Rising Together is focused on the people and businesses that fall between the cracks of the current system — earning too much for traditional nonprofit support, but not yet at a place of economic stability and thriving. The missing middle of Main Street deserves the same access to tools, capital, and community that everyone else takes for granted.
Read the Case StudyMy career has been built around understanding where human need and institutional design are most misaligned. In economic inclusion, that distance has a name: the missing middle. Rising Together is an intentional effort to build the pathways that should have existed already — using the access and resources of a regional bank and the direct experience of someone who spent years working with the people the system overlooked.
Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and working families in the St. Louis region who sit just above the threshold for traditional nonprofit services but lack the capital, connections, and tools to achieve lasting economic stability. The missing middle — capable, motivated, and underserved.
An underserved space in the economic support ecosystem. Traditional nonprofit programs serve the most vulnerable. Traditional banking serves the established. The people in between — too much income for one, not enough track record for the other — fall through with no institutional advocate and no clear on-ramp.
In partnership with Midwest BankCentre, Rising Together builds access to capital, tools, and community for the missing middle of Main Street. This means financial products designed for where people actually are, not where the system assumes they should be — along with the coaching, connection, and institutional backing to make it sustainable.
Because I spent years in therapy sessions with people who were capable, motivated, and still getting blocked by systems that were not built for them. Economic inclusion is the same problem at a different scale. Rising Together is what happens when someone with clinical insight sits on the side of the institution that makes the rules — and decides to change them.
Financial products and lending pathways designed for where people actually are — not idealized credit profiles.
Business development resources, financial literacy, and operational support that match real-world complexity.
Connection to a network of institutional advocates who can open doors and build pathways that no individual can create alone.