Heather McCulloch is the founder of Asset Building Strategies (ABS), a consulting firm that advances policies and strategies to support low-wealth families to build financial assets. Ms. McCulloch has been a pioneer in the asset-building field, working with others to initiate innovative approaches to asset building at the local, state and national levels.
Examples of innovation:
- In 2008, Ms. McCulloch co-facilitated a national discussion and co-authored a report on ways to expand asset-building opportunities through shared ownership with Beadsie Woo of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report has been used to frame a national dialogue among asset-building and shared ownership leaders hosted by the Casey Foundation and the national Asset Funders Network in December 2008.
- In 2007, she co-founded the Asset Support Center with San Francisco Bay Area Foundations, a two-year regional initiative designed to build the infrastructure of support for asset-building services serving low-income families across the nine-county Bay Area region.
- From 2005 to 2007, she managed the planning for the Mission Asset Fund, a comprehensive, neighborhood-based asset-building initiative that is helping low-income and immigrant working families to save and invest in their community.
- In 2003, Ms. McCulloch co-founded the Asset Policy Initiative of California, a statewide effort to advance public policies to support asset-building in California.
Ms. McCulloch has been the lead researcher on several publications describing new trends and emerging opportunities in the asset-building field at the national, state and local levels and regularly makes presentations on asset building to national, state and local audiences.
Prior to starting Asset Building Strategies, Heather was a Senior Associate at the national nonprofit, PolicyLink. She has a master’s degree in international political economy from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in political economy from the University of California, Berkeley.