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CEI's 2016 Annual Meeting

CEI's 2016 Annual Meeting

Thank you to the over 450 individuals who attended our annual meeting on March 15. The event marked an important moment in CEI's history, as Founder, President and CEO Ron Phillips steps away from the organization on or before July 1. We welcomed CEI's new leadership team, CEO Betsy Biemann and President Keith Bisson, and an incredible cast of presenters including Senator George Mitchell, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, U.S. Treasury CDFI Fund Director Annie Donovan, Low Income Investment Fund President and CEO Nancy Andrews, Opportunity Finance Network CEO Mark Pinsky, HOPE Enterprise CEO Bill Bynum, LISC President Michael Rubinger, and Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration CEO Colvin Grannum, who spoke about their own lives and why opportunity matters.

"We’ve made remarkable progress in our country during my lifetime. Spectacular progress. But in one respect I believe we have not made progress and that is equal opportunity for all Americans. I believe that a child born today in a small town in Maine, in the circumstances in which I was born, has less chance of upward mobility than I did and I think that’s a dangerous thing for our country." -- Senator George Mitchell

"Inequality is important because of its correlation to opportunity…Really the enemy of our democracy is...hopelessness. And that hopelessness is what we see more of in America today...that hopelessness has grown in large part because...we’ve had tremendous productivity, we’ve had tremendous growth in our GNP but it has not been shared, it has not been organized in a way that has made it possible for all boats to rise." -- Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation