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Gary Cunningham
President and CEO at Prosperity Now
Professional Background
Gary L. Cunningham currently serves as the President and CEO of Prosperity Now, an organization committed to advancing economic opportunity and racial wealth equity. Under his expert leadership, Prosperity Now is dedicated to not merely alleviating the impacts of systemic inequities but also dedicated to reshaping the underlying mechanisms that facilitate these disparities. His approach focuses on rigorously testing, investing in, and scaling effective solutions that foster a more inclusive economy. Gary is not just an administrator; he is a visionary and a thought leader, recognized nationally for his work addressing issues of inclusiveness in economic development.
Prior to his role at Prosperity Now, Gary made significant contributions to economic opportunity development for African Americans and other people of color in the Twin Cities as the President and CEO of the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (Meda). Here, he led pioneering initiatives aimed at enhancing minority business development, earning accolades for his innovative and effective strategies. His expertise is so highly regarded that he is frequently sought after for his insights into entrepreneurship, job creation, and racial wealth equity.
Gary’s professional journey includes senior leadership positions across various sectors, including philanthropy, community development, health care, housing, and transportation. His diverse experience equips him with a holistic understanding of the barriers that impede economic equity and the pathways that can foster sustainable change.
Education and Achievements
Gary’s educational background laid a solid foundation for his impactful career. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Policy from Metropolitan State University, located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, which provided him with a regional focus and a deep understanding of local economic policies. Further enhancing his expertise, Gary achieved a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the prestigious Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The rigorous education he received at Harvard not only allowed him to sharpen his analytical skills but also to engage with innovative public policy solutions that can address the complexities of economic disparities.
Gary serves on numerous boards, reflecting his commitment to community engagement and his desire to influence the trajectories of future economic opportunities. He is a board member of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) which works toward transforming capital and service flows for underserved entrepreneurs. His involvement with First Children’s Finance enables Gary to support the financial sustainability of child care businesses on a national scale, understanding their integral role in community economic health. Additionally, his role with Artspace showcases his passion for affordable housing for artists, further emphasizing his belief in the intersectionality of culture and economic stability.
Key Achievements
Among his many accomplishments, Gary has gained recognition for developing strategies that enhance minority entrepreneurship and improve access to capital for underserved communities. Through his leadership, he has mobilized resources and fostered partnerships that promote equity and inclusion in economic development initiatives. His work at Prosperity Now is particularly notable for its transformative vision—moving beyond surface-level interventions to address systemic injustices.
Gary has also played a pivotal role in educational initiatives aimed at informing policymakers and stakeholders about the barriers faced by entrepreneurs of color. His advocacy efforts have helped to reshape discussions around economic policies at the local and national levels, proving him to be a formidable advocate for change. Through his engagements and public speaking, Gary frequently shares his insights on topics ranging from entrepreneurship to the importance of financial literacy among historically underrepresented groups.
With a rich background that includes personal experiences as a descendant of enslaved people and having grown up in poverty in Minneapolis, Gary brings an authentic perspective to his efforts. He understands the struggles of marginalized communities and tirelessly advocates for equitable opportunities that drive social change.
In summary, Gary L. Cunningham is not just a leader at Prosperity Now, but a transformative figure dedicated to creating an economy that works for everyone. His lifelong commitment to economic inclusion, underscored by both his personal history and professional expertise, positions him as a key player in the ongoing pursuit of racial wealth equity. As an expert and thought leader, Gary continues to inspire many through his work, making significant strides toward reshaping our economic landscape for the better.
Highlights
Today marks the anniversary of George Floyd’s tragic death, an event that occurred in the neighborhood where I grew up. Growing up under the yoke of police violence was unbearable, and George Floyd’s death was a stark reminder of the harsh realities many of us faced daily. As I reflect on this, I am filled with a mix of sadness and remorse. We keep moving forward, yet stepping backward at the same time.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s brought monumental changes like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but these gains were met with fierce backlash. Violent resistance from segregationists and strategic political opposition, such as the Southern Strategy, sought to preserve the status quo and undermine these advancements. This wasn’t just a societal shift; it was a deliberate and organized effort to counteract progress.
The progress made through affirmative action in the 70s and 80s was similarly met with a conservative pushback, policies that disproportionately affected African American communities. The rise of the conservative movement in the 1980s sought to dismantle affirmative action and introduced the War on Drugs, which had devastating effects on communities of color and indigenous communities.
More recently, the Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by the unjust deaths of individuals like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and George Floyd, has faced significant backlash. Legislative measures and political rhetoric have aimed to counteract the calls for justice and reform.
Scholars like Robert Putnam in “The Upswing” discuss this cyclical nature of social and political reform. Carol Anderson’s “White Rage” delves into the organized resistance that often follows progress in racial equality. Empirical studies further highlight how significant social movements lead to legislative and social responses intended to curb their impact.
Understanding this pattern is crucial. It reminds us that every step forward may be met with resistance, but it also underscores the importance of persistence and resilience in the fight for justice. Today, I feel a deep sadness as I see how far we have retreated from our hopes and dreams just four years ago. This retrenchment is disheartening, but it also strengthens my resolve. As we remember George Floyd today, let’s commit to continuing the struggle for equality, knowing that history shows us the path is challenging, but progress is possible.
#GeorgeFloyd #BlackLivesMatter #CivilRights #SocialJustice #History #ProgressAndBacklash
This is an interesting observation. What do people think? Is this correct? Just curious.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.