Director of Urban Programs, The National Main Street Center, Inc.
Co-Chairperson, Equiticity Board of Directors (Chicago, Illinois)
Dionne has years of experience in project coordination in the fields of urban economic development and commercial district revitalization. She has extensive expertise connecting resources to access opportunities for under-invested places, engaging community stakeholders, identifying and implementing projects in conjunction with community-based organizations, government institutions, and real estate development; as well as supporting local capacity-building opportunities.
As Director of The National Main Street’s Urban Programs, Dionne leads the initiative to broaden the Center’s offerings and engagement in urban neighborhood commercial districts. For over 40 years, Main Street America, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been revitalizing older and historic commercial districts. Today, it is a network of more than 1,600 neighborhoods and communities, rural and urban, who share both a commitment to place and to building stronger communities through preservation-based economic development.
Before joining the Center in 2016, Dionne served as Senior Program Officer for Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Chicago where she managed economic development initiatives for the Chicago office, developed and led the award winning Business District Leadership program and the nationally recognized Smart Communities demonstration. Before LISC Chicago, Dionne served as a Financial Planning Analyst for the City of Chicago’s Department of Community Development where she administered the Tax Increment Finance Interest Subsidy program for developers, rehabilitation grant programs to eligible Chicagoan residents and small business owners.
Dionne also serves as the Co-Chairperson, Equiticity Board of Directors (Chicago, Illinois). Equiticity is a racial equity movement programming and advocating for racial equity, increased mobility, and racial justice to make lives better for Black, Brown, and indigenous people of color across the United States. Equiticity’s vision is a mid-size-to-large U.S. city where racial equity is fully integrated at the policy and the legislative levels into every function, department, resource and budget associated with city operations, services, and programs – reducing violence, improving health, creating jobs and ultimately making our neighborhoods and cities more livable for people of color.
Dionne holds a master’s degree in public administration from Roosevelt University and a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
