Midas Staff

Margaret Miley
Executive Director
(617) 787-3874 x214

Margaret Miley has a bachelor’s degree in economics and an MS in business. In 1991, while running a small business by day and training Central American refugees at night, she decided to deploy her combined skills in the community development field. Since then, she has developed and managed many types of non-profit economic development programs, community leadership, business training & lending, a business incubator, and worker-owned companies. In 1999, she saw the promise of asset development when she joined Acre Family Daycare in Lowell, which started the first Individual Development Account Program in Massachusetts. She helped form the Midas Collaborative, and now serves as its Executive Director.

Margaret was Commissioner on the Massachusetts Asset Development Commission, has spoken nationally on the topics of community-based economic development and asset-building, and is the author of “Expanding Skills in Low Income Communities: A Framework of Building an Effective Financial Education Program” MCBC 6/08." She serves on the Steering Committees of the Massachusetts Asset Building Coalition and the Massachusetts Financial Education Collaborative, and represents Massachusetts in the Assets & Opportunity Scorecard partnership of the Corporation for Enterprise Development in Washington, DC. She hopes to find the time to keep bees in the future.

Anahit Tokatlyan
Asset Development Program Coordinator
LISC AmeriCorps Member
(617) 787-3874 x230

Anahit Tokatlyan is a LISC AmeriCorps member and is theAsset Development Program Coordinator at The Midas Collaborative. She received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with minors in Business and Spanish from Bentley University.   Bentley’s mission to incorporate business into all degrees gave Anahit a passion to learn about different cultures and to and to analyze their business affairs.   In her junior and senior years, she became involved in Bentley Model United Nations (BMUN). Anahit’s professional experience includes employment at Wide Horizons for Children and an internship with the University of the Middle East Project in research, non-profit fundraising, translation, database management and program/project management. She thinks bees are okay, but honey is better.

Gosia Tomaszewska
Asset Development Program Director
(617) 787-3874 x228

Gosia Tomaszewska is the Asset Development Program Director at The Midas Collaborative. Previously, she was Asset Development Program Manager for two years. She is experienced in non-profit management and program development. In her position as Campaign Manager at Polonia Votes,  she successfully built a coalition of non-profit, public and private sectors in the Greater Boston area. As a result of her experience and passion for systematic change, she is committed to furthering the cause of asset development through the public policy arena, especially for women and the immigrant community.

Gosia has a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Psychology from Rutgers University in New Jersey, Master of Arts in Central and Eastern European Studies from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a Graduate Certificate in Politics and Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She prefers dogs to bees any day of the week.

Nika Elugardo
Director, Massachusetts Financial Education Collaborative
(617) 787-3874 x219

Nika Elugardo is the Director of the Massachusetts Financial Education Collaborative (MFEC) and is launching its central office, hosted by the Midas Collaborative. Nika came to the MFEC from the MA State House, where she was the Senior Aide for Policy & Planning for Senator Chang-Díaz. She has been catalyzing entrepreneurial and community initiatives since her college days at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating and doing consumer protection research, Nika managed the National Consumer Law Center’s statewide Foreclosure Prevention Project, a collaboration between corporations, nonprofits and HUD. Nika also worked with the Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC) for ten years; first in development and consulting, then as the founding Director of EGC Consulting, later as a board member, and now as volunteer with EGC’s Abolitionist Network that fights modern slavery and child trafficking in the U.S. and beyond.

Since youth, Nika has been deeply interested in the systemic undoing of poverty, criminal trafficking and corruption. Her work and volunteerism has focused on engaging, equipping and training corporate, nonprofit and civic leaders for sustainable social change or justice movements among youth and marginalized people groups. Nika has a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a J.D. from Boston University. She likes bees a lot, and, though she used to pet them as a child, she has never been stung by one.

Thomas Merrill
IT Coordinator

Thomas Merrill became interested in the Asset Development movement after completing a Master's degree program in Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He now serves as Information Technology Coordinator for the Midas Collaborative applying his software development, research, web design, and technical backgrounds to serve a dynamic, fast growing community with its diverse communications and reporting needs.

Thomas is a native of central Maine and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maine at Farmington in Geography and Computer Science. He is currently a beekeeper-in-training.

Midas Board

The Midas Collaborative Board of Directors is comprised of eleven board members vetted and approved by full members of the Collaborative. Seven board members are representatives of full member organizations of the Collaborative and four are at-large board members.

Vernette Allen, Vice-President & Treasurer
Director of Asset Development
Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD)

Vernette Allen is currently ABCD’s Financial Futures Initiative Director, responsible for IDA, credit advising, financial coaching, financial literacy, and homebuyer education programs and for planning new initiatives that aid in the reduction of poverty in Boston. She has over 17 years’ experience in nonprofit program management, with a strong emphasis on community-based work with low-income families and youth. As a group facilitator for the Boston Black Women’s Health Institute, she has been a leading innovator in development of life planning, self-help and behavioral change curricula. Ms. Allen also has had extensive experience in financial service institutions, as a financial administrator, property manager and grants compliance officer. She holds a MSW degree from Boston University. She , teaches at Boston University’s School of Social Work Professional Education Program.

Blair Benjamin
Director of Real Estate and Community Development
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA)

Blair Benjamin is an asset development practitioner, managing Assets for Artists, an IDA program for low-income artists and artisans in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. He is a member of the Midas Collaborative, served on a working group of the Massachusetts Asset Development Commission, and writes about the asset development field on his Asset Almanac blog (assetalmanac.wordpress.com). He is also Co-Founder of SaveTogether, an innovative national fundraising website that partners with Midas and other leading matched savings programs around the country. His experience in community development includes serving as Director of Real Estate and Community Development for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA).  In that capacity, Blair  is responsible for all commercial real estate development and leasing for 125,000 square feet of income-producing space that has played a major role in revitalizing the downtown business community of North Adams, Massachusetts.  He serves on the board of the Berkshire Creative Economy Council and the Northern Berkshire United Way. Previously, he spent five years as Director of Development for MASS MoCA, worked as Director of Marketing, Development and Community Relations for the Flatbush Development Corporation (a nonprofit community development corporation in Brooklyn), and served as a Peace Corps volunteer supporting agricultural and craft-based microenterprise development in the Ivory Coast in west Africa.

Saloni Bowry (At-Large Board Member)
Attorney at Law

Saloni is an experienced Boston based lawyer practicing corporate and financial services law. Prior to moving to Boston, Saloni lived and practiced law and business in Canada, the UK and Kenya. Saloni holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of Victoria, British Columbia, a Bachelor of Laws degree from University of Bristol, UK and a Master of Laws degree from Boston University. Saloni is interested in adding value to non-profit organizations by streamlining their operations through the application of legal and business principles.

Annery Butten
Director of the Family Asset Building Department
Lawrence Community Works

Annery is the Director of the Family Asset Building Department of Lawrence CommunityWorks. Shehas five years of financial and banking experience Annery started working at LCW as the marketing consultant for their first homeownership project. She then became the Family Asset Coordinator, expanding LCW’s adult programs and curricula from one IDA class serving twelve women to a diverse menu of programs, including a Family Asset Building Programs, a Homeownership Center, an Adult Basic Education Center, that provides workforce development training to more than 1000 participants every year.

Annery has served on the Advisory Committee of Lawrence LiteracyWork,  the Lawrence EITC Coalition,  the Boston EITC Coalition, and the Board of Mill Cities Community Investments, the LCW- and CBA-sponsored CDFI.

She has an extensive background in customer service and program and curriculum development. Annery has deep roots in the local faith-based and Latino communities, where she is part of many cultural events. Annery is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Jacqueline Cooper, Secretary (At-Large Board Member)
Founder
Financial Education Associates

Jacqueline Cooper has taught basic financial education since 1996.   In 2001, she founded Financial Education Associates to provide basic financial education programs and instructors to organizations.  (Client/constituent services is implied). Her current work includes managing the Homebuyer Education Programs for the Boston Home Center, managing financial education and Individual Development Account (IDA) Programs for Madison Park Development Corporation, teaching financial education for several non-profit agencies in the Boston area, and training trainers nationally for Assets for Independence (AFI) Programs. Ms. Cooper has a BS in Management Information Systems from Northeastern University, and a Master in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a concentration in Housing, Community, and Economic Development.

Shauntell Foster
Project Manager
DotWell

Shauntell Foster immigrated to Dorchester from Jamaica in 1989. She received a BA from The University of Massachusetts in Sociology and Africana Studies. She holds a MBA in Global Management from The University of Phoenix-Braintree, MA. During her time at UMass she spent three months in Cuba conducting research in Afro-Cuban history. She was also the recipient of the David Walker prize in Community Service for her work with community organizations. She organized aback to school supply drive for students in Dorchester, assisted in the freeing of Slaves in Sudan by organizing a fundraising event that raised over $7,000 and also coordinated a forum at UMass Boston to discuss bi-lingual education in Boston Public Schools.

She joined the DotWell Civic Health Institute in September of 2008. Her past experience includes Social Work, Human Service, Adult Education and College Admissions,(all should be lowercase “social work, human service, adult education, etc.)  and program administration.  As the Project Manager for DotWell, Shauntell is carrying out the day-to-day activities of the IDA program, EITC tax clinic, credit coaching and advising programs and the Skills for Life Youth program.

Marissa Guananja
Director of Resident Asset Development
Chelsea Neighborhood Developers

Marissa Guananja is Director of Resident Asset Development at Chelsea Neighborhood Developers in Chelsea, Massachusetts. She holds a Masters in Public Policy from the George Washington University, where she conducted research on the role that collective remittances play in development in El Salvador. She has worked at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation analyzing high-performing homeownership programs and at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. As the Director of Resident Asset Development at Chelsea Neighborhood Developers, she manages the Financial Literacy, VITA, and IDA programs. In addition to serving as a board member for Midas, Ms Guananja also serves on theand of the Massachusetts Community and Banking Council and the Steering Committee of the Massachusetts Asset Building Collaborative.

Michelle Meiser, President
Director of Homeownership & Asset Manager
Allston-Brighton CDC

Michelle Meiser, Director of Homeownership and Asset Building Programs, began her career as an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer organizing tenants. For over 14 years she has focused on providing people with education and information to help them achieve economic stability.  Her work with tenants did not stop after her year of service ended. She has educated both tenants and landlords.  Michelle came to Allston Brighton CDC in 2003 to oversee the Saving for Success Individual Development Account Program, assisting neighborhood residents to build assets, including homeownership, education and small business advancement. She now oversees the Homeownership and Asset Building Programs.  Michelle holds her BA in Sociology from Wheaton College and her MS in Law, Policy and Society from Northeastern University.

Erin O’Brien (At-Large Board Member)
Professor of Political Science
University of Massachusetts Boston

Dr. Erin E. O’Brien is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Faculty Affiliate in the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies and the Women’s Studies Department. Her research and teaching interests focus on two main fields: the politics of poverty and social welfare policy & the politics of mass opinion and behavior. Within these fields, and at both the individual and collective level, she examines how gender, race and ethnicity, social class, and other group cleavages affect political processes and policy outcomes. Her work employs a variety of methods and approaches to social science in order to examine the connections among social policy, political thought and action, inequality, and patterns of stratification and identity associated with social groups.

Dr. O’Brien's books include The Politics of Identity: Solidarity Building among America’s Working Poor (State University of New York Press, 2008) and Diversity in Contemporary American Politics and Government (co-editor, Longman, 2009). Her scholarship also appears in The American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Women and Politics, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and in numerous book chapters. She is past President of the Southern Political Science Women’s Caucus, co-program chair of the 2009 New England Political Science Association Annual Meeting, and recipient of the 2008 Sophinisba Breckinridge Award for best paper presented on gender-related topics presented at the Midwest Political Science Association’s annual meeting (with co-author). Dr. O’Brien has given invited lectures and keynote addresses to academic and practitioner audiences in China, South Korea, for NPR, to the National Community Tax Coalition, and across the United States.

Hilary Smith
Resident Service Coordinator
Homeowner's Rehab Inc. and Cambridge Neighborhood Apartment Housing Services

Hilary has been working at Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. and CNAHS as the Resident Service Coordinator for the last four years. At HRI she runs an IDA program, holds financial literacy courses, organizes residents to join in volunteer projects for the local community, and is dedicated to helping residents gain economic, social and emotional self sufficiency through a myriad of programs. Hilary has been involved in the human service field since 2003 working as an advocate for persons with disabilities and seniors as well as doing case management for at risk teenagers. Hilary is passionate about social justice, removing barriers to asset development for people of low and moderate income, in woman's studies and in advancing civil rights for all and believes that with enough voices change will come. Hilary holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence in Sociology, an Med in Counseling from Providence College and will be attending Northeastern University School of Law in September.