Maarten Jacobs is the Director of Community Prosperity at the Allyn Family Foundation. He is co-developing a Community Prosperity Initiative to disrupt concentrated poverty in neighborhoods by empowering residents to fulfill their potential, contributing to the wellbeing of their families and revitalization of their neighborhoods.
Maarten teaches Community Economic Development at the Syracuse University School of Social Work. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland.
Before joining Allyn Family Foundation, Maarten was the executive director of the Near Westside Initiative, a nonprofit organization working to combine the power of art, technology, and innovation with neighborhood values and culture to revitalize Syracuse’s Near Westside, also known as the SALT District. In that role for seven years, Maarten worked to ensure that neighborhood residents were engaged in the revitalization. Early in the process in 2010, he was a featured presenter at a FOCUS Forum introducing the initiative.
In January 2016 he received the Martin Luther King JR Unsung Hero award at Syracuse University.
He and his wife, Andrea, are raising their family in her hometown of Syracuse.