DETROIT – Rachele Downs, long-time Vice President of Entrepreneurial Strategies at Inforum, has been hired by Dandelion, a community projects organizer, as the agency’s first National Director of Development and Acquisitions. This new role was created by Dandelion to support its recent expansion into Saginaw and Chicago.

As National Director of Development and Acquisitions, Downs will focus on the agency’s growth strategy.

“We are very excited to welcome Rachele to our team,” said Jason Lorimer, founder and CEO of Dandelion. “We partnered together on projects during Rachele’s tenure at Wayne State University; we share the same sense of urgency around identifying and convening new collaborations to support innovative community and economic development.”

Downs holds a BS in Public Administration and Community Development from Central Michigan University.

“Rachele’s wealth of experience both in commercial real estate and community development make her the ideal person to lead our growth strategy,” said Lorimer.

“We see a tremendous opportunity across the Midwest in the next couple of years,” Downs said. “Dandelion believes the future of community development is in utilizing an entrepreneurial approach to facilitate collaborations between government, non-profit organizations and businesses that produce tangible returns on impact investments.”

Downs has been a regular on M2 (Squared) TechCast, a weekly Internet radio show co-hosted by MITechNews.Com Editor Mike Brennan and former tech journalist Matt Roush. The show airs each Monday from 3 to 4 pm on the PodcastDetroit Network. Her Inforum update segment will be handled starting Oct. 24 by Tember Shea, Inforum’s inGAGE Program director. 

Dandelion is a collective impact agency focused on building sustainable partnerships between nonprofit, government and businesses to help them direct their own community development activities faster and more efficiently.  Since 2012, the firm has implemented more than one hundred community projects with measurable impact related to education, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, neighborhoods, public health and safety.

Headquartered in Detroit, Dandelion recently expanded with new offices in Saginaw and Chicago. Visit Dandelion online at www.dndln.org.