At Heron, we try to use all the tools in our toolkit to finance organizations who are serving the people and communities we care about. Recently, we used two different tools to provide financing to Self Help Enterprises (SHE), an organization offering homeownership opportunities in the San Joaquin Valley.

We are back with another episode of our Presidential Podcast, where we talk to Dana K. Bezerra about what Heron is doing, thinking, and learning. In this episode, we discuss how Heron is placing community agency and wisdom front and center in the next phase of our work.

We've published another episode of our Presidential Podcast, where we talk to Dana K. Bezerra about what Heron is doing, thinking, and learning. In this blog post, we outline the key takeaways. 

For the past year, Heron has been working to help people and communities help themselves out of poverty within the San Joaquin Valley. This work has been guided by a series of strategic questions, as well as ongoing relationships with partners on the ground in Fresno County. In this post, we discuss our efforts to better integrate data as we try to understand the opportunities and challenges facing the San Joaquin Valley.

At Heron, our Portfolio of Work is guided by four strategic pillars: community systems, net contribution, properly capitalizing enterprises, and conscious portfolio construction. We like to say that our “sweet spot” is at the intersection of two or more pillars — ideally all four.

In 2018, Dana Bezerra became the new president of Heron. However, Dana has been at Heron for 13 years in total, starting as a program officer in 2006. She’s seen Heron grow and change and is now sharing her guidance, leadership, and lessons learned as we focus on the intersection of communities and capital markets. In this podcast episode, we ask Dana to reflect on her first year as president, and share what’s next for Heron.