,” said Atlanta-based William Blair wealth advisor, Rob Rumley.
“It is critically important for companies to invest in their communities and elevate organizations like HDDC. Non-displacement, historic preservation, and sustainability are vital to our communities, and, quite honestly, our prosperity.”
William Blair is proud of our mission to engage in our communities and committed to being a long-term partner to the communities in which we live and work. The firm opened its Atlanta office in 2016 and currently has employees working across several different business lines, including advisory, institutional equity sales and trading, investment management, and private wealth management. In the last five years, William Blair has donated nearly half of a million dollars to philanthropic organizations across the city of Atlanta.