- M.A., Public Policy and Administration, Northwestern University
- B.A., Political Science, Trinity College
Tara Jeanne Brown is an instructor for the Lenoir-Rhyne Equity and Diversity Institute (LREDI). For more than 15 years, Brown has worked through local government and nonprofits to build inclusive economic development. She has designed and implemented programs to support asset building, affordable homeownership and entrepreneurship in underserved communities.
Brown lives in Asheville, North Carolina, serving as associate director of the Western Women’s Business Center. She previously lived in New York City, where the asset-building programs she created with the NYC Office of Financial Empowerment have been replicated nationally. In 2016, seeing that many social programs fail to address underlying inequities, including the racial wealth gap, Brown launched Reckoning with Whiteness, a project to help individuals with racial privilege understand and address inequality in their communities.
Brown serves as a board member for Witness for Peace Southeast, an anti-oppression organization that works in solidarity with people in Latin America and the Caribbean. She previously served on the board of the Cooperative Economic Development Alliance of NYC.