Newsletters
Newsletters
| Economic & Community Development, Featured, Housing, Workforce Development
- Newsletters
- | Economic & Community Development, Featured, Housing, Workforce Development
Dear Partners and Colleagues,
As I reflect on this year, I have found myself coming back to the words of President Teddy Roosevelt: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Accelerator for America has seen the spirit of the (wo)man in the arena in 2025 in our local elected officials, government practitioners, community leaders, philanthropy, and partners across the country who are on the front lines, working tirelessly and courageously to improve their communities. Together, we have shown that hope is forged in action — in every policy advanced, every investment made, every neighborhood strengthened, every resident lifted to greater economic mobility.
Accelerator for America was founded at a time of political change, and 2025 has brought us more dynamism. Our mission remains clear: to find, develop, share, scale, and replicate the best local innovations across this country to create national change from the ground up. We are proud to support local leaders as they tackle economic and workforce development, housing, and infrastructure challenges.
In 2025, AFA supported 145 communities. We grew our networks of local leaders, adding nine mayors to our Advisory Council and engaging more than 800 local practitioners from major metropolitan areas to small towns in our Economic Opportunity Accelerators network.
And as we’ve done since our founding, AFA met our local leaders where they are and pivoted our work to respond to local needs. We fostered new partnerships with philanthropy, supported new state and local revenue solutions, and provided local leaders with innovative tools that can be scaled across communities to address our national housing crisis and increase economic mobility. Highlights included building a partnership with The Skills Initiative to connect more people in more places to quality jobs, releasing the State and Local Housing Action Plan, renewing our partnership with the Kauffman Foundation and Heartland Women in Trades, and working side by side with local leaders in the Charlotte region on the success of the Yes for Meck ballot measure.
Roosevelt reminded us that the arena is where progress is made. We look forward to continuing to support you in 2026 as we dare greatly, strive valiantly, and build hope through action.
With gratitude,
Mary Ellen Wiederwohl
President and CEO | Accelerator for America
Before the Accelerator for America team signs off for the holidays to rest and enjoy time with friends and family, we wanted to share a few more nuggets of good news.
National Housing Crisis Task Force debuts searchable, interactive Action Plan
The National Housing Crisis Task Force has launched an interactive and user-friendly State and Local Housing Action Plan website that allows users to dive deeper into the Action Plan’s 15 tools and understand which tools can be implemented simultaneously to multiply their impact on the local and regional housing ecosystem.
The Task Force released the Action Plan, which uplifts the most promising and scalable housing solutions from cities and states across the country, in June.
The Oklahoman: OKC spent 7 years landing 2028 Olympics events, much of it in secret, an inside look
In a recent story in The Oklahoman, AFA Advisory Council Mayor David Holt highlighted his administration’s efforts to bring two sports to Oklahoma City in 2028 when Los Angeles hosts the Olympics. It all started with a familiar person: AFA founder and former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Mayor Holt detailed how it came to be and AFA’s role at our recent meeting in Nashville.
AFA Advisory Council mayors win re-election
We are delighted to celebrate the re-election of several valued members of AFA’s Advisory Council, whose terms were up this year:
Congratulations! We look forward to continuing to work with them in 2026 and beyond!
We also want to issue a note of thanks to AFA Advisory Council members, Mayor Quentin Hart of Waterloo and Mayor Victoria Woodards of Tacoma, who are leaving office in January after 10 years and 8 years, respectively. Thank you, Mayor Hart and Mayor Woodards, for your service and commitment to driving economic opportunity for your residents and sharing your talents and passion with so many more!
The Boards of Directors for AFA and our sister organization Accelerator for America Action (AFAA) adopted a three-year strategic plan for the organizations this July, and AFA and AFAA leadership and staff dove head first into implementation.
Since then, we have created a public-facing implementation dashboard to track our progress over the initial months and are proud to report that we are already hitting key metric goals. Stay tuned for a more detailed update of our strategic plan implementation progress in our Annual Report, as well as regular quarterly updates.
