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Nowak Fellowship

Honoring Our Founder

The Nowak Fellowship is one of three initiatives Reinvestment Fund supports to honor the legacy and memory of its founding Executive Director, Jeremy Nowak.

About the Fellowship

The Nowak Fellowship, housed at Reinvestment Fund, was established to support a pre-graduate school fellow considering a future career aligned with community economic development.

This gap year Fellowship was created to honor the memory and contributions of Jeremy Nowak, the founding CEO of Philadelphia-based Reinvestment Fund (originally, Delaware Valley Community Reinvestment Fund; later, The Reinvestment Fund). The fellowship supports a college graduate, contemplating graduate school, in an academic and career pursuit that gives honor to Jeremy’s interests and pursuits. The Fellowship will last two years.

The deadline for the 2024 Nowak Fellowship closed on March 22, 2024. If you would like to be considered for our next fellowship in 2026, we’d still love to hear from you! Submit your interest here: nowak-fellowship@reinvestment.com

Meet our 2020 and 2022 Fellows

 
 
Camille Desierto
2022-24 Jeremy Nowak Fellow
 
 
Marci Monaco-Vavrik
Policy Analyst
 
 

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from working with Policy Solutions is the importance of humanizing data. Though most of our work is quantitative in nature, it is admirable to see how often our staff communicates with the client and local expertise to validate what we’re seeing in the data, and to ensure we are meeting their data needs so that they can effectively meet the needs of their target area/community.

 
 

Barriers to Homeownership was my most meaningful project for a variety of reasons. The project also had qualitative and quantitative aspects, helping increase my research skills in these areas…By exposing the inequities in homeownership by race and the challenges faced by potential first-time homebuyers, it felt like the report was contributing towards uplifting communities who have been previously denied homeownership opportunities.

Discover Their Work:

 
 
Barriers to Homeownership
Read the Report
 
 
Capitalizing Childcare: The National Landscape of Grants, Loans, and Community Development Capital in Early Childhood Education
Read the Report
 
 
Unmet Promise: Reverse Mortgage Servicing Challenges and How to Preserve Housing Stability for Older Adults
Read the Report
 
 
A Road Map for Asset Based Investing in Central Appalachia
Read the Report

Fellowship Advisor

 
 
Ira Goldstein
Senior Advisor, Policy Solutions