Mari Gallagher

Mari has enjoyed a national reputation for diverse, high-impact projects around the country for over 20 years of professional history.

• Quantitative & Qualitative Research Projects
• Assessing & Eliminating Food Deserts
• Public Health & Wellness Impacts, Assessments, & Programs
• Programs to Improve Food Access, Nutritional Education, & Health
• Creating Unique MG Content & Metrics:
  • Years of Life Gained
  • Food Balance
  • Mainstream & Fringe Food Store Categories
  • The Convenience Food Factor
  • The Retail Snowball Effect
  • Fringe & Mainstream Customer Signaling
  • The Meal Deficit Metric & Net Missing Meals Scores
  • Vulnerable Children Under Five, Elder Hot Spots, & Service Strategies
  • Grocer Sales & Customer Loyalty Improvement Strategies
• Statistical Modeling & Forecasts
• Community & Economic Development
• “Good Food” Systems as an Economic Development Driver
• Small Business, Retail, & Housing Development
• Market Impact Assessments
• Business Decline Reversal Support
• Market Studies
• GIS & Mapping
• Big Data Mining
• Grocer Attraction & Retention
• Funder Support to Assess Grocer Incentive Amounts & Strategies
• County Planning & Action Support
• Poverty Reduction Assessments & Strategies
• Hard-to-Reach Populations
• Wealth & Equity Strategies
• Stakeholder Engagement & Facilitation
• Public Forums & Inclusion
• Expert Testimony on Complex Issues
• Mapping, Reports, & Stakeholder Communication

Among Mari’s publications is Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago, sponsored by LaSalle Bank (now Bank of America). This is a breakthrough study that popularized the term “food desert” across the country. Mari was the first to develop a block-by-block metric for “food deserts” and “food balance” linked with health measures. Her firm also innovated a unique hunger model and market strategies to improve good grocer access. One project, for example, helped an independent grocery chain with 38 stores across six states assess sales and develop strategies to increase them. Her firm helps improve declining residential and commercial markets. And support community improvement plans and stakeholder engagement. And much more!

Here are just a few examples of locations where Mari and her team have provided support for a wide range of community improvements.

• Boston, Cambridge, Lawrence & Other Massachusetts Locations
• Chicago & Other Illinois Locations
• Wisconsin Locations
• Indiana Locations
• Appalachia
• South Dakota
• Detroit & Rural Michigan
• Louisville
• New York City
• Savannah & Dolton, Georgia
• Birmingham & Other Alabama Locations
• Rural Mississippi
• Los Angeles County & Orange County, California
• Toledo, Cincinnati, & Rural Areas in Ohio
• Ames & Rural Iowa
• Rural Kansas
• The Entire State of Florida (Over a 10 Year-Plus Period)
• & Other Locations

Her research shows numerous cases where residents of food deserts die prematurely more than they would otherwise from diet-related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, controlling for other key factors. Because of this, her work motivated Congressman Bobby Rush to address the problem of food deserts through the Farm Bill and through the mandating of follow-on focus by the USDA.

Under Mari’s leadership, MG has provided free diabetes screenings to school-age children as part of their efforts to identify diabetic and pre-diabetic children and adolescents. Furthermore, the team has been supporting ProMedica, a locally managed, non-profit healthcare organization serving northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. This support includes a block-by-block food-and-health study of Toledo, OH, to help ProMedica and its Ebeid Institute for Population Health identify a high-impact location for its non-profit grocery store. In addition, we have assisted ProMedica with developing its grocery store business plan, community engagement strategy, and customer satisfaction assessment.

As the former executive director of a community development corporation, Mari led the co-development of a $75 million shopping center anchored by a full-service grocery store. The CDC secured a 5% ownership in the project and continues to receive revenue from it to support community programs. Mari also led a number of additional commercial, housing, job development, and training projects, many of which won prestigious awards. She was also the president of a technology company.

Before starting her own firm, Mari led a major national research initiative based in Washington, all while operating from her base in Chicago. Her primary goal was to pioneer innovative methodologies for measuring the African American and Latino markets more effectively and accurately. Her specialties in this role included uncovering “below the radar” data on buying power, leakage, and emerging commercial opportunities, indexes, neighborhood report cards, and market analyses for undervalued and high-transition communities. Notably, she collaborated closely with top-level executives from renowned corporations such as Home Depot, State Farm Insurance, Bank of America, Crate & Barrel, Payless Shoes, and numerous leading grocery chains. Mari has taught retail classes at the Illinois Council on Shopping Center events in Las Vegas.

As a practitioner and later as a researcher, Mari has been active in community lending projects and policies. As executive director of a non-profit, she oversaw programs to strengthen local business districts. Mari’s work included grassroots efforts such as:

• Organizing merchants into business improvement taxing districts (Called BIDs or SSAs), building consensus to reach 100% support (no detractors).
• Organizing merchants and residents to participate in safety walks to reduce crime and improve local morale.
• Assisting merchants and business owners with business plans and financing.
• Creating and implementing effective overall business district redevelopment plans and launching complementary real estate ventures.

Mari has made significant contributions to promoting fair lending practices and asset-building policies and programs. Mari has served in leadership roles such as Treasurer and Nominating Committee Chair for the Woodstock Institute, a national think tank focused on fair lending research and advocacy. Her expertise has also benefited the Community Assets Unit within the Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, where she offered essential support for strategic planning, staff accountability and management, and asset-building policy and program consulting. Mari’s extensive experience extends to analyzing the immigrant loan portfolio for the Second Federal Bank for submission to its regulator and mapping national immigrant loans and the banks that cater to them for the FDIC. Her strategic planning expertise has been sought out by Pan Am Bank, for whom she led a board strategic planning session and developed a written business plan.

Mari’s work has also resulted in notable achievements. For the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank and National Federal Reserve Bank, she conducted surveys and focus groups across Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida that earned a consumer award. Mari has also functioned as a hands-on consultant for a number of community development financial institutions (CDFIs). She thoroughly analyzed the pipeline potential for various loan categories for small businesses throughout Los Angeles. Similarly, Mari analyzed a Vermont loan fund and provided strategic planning services. Additionally, she conducted key informant interviews and a general market analysis to help with the long-term plan for the Chicago Community Loan Fund.

For the MacArthur Foundation, which invests in non-profit loan funds, Mari led a project that assessed and mapped their internal data (all Chicagoland non-profit loan fund data that investees were required to submit to the Foundation). For the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Mari conducted a needs assessment based on her internal expertise and 20 external key informant interviews to assess top civil rights opportunities and needs. Mari was retained by the Center for Economic Progress five different times to lead similar projects on Earned Income Tax Credit patterns, asset building and savings, and workplace retention.

For the Woods Fund, she developed a thought leadership paper on asset building: how to help low-income families step up out of poverty, programs that help them save and build assets, and how to build systems that support healthy, productive, and prosperous lives. Mari has written numerous articles for the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank on community lending, which have been published in their magazines. This includes articles on her research on how banks were assessing undocumented immigrant mortgage loans to multiple borrowers using ITINs (individual tax identification numbers) in place of traditional Social Security numbers. Mari was one of the first researchers to nationally document and quantify this practice, which included ways to verify the incomes of immigrants that were typically paid in cash. At the time, these types of loans were unprecedented (and, in some cases, controversial). By detailing underwriting steps and standards, participating banks were able to adopt best practices.

Mari has led a number of sensitive projects. For example, she facilitated a project called “Breaking the Silence,” which consisted of moderating dialog between descendants of Holocaust survivors and Japanese Internment survivors to identify common threads and new ways of experiencing healing. She is an expert at focus group methodology and facilitation and has led dozens of focus group projects in Chicago and around the country. Mari led a research project to help seniors cope with the loss of their driving abilities.

Aside from those already mentioned, Mari has received dozens of additional awards over the years for her leadership in community improvement projects from the University of Illinois, where she earned her master’s in public policy and planning, the Boy Scouts of America, the American Heart Association, Concern Worldwide, and many other organizations and institutions. She was a founder and president of a soccer association that served Hispanic youth, a founder and volunteer for a homeless support network and food pantry, and active in other volunteer efforts. One of her initiatives years ago to develop a community garden in a vacant lot where a man was beaten to death received 32 media placements, including House Beautiful, and won an award from former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. The project included a “fantasy mural” designed by former gang members.

Mari’s work continues to be covered by USA Today, National Public Radio, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and many other venues. Mari previously wrote for the Huffington Post, which at the time had 14 million unique visitors daily. She has been a guest speaker for various high-level forums across the country, including the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. She continues to be a well-received facilitator and presenter on many diverse topics. In addition to public forums, she provides executive briefings to the heads of major corporations.

Did you know that Mari…

• Led a modeling project for an independent grocery with 38 stores across six states to assess impacts on sales and how to increase them!
• Led commercial and housing real estate development projects in underserved areas, including a $75 million grocery development linked to the second business transportation hub in the city of Chicago!
• Led an energy-efficient housing project that was visited by the United States Energy Secretary!
• Created community jobs programs, including with the unions for construction training!
• Was the Emerging Markets Director of a special national project working with the captains of industry, including the CEOs of State Farm, Bank of America, Home Depot, and others, to create a new retail business model to assess and serve disadvantaged neighborhood markets!
• Often was a speaker of cutting-edge market assessment techniques for the International Council of Shopping Centers and other conferences!
• Is a national speaker on food access, nutrition, and health outcomes!
• Was once the president of a $30 million technology company!
• Headed the Government, Banking, and Community Development division of a research group before starting her own firm!
• Was the first researcher to assess the Undocumented Mexican Mortgage Market for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation!
• Helped the Federal Reserve Bank assess unmet community banking needs in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and the Chicago region!
• Leads other meaningful and sensitive projects, such as a facilitated session with decedents of the Holocaust and the US Japanese Internment Camps called “Ending the Silence” to help survivors share stories of strength and courage.
• After a team of medical doctors could not save a young journalist who died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm, they reached out to Mari to lead focus groups and conduct surveys with young adult populations to learn more about how to help them understand and embrace end-of-life planning at an earlier stage in life.