Alison Feighan
President
President
Recognized as a creative and tenacious advocate, Alison has experience on a range of issues including small business finance and microenterprise development, rural economic development, community development finance and venture capital, and tax credit financing. She was instrumental in crafting and enacting several critical pieces of legislation including the New Markets Tax Credit, the New Markets Venture Capital Program, the SBA Microloan Program, the SBA’s Program for Investment in Microentrepreneurs (PRIME), and the Community Advantage (CA) loan guarantee. In addition, she has extensive experience helping clients secure and increase funding for their work in traditionally underserved urban and rural communities. Alison works with a wide range of federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Treasury and the Small Business Administration.
Built on a solid foundation of service, organizing and advocacy, Alison launched a unique lobbying firm that combines the power of what they know and who they know to advance the interests of their ‘game changer’ clients.
Before coming to Washington, Alison lived in Boston where she worked on community reinvestment and Fair Housing issues and helped launch an affordable housing program for a community action agency in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Alison is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio. She holds a Master of Arts in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan.
Built on a solid foundation of service, organizing and advocacy, Alison launched a unique lobbying firm that combines the power of what they know and who they know to advance the interests of their ‘game changer’ clients.
Before coming to Washington, Alison lived in Boston where she worked on community reinvestment and Fair Housing issues and helped launch an affordable housing program for a community action agency in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Alison is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio. She holds a Master of Arts in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan.
Mary J. Childs-Mayer
Policy Advocate
Policy Advocate
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Mary joined The Feighan Team as a Policy Advocate in February 2022. She brings more than two decades of experience related to economic and community development advocacy with a focus on the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) industry. Childs-Mayer will provide mission-driven community development organizations with the strategic advice, insights, and tools needed to implement successful advocacy campaigns and legislative strategy to clients in a variety of industries.
Mary most recently worked as a private consultant working with a national CDFI to carry out all aspects of the U.S. Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program and the New York Forward working capital program. She held the positions of Government Relations Director and Small Business Development Manager for the National Development Council (NDC) headquartered in New York City. She brought her expertise to classrooms across the country while teaching NDC’s core finance courses to practitioners studying to earn their Economic Development Finance Professional (EDFP) certification. At the beginning of her 23-year career, Ms. Childs-Mayer was the first Portfolio Manager for NDC’s Grow America Fund (GAF), then, the nation’s only non-profit national SBA 7(a) lender.
Mary most recently worked as a private consultant working with a national CDFI to carry out all aspects of the U.S. Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program and the New York Forward working capital program. She held the positions of Government Relations Director and Small Business Development Manager for the National Development Council (NDC) headquartered in New York City. She brought her expertise to classrooms across the country while teaching NDC’s core finance courses to practitioners studying to earn their Economic Development Finance Professional (EDFP) certification. At the beginning of her 23-year career, Ms. Childs-Mayer was the first Portfolio Manager for NDC’s Grow America Fund (GAF), then, the nation’s only non-profit national SBA 7(a) lender.
Hannah Toriz Perez
Policy and Operations Manager
Policy and Operations Manager
Photography by Sam Levitan.