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Decorative
Pathways to Capital

10,000 Communities

Featured 
Report

Generosity After the LA Fires: Charitable Giving and the Road Ahead to Rebuilding

In the aftermath of the devastating Eaton and Palisades Wildfires in Los Angeles, philanthropic institutions, corporations...
Read Report
A headshot of a man named Alexander Meeks. He is standing against a blurred background and smiling at the camera. He has brown skin, a short dark brunette beard, short dark brunette hair, and brown eyes. He is wearing glasses and a gray collared polo shirt.

Alexander Meeks

Director, 10,000 Communities Initiative, Milken Institute Finance
Alexander Meeks is a director at Milken Institute Finance. He focuses on helping communities accelerate resilient disaster recovery and adapt to extreme weather events.
Featured 
Report

Generosity After the LA Fires: Charitable Giving and the Road Ahead to Rebuilding

In the aftermath of the devastating Eaton and Palisades Wildfires in Los Angeles, philanthropic institutions, corporations...
Read Report
A headshot of a man named Alexander Meeks. He is standing against a blurred background and smiling at the camera. He has brown skin, a short dark brunette beard, short dark brunette hair, and brown eyes. He is wearing glasses and a gray collared polo shirt.

Alexander Meeks

Director, 10,000 Communities Initiative, Milken Institute Finance
Alexander Meeks is a director at Milken Institute Finance. He focuses on helping communities accelerate resilient disaster recovery and adapt to extreme weather events.

Many communities face barriers to funding the critical infrastructure needed for long-term growth. The 10,000 Communities Initiative works with public and private partners nationwide to connect people, projects, and capital in support of equitable investment in lasting community resilience.

$
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B+
in potential investment demonstrated through aggregation of community-scale impact deals
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public and private partners activated across a nationwide network
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capital opportunities, tools, and resources indexed to support community projects
Decorative
10,000 Communities

Our Work

We work in partnership with other private and public organizations around the U.S. to ensure to connect people, projects and partners to facilitate the effective and equitable distribution of resources to traditionally underfunded communities and support long-term community resilience.

Better Bonds and Best Practices

Muni bonds fund 2/3 of all U.S. built infrastructure. Our better bonds team works to address the challenges of 50,000+ diverse muni market issuers, inspire outcomes-based thinking, promote equitable uses of bond proceeds, and incentivize critical best practices such as better asset management and procurement to scale up the impact of public financing.

Community Infrastructure Center

The Community Infrastructure Center (CIC) is a platform designed to scale equitable capital deployment and accelerate community-led infrastructure projects in historically underserved communities. CIC provides free technical assistance to community project sponsors, tools to advance projects, and connections to a broad range of funding sources, including impact and institutional investors, philanthropy, public funding programs, and project development expertise.

Regional Partnerships

Cross-sectoral collaboration is key to build bottom-up innovation economic results between businesses, communities, and federal, state, and local governments. We work with partners to create regional strategies and events to effectively link together investors, technical assistance experts, and community leaders to build local and national resilience and long-term competitiveness.

10,000 Communities Initiatives

The LA Disaster Recovery initiative supports community-led rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of disasters by aligning philanthropy, private capital, and public resources. Through research, convenings, and project development tools, the program helpsinitiative strengthens long-term resilience, improves insurability, and accelerates investment in recovery and reconstruction projects across Los Angeles.

Deal Rooms bring together community project sponsors, capital providers, and technical partners to advance community infrastructure projects toward financing. Through structured, project-focused sessions, Deal Rooms help clarify project needs, improve readiness, and strengthen alignment between projects and available capital, supporting more rapid deployment of investment to communities. 

The CFO Forum is a semiannual convening that brings together municipal chief financial officers from across the country for peer learning and exchange. Hosted by local CFOs in rotating cities, the Forum creates space for candid discussion on city finance, budgeting, and fiscal challenges, enabling participants to share practical approaches, lessons learned, and strategies for advancing public-sector financial management.

The Secondary Markets initiative explores pathways to recycle and scale capital for community infrastructure by improving liquidity, risk sharing, and the long-term sustainability of mission-driven investments. Through research, partnerships, and pilot efforts, the initiative advances frameworks that support capital aggregation, portfolio performance, and reinvestment in new community-led infrastructure projects.

10,000 Communities
Highlights

Event Panels

ImpactAlpha's Take on 10,000 Communities

"Together, these partnerships are designed to reduce project development costs and drive capital to under-resourced communities by linking investors, technical assistance experts, and community leaders through generative AI, online grant-matching and other innovative financing techniques,” says Milken Institute’s Rachel Halfaker. “We know we can’t solve these challenges alone."

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Decorative
10,000 Communities

Our Team

Smiling light-skinned, male-presenting individual with short grey hair wearing a dark suit on a grey backdrop.

Dan Carol

Managing Director, Milken Institute Finance
A smiling light-skinned female with dark brown hair wearing a black shirt and glasses against an ambiguous background

Rachel Halfaker

Director, 10,000 Communities Initiative, Milken Institute Finance
A headshot of a man named Alexander Meeks. He is standing against a blurred background and smiling at the camera. He has brown skin, a short dark brunette beard, short dark brunette hair, and brown eyes. He is wearing glasses and a gray collared polo shirt.

Alexander Meeks

Director, 10,000 Communities Initiative, Milken Institute Finance
A smiling woman in a black top against a light background.

Sarah Ortner

Associate Director, Public Finance, Milken Institute Finance
10,000 Communities

Leaders

Advisory Council

This Advisory Council plays a pivotal role in our work, bringing together a distinguished group of executive-level and cross-sectoral leaders who offer strategic guidance and direction for our program's development. These experts provide...
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To learn more, email us at [email protected].

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