About
ABOUT REBECCA BALLARD ADVISORY
Building things that matter — and the organizations that can carry them.
Rebecca Ballard Advisory centers on economic development in Washington, DC — building an economy where mission-driven businesses grow and creating opportunity for the people who live here. Drawing on two decades across business, social enterprise, nonprofits, and philanthropy, we turn ambitious ideas into plans that actually run.
How things get made, and who benefits, is one question. I've asked it about supply chains, then about companies, and now about a city.
About Rebecca
HOW I WORK
First, define the problem.
I start with the problem and the data — and I make sure the problem is defined correctly before anyone starts solving it. I'd rather build from what's here than import a solution whole.
Align structure with reality.
Culture and structure are one problem. An organization that means well without the infrastructure to hold it will drift, and structure without culture is just paperwork. The vision has to be owned by the people carrying it, or it doesn't survive contact with a budget.
Center the people.
I raise people's names in rooms they're not in, I protect the people doing the real work, and I measure success by who rises.
Values
Agency
Truth
Collaboration
Connection
Meet Rebecca
Rebecca Ballard's work is grounded in a single conviction: organizations and economic systems must serve the people who keep them running. That belief is inherited from her grandparents, who worked the Carolina cotton fields and mills during the Great Depression to build a path out of poverty.
She began with a post-law-school fellowship in nonprofit and foundation law at Alliance for Justice, and has spent the two decades since building at the intersection of mission and capital — across anti-trafficking, global labor rights, social enterprise, and community development.
Rebecca thinks mathematically and builds creatively: she sees gaps, then fills them, with a lawyer's policy discipline and a founder's instinct to execute. She's now focused on economic opportunity for DC in this pivotal moment.
She doesn't own a car, walks her kids to their local public school, and lives in a pink rowhouse that is itself a tremendous adaptive reuse project. She believes in 15-minute cities, thoughtful placemaking, and the power of hyperlocal community life. She loves this city fiercely, and shows up as a builder, a bridge, and a convener.
Institutional Impact
Founded and ran a socially conscious apparel company across India and the United States
Served by invitation on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Forced Labor Working Group, during the years the current enforcement regime took shape
Created the first congressional briefing on fashion's global supply chains with more than 200 Congressional staffers attending
Originated and launched a coalition of twenty DC nonprofit organizations
As a Department of Commerce attorney, drafted and edited portions of the employment policy for the Census Bureau during the decennial census — the largest hiring operation in the country
Rebecca serves on the Board of Directors of Miriam's Kitchen, the Governance Committee of Jubilee Housing, WACIF's Sustainable Entrepreneurship Council, and the Leadership Council of the Greater Washington Community Foundation's Partnership to End Homelessness. She is part of NEXUS Global.
The question underneath all my work is simple:
How do we build institutions and markets that solve hard problems while treating people well?