Recently, Golden LEAF President, Chief Executive Officer Scott T. Hamilton sat down with the Chair of the Golden LEAF Board of Directors Ralph Strayhorn, via Zoom and filmed an episode of Critical Conversations. In this series, Scott talks with professionals about economic development issues affecting the state.
The Golden LEAF Foundation was established in 1999 to administer a portion of the tobacco settlement agreement monies back into North Carolina’s rural and economically distressed communities. Golden LEAF’s mission is to increase economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural, tobacco-dependent, and economically distressed communities through leadership in grantmaking, collaboration, innovation, and stewardship as an independent and perpetual foundation.
Golden LEAF has provided lasting impact to tobacco-dependent, economically distressed, and rural areas of the state by helping create 68,000 jobs, $780 million in new payrolls, and more than 98,000 workers trained or retrained for higher wages. In its 25 years, Golden LEAF has funded 2,305 projects totaling $1.3 billion supporting the mission of advancing economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural, tobacco-dependent, and economically distressed communities.
Golden LEAF’s 15-member Board of Directors is appointed by the Governor, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House.
For the past year, Mr. Strayhorn has served as the Golden LEAF Foundation Board Chair. Over his eight years of service, he has also served as the Chair of the Investment Committee. Mr. Strayhorn is from Durham County and currently is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board at New Republic Partners Inc. in Charlotte. He has a longstanding career in financial services.
Mr. Strayhorn shared that the diverse backgrounds and networks of the Board as well as the knowledge and relationships that the staff has built over time help Golden LEAF stay on top of what is going on within economic development across North Carolina. Mr. Strayhorn added that Golden LEAF provides funding a lot of infrastructure that is essential to help industry decide to locate in especially rural and economically distressed areas.
The strategic plan, according to Mr. Strayhorn, has helped Golden LEAF build out the strategies of its three priority areas: Job Creation and Economic Investment, Workforce Preparedness, and Agriculture. NC Ag Leads is a strategic planning effort that is underway to help build North Carolina’s agricultural sector. Golden LEAF is the primary funder of the initiative, and the idea of NC Ag Leads came out of a strategic planning session with the Golden LEAF Board, Strayhorn added. In the area of Workforce Preparedness, Mr. Strayhorn touted the Golden LEAF Scholarship Program that has provided over 22,000 rural students with scholarships to help them with post-secondary education. He added that the program is incredibly important to the success of our rural workforce. Mr. Strayhorn added that Golden LEAF works on Job Creation and Economic Investment in ways that other public funding organizations cannot. While we fund big job creation projects, our funding is for things like roadways or water and sewer.
To learn more about the Golden LEAF Foundation, visit GoldenLEAF.org.