Megan Hageney
Hometown:
Houston, TX
Connect: LinkedIn
Megan is excited to further the incredible work of her host community and its regional partners. She looks forward to deepening her understanding of making rural and tribal small business resources more accessible and equitable.
Megan is a results-driven professional with over five years of DEI-informed economic development experience in under-resourced communities. Grounded in principles of centering community members, equitability, and coalition building, her practice involves a comprehensive understanding of economic development without displacement in both urban and rural settings.
In Houston’s Historic Third Ward, she strategically provided support for community-driven change initiatives with a $1m budget, oversaw historical research for preservation-based economic development, and helped coordinate the foundations of a new Main Street Program. Megan’s Houston journey also includes various aspects of the economic ecosystem, including her role as a change management consultant in the private sector, supporting programming for entrepreneurs of color to develop business plans at the University of Houston, and creating a workforce program for underemployed individuals at the Houston Food Bank.
Megan moved to Maine to serve as the DEI Main Street Fellow at Heart of Biddeford. There, she authored the organization’s inaugural DEI work plan, one of the first plans of its kind in the Main Street network of 1600+ members. Megan presented this work at local, state, and national conferences.
Post-fellowship, she led an SBA-funded economic ecosystem audit and regional economic development plan for Biddeford and Saco, Maine. Currently, she is spearheading a regional BIPOC youth workforce development strategy in Lewiston-Auburn, sponsored by over 80 organizations and funded by Boston Federal Bank. Megan holds an MBA from the University of Houston and a BA in Sociology from Trinity University.
ERC Project
Project Title:
Entrepreneurship Support and Business Skills Education in the Rural Communities of Southwestern New York
Host Community or Region:
southwestern New York State
Host Organization:
Southern Tier West Regional Planning and Development Board
Requests for small business development support are steeply rising in southwestern New York. This project implements place-based strategies to combat barriers to equitable access to business services. The project provides regular, accessible, localized business skills training and mentorship “boot camp” services directly within rural communities by physically traveling to communities and business cohorts. The ERC Fellow will lead the designing and implementing the business skills training, developing business mentoring relationships, and strengthening social capital in rural communities, all of which lays the foundation to develop new regional business retention and expansion efforts. The outcome of this project will be a dynamic 6–10 week “boot camp” training program tailored to the unique needs of the region across Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Allegany counties, as well as adjacent lands belonging to the Seneca Nation.
Interested in supporting this project or learning more? Contact the ERC program team here.
Photo credit: Suzy Allman