Leadership Profiles
Socially Responsible Investing
Ebony Perkins, Investor and Community Relations Manager
Ebony Perkins is a dedicated, solution-oriented social entrepreneur whose heartbeat is community. She has a demonstrated ability of working with investors and philanthropists to help them make smart and strategic decisions. As Self-Help's Investor & Community Relations Manager, Ebony helps groups and individuals invest funds in a socially responsible financial institution that supports communities of all kinds, especially those underserved by conventional lenders. Before that role, she served as the Donor Relations Manager at Central Carolina Community Foundation where she managed a system to engage and educate over 400 individuals and groups to help them achieve their charitable goals.
Ebony’s commitment to community investing is evident by her service and contributions to Women In Philanthropy, Durham Center for Senior Life, and the University of North Carolina MPA Alumni Board. Ebony was also recognized on the SRI Conference's inaugural 30 Under 30 List.
Ebony holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Claflin University as a summa cum laude graduate. She also has an Executive Certificate in Financial Planning from Duke University.
Nuray Ozbay, Policy and Impact Investment Associate
Nuray Ozbay leads Self Help’s efforts to cultivate mission-supportive depositors and impact investors within and beyond Self-Help’s California footprint. As a global movement and relationship builder, Nuray loves working with change-makers across non-profit, corporate, and public sectors. Her expertise is in intersectional gender equality, global civil society activism, social justice, and ESG investing. Nuray currently serves as a Board Director at the UN Women San Francisco Chapter and a National Expert on Violence Against Women at the European Women’s Lobby, the largest umbrella organization of women’s associations across Europe. Before joining Self-Help, Nuray spent 11 years in the social impact sector as a researcher, consultant, and non-profit leader across Turkey and Europe, working on issues including but not limited to immigration, women’s access to economy, financial literacy & inclusion, entrepreneurship, and care economy.
Kimberly Jones, Investment Associate
Kimberly's professional career spans both the nonprofit and community development financial services sectors, with expansive senior leadership roles in arts management; business and resource development; community relations; and corporate philanthropy. Currently, she's Self-Help's Investor Relations Manager, where she helps individuals and institutions align their banking and investments with their mission, vision, and values. Kimberly has held leadership positions that advanced the missions of creative organizations and community development financial institutions seeking to make a difference in communities in their footprint. She has been a founding board member of mission driven organizations that supported the growth and development of young artists, creatives, and professionals in the nonprofit sector.
In 2015, Kimberly was selected to be a PLACES Fellow with The Funders Network, where she explored the role of philanthropy through an equity lens in low to moderate income communities. She has served as a grant/award reviewer for organizations that championed organizational excellence, community development, and environmental sustainability. Kimberly has a BA in Political Science from the University of Minnesota-Morris and an MA in Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management from Columbia College Chicago.
Green Economy; Sustainable Society; Investing for the Environment
Melissa Malkin-Weber, Sustainability Director
Melissa has worked across a broad span of hands-on sustainability practices. At Self-Help Credit Union, she integrates the triple bottom line into the organization’s financial products, operations, and buildings portfolio. She led Self-Help to realize over $1.7 million in net present value from initiatives in this sector, including $180,000 energy savings in our own operations. Melissa previously directed the residential energy efficiency and indoor air quality research program at Advanced Energy and worked in industrial pollution prevention at RTI International. She earned her law degree from University of Michigan, and her Master's from UNC’s School of Public Health.
Shondra Tanner, Mortgage Lending
Shondra Owens Tanner brings her extensive experience and commitment to making mortgage loans for low-wealth families to her position as Self-Help's Director of Mortgage Originations, where she oversees all North Carolina home loan origination and new business development. Shondra's areas of expertise includes buying your first home, mortgage basics (documentation, closing costs, down payments), delinquency and loss mitigation (What is a forbearance and loan modification and what does that do to your credit?)
Loans for “First Responders to the Soul”
“Love one another” is part of the mission of Maranatha Fellowship Church in High Point, NC, a church that received a Self-Help loan in 2019. (Photo courtesy of the MFC website.)
My role at Self-Help is to advance our lending to faith-based institutions. We lend to all faiths. It may be a church. It could be a synagogue. It could be a temple. It just depends on the market, the mission fit and the opportunity. We take a lot of pride in trying to find a way to make the loan versus trying to find reasons not to make the loan. I think that’s a real difference.
Indirectly, I get the ability to touch so many people through the institutions that we serve. When we make a loan to a faith-based institution, that allows them to increase their outreach and to build their congregations or their membership.
Sometimes a church or faith-based institution comes to us thinking that they need a loan when they first need a plan. We like to begin partnering with faith-based groups on the front-end to make sure they have a feasible plan with the right budget and the right parameters in place so they’re successful in repaying that loan when that time comes. Our average loan amount range is around $400,000 to $500,000.
When we make a loan to an organization that’s growing, hopefully we establish some loyalty and create an opportunity to grow with them. In the early stages of the pandemic as churches were transitioning to virtual meetings, one pastor commented that faith-based organizations remain “first-responders to the soul.” That speaks to the vital link that faith-based institutions provide for so many people in the community.
One example that comes to mind is Maranatha Fellowship Church in High Point, North Carolina. The pastor of the current church, Pastor Harvey “Chip” Rice, began serving a congregation of only eight members in 2007 that met in a small, leased building. Under his leadership through the following years, the church outgrew its space and began making plans to find a new location. In 2019, Self-Help approved a $1.1 million loan that allowed the church to purchase 16 acres of land and buildings that formerly had served a Bible College. They named the new church campus “Communion Pointe.”
This 20,000-square-foot building provides worship and education space on the Communion Pointe campus for Maranatha Fellowship Church.
The mission of Maranatha Fellowship is to “worship God, love one another, make disciples, and endure the trials of life.” The Fellowship’s motto is “Building Lives that Make a Difference.” The church ministers to the needs of its congregation—now nearly 300 strong—and also to the community with service to the local prison, a local homeless shelter and in local schools. We are happy to partner with Maranatha as their lender of choice.
Self-Help’s faith-based lending also has been active in California through our affiliate, Self-Help Federal Credit Union. We’ve had some good successes in California due in large part to the work of our business development officers there. They are covering a lot of territory, and I’m very proud of their accomplishments to date in locations such as Pasadena, Fresno and the greater San Francisco Bay area. We also did our first faith-based loan in Milwaukee in 2021. Bringing a strong faith-based lending focus differentiates us from many other community development financial institutions.
As I continue my work at Self-Help, I hope my biggest contribution is to help us look at things in a different way, to help us grow in the right direction and attract the right people to help us grow, and to help people understand that this is an organization that continues to make a vast impact in our communities.
James Sansom serves as Director of Faith-Based Lending for Self-Help. He joined us three years ago, building on a 40-year career in commercial banking. James says that “lending to faith-based institutions has been a constant for me over the course of my career.”