Millard "Mitty" Owens brings over twenty years of experience in community development and capacity building for under-served communities.  He devoted his early career to community organizing, affordable housing, and micro-enterprise development.  These experiences informed his subsequent work as a program officer at the Ford Foundation where he advanced new, innovative approaches - domestically and internationally -  to combating poverty through financial asset development.  Transforming these ideas into local government initiatives was his focus as the Senior Deputy Director of NYC's Office of Financial Empowerment.  Mitty also designed and taught a course on public policy and wealth formation as an adjunct professor at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.

Mitty has served on the Board of Directors for several national and local economic development and social justice organizations including the Fifth Avenue Committee, Grassroots Leadership, Global Exchange, and the Yale Dwight Hall Center for Public Service and Social Justice.  In these capacities he led an array of strategic planning, fundraising and organizational development efforts.

"Mitty is a great fit at this stage of The HOPE Program's growth and development," said Board Chair Barbara Lupo.  "He is committed to further strengthening and expanding HOPE's award-winning work - training, educating, placing, and supporting our students to achieve their full potential in the workforce and contribute meaningfully to society.  Furthermore, Mitty is excited about leveraging our research, education, and policy work to influence New York City's workforce system and the structural barriers faced by our students."

Mitty is a native of Brooklyn and graduate of Yale University.  He has traveled extensively overseas and lived in Zimbabwe.  He has been awarded several fellowships, including the W.K. Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship through which he founded a program promoting the intersection of art, culture and social change.

At HOPE, we work to end the cycle of generational poverty and to help program participants become economically self-sufficient.  Graduates become employed so that they can support themselves and their families.