Gary Cunningham

Gary L. Cunningham was appointed President and CEO of Prosperity Now in August 2019. Under his leadership, Prosperity Now has shifted its strategic focus from simply mitigating the effects of a broken racist system to transforming that system by testing, investing, and scaling effective solutions.

Gary grew up in both north and south Minneapolis to a single mother. He was 10 years old during the protests and rioting of 1967, when long-standing grievances in the Black community over lack of access to adequate housing, education, and health care turned violent. Ambulances wouldn’t serve his Black community, so he and his mother took the bus across town when they needed care. Nearly 40 years later, he took over as CEO of the NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center, a community health and dental clinic and social services agency located in north Minneapolis.

For more than 20 years, before moving to Washington, DC, to lead Prosperity Now, Gary served as the top leader of philanthropic, health care, public policy, and educational organizations. In addition to leading NorthPoint, he was the Associate Superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools, the Deputy Director of Civil Rights for the City of Minneapolis, and the CEO of the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA), a minority-entrepreneurial organization.

Gary is a recognized and respected expert on entrepreneurship, job creation and racial wealth equity, and is a sought-after thought leader on issues related to building a more inclusive economy. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Policy from Metropolitan State University, located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.