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Mark Elsdon

Mark Elsdon lives and works at the intersection of money and meaning as a serial social entrepreneur, strategic executive, and author. He is a national thought leader and speaker on subjects of faith-based impact investing, social enterprise, and property development. Mark’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wisconsin Public Radio, Bloomberg, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Religion News Service, the Wisconsin State Journal, and CBS Nightly News with Katie Couric; among other publications and podcasts.

Mark is the editor of Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition which offers inspiration and practical help for churches and municipalities responding to the national wave of sale and repurposing of church property; and the author of, We Aren't Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry, about the use of faith-based property and investments for social enterprise and impact investing. 

Mark is co-founder of RootedGood, which supports catalytic and innovative faith-based leaders working on property development, money and mission alignment, and social enterprise; and principal at Threshold Sacred Development, a property development company that helps houses of worship develop property for community impact and financial resilience. 

Previously Mark Elsdon was the Executive Director and Co-Pastor at Pres House, a faith-based non-profit serving students at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. In twenty years of executive leadership at Pres House Mark led major programmatic, financial, and organizational growth, and transformed a dormant non-profit into a strong, vibrant, multi-million dollar organization. He led the organization through the development of the $17 million, 250 bed, Pres House Apartments which is now a national model for faith-based property development and impact investing. Mark is a past president of the board of directors for Working Capital for Community Needs, an impact investing fund that provides microfinance funding to the working poor in Latin America. 

Mark has a BA in Psychology from the University of California - Berkeley; a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary; and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin School of Business. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA, and lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Mark is an avid cyclist and considers it a good year when he rides more miles on his bike than he drives in his car.

Mark donates 100% of author proceeds from the sale of his books to nonprofit organizations engaging in creative solutions to address the “wicked” problems he writes about.