Events

August Luncheon

When: 8/16/2022 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM


Mark Ethridge is a Partner at Ascent Real Estate Capital and leads the company's affordable housing platform, Ascent Housing. Ascent Housing is a leader in naturally-occurring affordable housing (NOAH) preservation and has created 953 affordable housing units in Charlotte since 2019. Ascent Housing co-founded and is the operating partner for Housing Impact Fund, a $58 million social impact fund raised exclusively for the preservation of naturally-occurring affordable housing in Charlotte. 

Prior to joining Ascent, Mark was a Vice President at Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital where he arranged debt and equity financing through life insurance companies, securitized loan platforms, commercial banks and private equity funds. 

Mark currently serves on the boards of Roof Above, Socialserve, Renaissance West Community Initiative, and Housing Impact Fund. He co-chaired the City of Charlotte's Source of Income ad hoc Advisory Committee and served on the 2025 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Strategy team as well as Center City Partners' affordable housing task force (Evergreen Team). 

Mark is a Charlotte native and graduated from Princeton University in 2010.

Liz Ward is owner and principal of Give Impact, a boutique advisory services company founded in 2020 to help bring more participants and creative solutions forward to address the affordable housing need in the Charlotte MSA. Give Impact exclusively works with developers and funders who desire to make a difference in equity outcomes through strategic investments in real estate.  Liz's team helps clients clearly identify the impact they want to make, ways to creatively maximize their resources and development plans, and ultimately guide them to a strategy (and investment opportunities) that will make a lasting impact on their community.  Clients include non-profits, foundations, private companies and market rate developers.  Give Impact is advising in the placement of over $22MM+ in private capital and helped negotiate the city's first formal Community Benefits Agreement with the West Boulevard Coalition.  Give Impact is registered as a MWSBE firm through NC's Historical Underutilized Business Program.

Liz brings a unique perspective to her clients with over 15 years in multifamily capital investment experience and has worked in many capacities, including both lending, ground up development and acquisition of existing units for ownership teams.  She has underwritten more than 6,500 multifamily units and has helped secure various types of capital including traditional equity, construction debt, permanent debt, municipal debt, tax credit equity, grant capital and private/corporate participations. Visit www.giveimpact.org to learn more. 

Previously, Liz served as Vice President of Multi-Family Development at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, which is now DreamKey Partners, and worked with local private real estate developers as a construction lender with Wells Fargo.   She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in Business and Public Policy in 2007 and obtained her Master of Science in Real Estate from UNC-Charlotte in 2014. 

She currently serves on boards for NC Women's Affordable Housing Network, UNCC's Real Estate Alumni Board (Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee) and is an elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church.  Previously, she held leadership roles in Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW), Urban Land Institute (ULI) and served on Charlotte's UDO Advisory Committee 2017-2019.  Local recognition for her dedication includes 2022 Change Maker Honoree (She Built This City), Charlotte Chamber Non-Profit Young Professional of the Year (2017), and UNCC Distinguished Alumni Service Award (2019).

Liz is a Charlotte native and proud mother of two.