Purpose Future Fellow - Emerging Fund Manager
Evan Absher
CEO, Folks Capital
Evan Absher is leveraging collective community ownership through the power of community development, entrepreneurship, and home ownership in the Midwest.
Through the Purpose Futures Fellowship, Evan Absher is developing Folks Capital’s Neighborhood Equity model, which allows community members to build an ownership interest in their communities through homeownership, entrepreneurship, and community development through two main programs: microlending and affordable housing.
Evan has a varied background, founder of a theatre company in Chicago, licensed attorney, and policy analyst for former mayor of Kansas City, Sly James. As a senior program officer he has developed several innovative grant strategies and programs resulting in implementation of entrepreneurial friendly policies in over 70 cities in the US. Evan has experience in multiple different grant and investment structures. Evan also ran the Kauffman Foundation’s Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship growing it from roughly two dozen cities to well over a hundred. He is an experienced leader of large teams and can also follow well.