The Voorhees Center Welcomes Heather Parish as This Year’s Practitioner in Residence
Heather brings decades of experience working with nonprofits that serve urban communities.
Heather D. Parish, executive director of the Albert Pick Jr. Fund, is joining the UIC Voorhees Center as the Janet L. Smith Practitioner in Residence, assuming the role for a one-year period between August 16, 2024, and August 16, 2025. During this period, Heather will spend one day a week at the Voorhees Center, participating in center activities including outreach to and engagement with stakeholders; supporting Voorhees Center staff on research, technical assistance, and related programming; as well as collaborating with faculty at the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) and providing guest lectures and sharing insights on her philanthropic and community work.
Heather has dedicated her career to helping nonprofits that work with urban communities. Her work with the Albert Pick, Jr. Fund furthers social justice in Chicago’s under-resourced neighborhoods by providing grants to non-profits in civic activism, culture, education, health and human services. Heather is a founding board member for AMPT: Advancing Nonprofits, an initiative that provides capacity building for nonprofits on the South and West sides of Chicago. In recent years, she served as a co-chair for Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness; as a field catalyst for the Center for Community Investment; and as a coach for NeighborWorks America’s capacity building initiative on affordable housing and healthcare partnerships. In the past, Heather led a full-time independent consulting practice and worked with the Pierce Family Foundation (PFF), providing support centered around housing and homelessness, and collaborated with the Voorhees Center on several research projects, including one on public housing transformation.
Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she specialized in Housing, Community Development and Urban Economic Development.
“Heather brings a wealth of experience on community development and affordable housing and has broad knowledge of the Chicago community development landscape, and the stakeholders involved in it, attributes that promote the work of the Voorhees Center,” said Yittayih Zelalem, Director of the Nathalie P. Voorhees Center. “We look forward to working with Heather for the coming year.”