Maximize Capital Allocation – Get the most out of your Community Fund

Jessica “Jessie” Buendia is the Dream.Org Vice President of Sustainability and Green For All National Director. Green For All works at the intersection of the environmental, economic, and racial justice movements to advance solutions to poverty and pollution and to ensure that the people hit first and worst by pollution and climate change do not benefit last and least from the solutions. Under her leadership, Green For All is working to advance proactive bipartisan climate policy, support the implementation of Biden’s Justice40 initiative, ensure investments from the Inflation Reduction Act are directed to the communities most impacted by poverty and pollution, and uplift Black and Brown entrepreneurs and job pathways in the green economy.

Before coming to Green For All, Jessie held positions within the public, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors on climate equity. Most recently, Jessie served as an executive at the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) under the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. SGC promotes sustainability, health, and equity across the State by helping California achieve its climate change and racial equity goals through place-based, community-driven infrastructure investments and transformative programming. Jessie launched racial equity and technical assistance initiatives that expanded California’s reach and impact in communities and propelled SGC as a leader on equity at the state level. Jessie has her policy degree from Princeton University, an advanced project management certification from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Macalester College. Jessie is originally from Iowa and currently lives in Sacramento with her wife and two children.

Tate Hill started in July 2020 as Access Plus Capital’s President. Hill previously served as Director of Administration and Interim CEO leading fund development, strategic initiatives, and administrative functions.

Hill spearheaded the rebranding of Access Plus Capital, and brought on much-needed systems for sustained growth. What started as a program of Fresno EOC to help small refugee farmers in Fresno County, has grown to provide capital to small and underserved businesses in a 14-county region throughout Central California. Hill has been an integral part of this expansion.

Hill brings 16 years of community development and business technical assistance experiences as well as 12 years in nonprofit management. An advocate for racial and economic justice, Hill is board treasurer of the Greenlining Institute and executive committee member of the Fresno DRIVE Initiative focusing his work on supporting low-income business owners and entrepreneurs of color. Previously, he was the President & CEO of the Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce that created the region’s first green business certification program and the Central Valley Business Diversity Expo.

Hill holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Finance from Fresno State’s Craig School of Business and an M.S. in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University. He is native to Stockton, CA but was raised in southwest Fresno where he currently resides. Since 2008, Access Plus Capital has assisted more than 900+ businesses to access more than $50+ million in capital resulting in the creation and retention of 3671+ jobs.

Gwen Yamamoto Lau is the Executive Director of the Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority (“Authority”), an agency attached to the State’s Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. The Authority, Hawai‘i’s Green Bank, was constituted in November 2014 to administer a green infrastructure loan program to make clean energy investments accessible and affordable to Hawaii’s underserved ratepayers, stimulate private investments, and leverage innovative tools to mitigate risks and reach new markets.

In addition to its existing clean energy financing programs, the Authority also administers the federally funded State Small Business Credit Initiative’s HI-CAP Collateral Support and HI-CAP Loans Programs, and will be launching a Commercial Property Accessed Clean Energy and Resiliency (C-PACER) financing program for the state in 2023.

Drawing from over twenty-five years of experience in conventional commercial financing, Gwen continues to find new ways to facilitate non-traditional financing tools to fill market gaps and promote energy justice and economic development for the State of Hawaii.

Gwen is active with the American Green Bank Consortium, a subsidiary of the Coalition for Green Capital, an organization accelerating the Green Bank movement across the nation and instrumental in the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund legislation. Gwen is often tapped to speak locally and on a national level (Atlantic Council, Council for Development Finance Agencies, NAACP, California PUC, NASEO, Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference,Climate Leadership Conference, etc.) on HGIA’s innovative and inclusive financing programs.

Active in her community, Gwen is Past President of the Rotary Club of Honolulu and serves on the Board and Executive Committee for Goodwill Industries of Hawaii. Gwen was also appointed to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Financial Advisory Board for a 3-year term ending June 15, 2025. Gwen earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Graduate School of Banking.