Charlotte’s Sherri Chisholm: ‘We were a victim of our own success’

Once again Atlanta can look to Charlotte, N.C. for insights into improving the region’s  economic mobility ranking.

But the recent decision to sunset Leading on Opportunity, the organization that spearheaded Charlotte’s economic mobility efforts, may come as a surprise.

Sherri Chisholm, executive director of Leading on Opportunity since 2020, shared her thoughts in a candid interview.

Here’s some background:

When Charlotte was ranked 50th out of 50 in economic mobility in 2014 by Harvard University researcher Raj Chetty, it formed Leading on Opportunity to help galvanize the community to work together to address the underlying causes.

At the time, the Atlanta region ranked 49th out of 50, but the local community did not launch a similar response.

When Chetty released an updated economic mobility study in 2024, Charlotte’s rank went from 50th to 38th, and Atlanta went from 49th to 50th.

Ever since, the other metro areas ranked in the study, Atlanta included, have turned to Charlotte to learn how they can improve economic mobility in their communities.

Yet, in Charlotte, a shift occurred.

“The local funding community was ecstatic about the progress we had made. There was the sense that we’d accomplished the goal after having worked on it for 10 years,” Chisholm said in a Zoom call on July 5. “In a lot of ways, we were a victim of our own success. Folks were saying, ‘We’ve accomplished what we needed to do.’”

The community began looking for other ways to make an impact on Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

“With that in mind, at Leading on Opportunity, it just didn’t make sense for us to continue forward in our current capacity,” Chisholm said. “So, we made the decision to sunset the work.”

Chisholm said the organization was having a hard time raising money to continue its work. 

A high point for Charlotte was in September 2024 when Chetty announced that the region had dramatically improved its numbers in its most recent study. A feeling of optimism and pride was in the air. But by the beginning of 2025, Chisholm shared with her council that Leading on Opportunity was at a crossroads.

“We could double in size, or we might close,” Chisholm told her board. 

One option would be for the community to declare victory and move on to other initiatives. Or Leading on Opportunity could continue the work with support from local entities and national foundations to help replicate the model in other communities.

Multiple metro areas and foundations became quite interested in taking Leading on Opportunity to scale. A major conference was held in Charlotte in October 2025 with dozens of people representing different cities and foundations. At the time, Chisholm knew the nonprofit would need significant local and national funding “fairly quickly” to continue its work.

“By the end of 2025, it looked like it was not going to be possible,” Chisholm said. “I started to have some hard conversations with my council.”

In the interview, Chisholm did share insights about Charlotte, Atlanta and economic mobility work in general.

Although Leading on Opportunity was founded in 2017, Chisholm said the city has been addressing the issue through anti-poverty, education and housing programs for decades. In many ways, Atlanta also has had multiple efforts over the decades to improve economic inequalities in the city and region.

But Chisholm added that Charlotte and other cities view economic mobility as a 10-year project rather than an ongoing endeavor.

At the same time, cities, regions and states have economic development agencies with no thought of sunsetting their efforts to bring new investments and jobs to their communities.

“The progress we’ve seen in Charlotte is very much tied to our economic development growth,” she said. “Some people shy away from those things being interconnected. I want to tie them directly together, because never have we heard a city, a county, a community say, ‘We’re done with economic development.’ We’re constantly retooling, rethinking how do we make ourselves more appealing? I want economic mobility to be… a part of that.”

It’s also complicated because Charlotte and Atlanta both have enjoyed economic development success.

“It’s difficult to focus on disparities when every time you turn around there’s a new building popping up or a new company coming,” Chisholm said. “It’s difficult for anyone to hold those two stories at the same time.”

Chisholm, however, applauded Charlotte’s business and civic leadership for rallying around economic mobility efforts after Chetty’s first study came out.

“It was a huge motivator in Charlotte. It was not something we shied away from,” she said. “We definitely looked at it dead in the face and said, ‘What can we do?’”

Priorities in Charlotte have shifted to transportation, housing and public safety, which all fit under the economic mobility umbrella. But Chisholm said the city is “ready for something new and fresh, a new vision, a new way of talking about it.”

Before closing its doors, the nonprofit released an economic impact report of its work, showing $1 billion had been invested in community initiatives.

It also shared “what we have learned” so others could benefit.

“It requires courageous storytelling,” Chisholm said. “Be comfortable sitting in places of friction.”

Data is vital, not just for accountability “but to inspire imagination.” It encourages people to adopt the practices that work.

Chisholm also said, “economic mobility spans way beyond Chetty’s data.”

Advice? “Ask not ‘Who lives here?’ but “Who thrives here?’ Let that question guide policy, business and civic life.”

As for Chisholm’s next step? She is pregnant with her second child, and she’s planning to take the next six months or so to weigh her options. She’s been speaking with several communities — Dallas, St. Louis, Richmond, Philadelphia and Atlanta — on how she could be helpful to their efforts.

Chisholm, who lived here for nearly a decade, is open to coming back to Atlanta.

“What I will say very much on the record, I love Atlanta,” she said. “I’ve never been shy about saying that to anyone. It holds a piece of my heart. I adulted in Atlanta.”

Chisholm has been following the City of Atlanta’s neighborhood revitalization efforts, the investment by Blue Meridian Partners and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, as well as other initiatives.

She highlighted Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who also chairs the Atlanta Regional Commission, for understanding that “as goes Atlanta, so goes the region, and as goes the region, so goes Atlanta.”

The city has tremendous opportunity with Blue Meridian and other partners.

“It would be awesome if Atlanta and the region could figure out how they [can work] together,” she said. “I would hope the two initiatives work in concert together, and I think that’s possible.”

Note to readers: Sherri Chisholm was the keynote speaker at the 2025 Atlanta Way Day, an annual event of Atlanta Way 2.0, our sister nonprofit. We will hold our 2026 Atlanta Way Day at the Tara Theatre on Oct. 1, where we will focus on economic mobility in the region.