Driven to Make a Difference: Get to Know Durham Next Executive Director Tara Kenchen

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

As a child, I wanted to be everything from an astronaut to an architect to a DJ, (that one is still on my bucket list). I remember when MLK Day became a federal holiday. I spent the day home from middle school, and because we didn’t have streaming back then, I entertained myself with a radio, where they played MLK’s entire “I Have a Dream Speech.”

Hearing those words sparked something in me. I wanted to be a part of the mission to make wrong things right and to help people who couldn’t help themselves. That day, I realized that I had a people mission.

After finishing undergrad, I taught middle school in rural Bertie County, which, at the time, was the second poorest county in the state. Seeing up close the impact of poverty was overwhelming for me. I enjoyed the art of educating and being a difference-maker in real-time for those students, but I also began to realize that without the prospects of economic opportunity, jobs, community-based activities for these kids to be a part of, they lacked the support necessary to help them thrive.

Are we actively creating a future in which they can succeed in the ways they deserve? That question sparked the awakening to my place mission.

Over the years, I continued working throughout the state, leading community investment efforts, creating affordable housing communities and building programs to empower North Carolina families to attain economic stability. My first job after law school was here in Durham, across the street at the Self-Help Credit Union, where I entered the world of community development finance. I served as president and CEO of the NC Community Development Initiative and its Community Development Financial Institution affiliate, Initiative Capital, later going on to lead my own consulting firm, working with leaders in the business and nonprofit spaces to help them maximize their own community impact.

My journey to that point had taken me through opportunities to help people, develop places in ways that helped people or a combination of both. When the announcement came through that Durham Next was looking for an executive director to lead its innovative approach to community investment, I became excited about the opportunity to use the skills that I have developed over the years to invest in Durham — the place I, along with my husband and three adult children, call home.