Terry Lynn Holley is the former senior vice resident for programs and regional development for the East Tennessee Foundation (ETF). The East Tennessee foundation is a community foundation serving 24 counties in East Tennessee. ETF’s mission is to build charitable resources to make communities stronger and lives better through thoughtful giving. The Foundation’s total assets are in excess of $144 million, and to date ETF has awarded more that $148 million in grants since 1986. The Foundation’s primary areas of interest include community development, arts and culture, youth at risk, and education.Terry began her tenure with the foundation in 1991 as a program officer. In her current capacity, Terry has responsibility for management an oversight of the Foundation’s grantmaking activities, the coordination of technical assistance programs, and the development of regional affiliate funds for rural communities and donors.
Other professional activities include Terry’s work for six years as a consultant to The Ford Foundation and its offices throughout Africa. In her consultant capacity she provided technical assistance including meeting design and facilitation using a peer learning approach to organize and implement the African Foundation’s Learning Group Initiative (AFLG) and the Eastern Africa Foundations Learning Group (EAFLG). Terry has also provided technical assistance to the Kenya Community Development Foundation and Western Region Community Development Foundation of Zimbabwe by helping develop and assess the implementation of grantmaking programs as well as facilitate the design of asset development plans to foster indigenous philanthropy.
Work-related experience relative to service in neighborhood work include preparation of proposals funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to launch the Neighborhoods Small Grants Program (NSG); oversight of grantmaking activities for the NSG Program since 1991; assistance in the development and design of both the grantmaking and technical assistance program for Transforming Neighbors Together (TNT), a program in partnership with the Center for Neighborhood Development; service on the steering committee to develop the Affordable Housing Trust fund and the Community Investment fund followed by the management of both funds to support construction and preconstruction costs for affordable housing in Knox County; and assistance with the design and advocacy for funding for the Inner-City Connections Program.
Additional work experience includes serving as a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University in Chicago. The Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD), established in 1995 by the Community Development Program at Northwestern University’s Institute for policy Research, is built upon three decades of capacity-building research by John Kretzmann and John L. McKnight. The ABCD Institute spreads its findings on capacity-building community development in two ways: (1) through extensive and substantial interactions with community builders and (2) by producing practical resources and tools for community builders to identity, nurture and mobilize neighborhood assets.