Jonathan is a placemaker, urbanist and advocate who’s focused his career on building and advocating for communities with vibrant public spaces, abundant housing choices and robust local small business communities. For seven-years, Jonathan served as a Vice President at the Detroit based civic crowdfunding firm Patronicity, leading a number of state government programs supporting local placemaking initiatives in hundreds of communities, helping raise millions of dollars to support these local projects. While at Patronicity, Jonathan launched the company’s placemaking advisory firm Bench Consulting which helped communities harness the power of placemaking and tactical urbanism to navigate Covid restrictions, keeping their communities connected and local economies running. During this time he also launched Winter Places, an international placemaking challenge aimed at transforming how we approach winter by activating outdoor spaces on our main streets during the winter season.
Since January of 2023, Jonathan has served as Vice President of Growth & Partnerships at Mainvest, a crowdinvesting platform for main street brick and mortar businesses that allows individuals to invest directly into the success of their local small businesses while helping businesses access the flexible capital they need to sustain and grow in the community.
Jonathan serves on the Board of Directors of Abundant Housing Massachusetts, a non-profit advocating for housing production of all types in communities across the Commonwealth, the Planning Board for the City of Salem, Massachusetts and the advisory board of Leading Cities. Jonathan has also spoken extensively at local, national and international conferences across North America and Europe on the topics of complete communities, urbanism and placemaking. Jonathan holds a JD from New England Law | Boston and a BA in Communications from Quinnipiac University. Want to learn more about Jonathan's experience and expertise? Let's collaborate to build healthy, vibrant, sustainable cities and towns around the globe for live, work and play!
Vice President of Growth & Partnerships at Mainvest- Former Mainvest is a regulation crowdfunding platform that lets everyday Americans participate in the economic growth of their communities by empowering them to start, scale, and invest in small businesses.
Vice President at Patronicity- Former Patronicity is a placemaking consultancy and crowdfunding platform that works with cities, towns, community groups, non-profit and for profit entities to bring placemaking projects to life. Based in Detroit, we have operations across the United States and Canada.
Principal & Creative Director at bench Consulting- Former A Placemaking Advisory and Consulting firm helping public and private sector clients reimagine their public spaces by directly engaging their community and stakeholders in the process of revitalizing their main street, downtown or real estate.
Board Member, Abundant Housing Massachusetts We stand up for abundant housing for all in communities across Massachusetts. We drive policy at the state and local level by identifying pro-housing changemakers, building the power of local organizers, and connecting a statewide network.
CoFounder, Retail Reimagined MA With storefront vacancies increasing in both number and duration, creative collaborations and solutions are necessary to bring these vital assets back into continuous productivity for property owners, small businesses, creatives and the local economies in which they reside.