Small Change Big Impact with Eve Picker

10/26/22 • 44 min

As a young girl growing up in Australia, Eve Picker loved playing with Lego blocks, solving math problems, and exploring cities. Armed with degrees in architecture and urban design, she moved to Pittsburgh’s Friendship neighborhood, where she renovated an old Victorian home with her husband. Eve found her tribe by joining a protest and community, which united to save a nearby historic home from demolition. Her community of volunteers formed a non-profit and she never looked back.
She built the first residential loft downtown after a banker mistakenly mused “Oh honey, nobody is going to move downtown.” By the mid 2000’s community banks had consolidated from 15 thousand to 5 thousand across the country; small banks that would invest in the local neighborhood were dying. City revitalization grants fell under government cutbacks. The Jobs Act of 2012 was the catalyst for Eve’s pivot and next big idea; the act implemented in 2016 allowed anyone over eighteen to invest in crowdfunding.

Eve is the founder and CEO of Small Change, a real estate equity crowdfunding platform. She raises funds for meaningful real estate projects that make cities better. Eve’s journey as an architect, city planner, urban designer, real estate developer, community development strategist, and publisher gives her unique perspectives, and a deep understanding of how cities work, how urban neighborhoods can be revitalized, and what policies need to be in place. She employs her own marketing through her Rethink Real Estate for Good website and weekly podcast.

Her cityLab foundation has developed a dozen buildings in fractured neighborhoods and built Pittsburgh’s first tiny house. This urban change agent has organized a speaker series, launched the Pop City E-Zine, and created Iron City’s first co-working space—and Open Streets program.
This FinTech pioneer and urban change agent’s proprietary technology is ranked in the top 7 Real Estate Crowdfunding Platforms of 2020 by US News, nabbing the top spot in the “Capital” category by HIVE. Eve is a fellow at the Bellagio Center Residency of the Rockefeller Foundation. We are honored to welcome this tireless advocate for socially responsible real estate funded by everyday people to this episode of Intrinsic Drive ®.Intrinsic Drive ® is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton and Andrew Hollingworth is sound editor and engineer. For more information on this and other episodes visit us at https://www.whartonhealth.com/intrinsicdrive.

Previous Episode

Victims No Longer with Mike Lew

As an eight-year-old boy from a large family, living together in a Brooklyn tenement, Mike Lew had a singular goal—to meet every person on the planet. Today, Mike and his Next Step Counseling, co-director Thomas Harrigan, travel the world providing individual therapy, couples counseling, group therapy, professional training, and public lectures around the globe.
Mike is a psychotherapist and cultural anthropologist, specializing in the field of culture and personality. Working in tandem with Margaret Mead and Colin Turnbull as mentors, he became a leading expert on sexual abuse recovery, especially with male survivors.
A turning point came when Mike made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, he returned home from the male survivor episode to an offer to write a book on recovery. Mike’s book, Victims No Longer Harper Collins 2004, now in its second edition (first edition published in 1990), is the classic guide for men recovering from childhood sexual abuse. The book continues to receive accolades for its clinical expertise and compassionate tone. This essential resource educates survivors and professionals about the recovery process, speaking to the pain, needs, fears, and hopes of the adult male survivor.

Mr. Lew has assisted thousands of men and women in their recovery and healing from childhood sexual abuse, rape, physical violence, emotional abuse, and neglect. He has consulted with the United Nations, National Institute of Mental Health, National Resource Center on Child Sexual Abuse, National Child Abuse Hotline, and the U.S. Navy, among many others.

Mike has taught at The University of California Santa Cruz, Quinnipiac College, The College of New Rochelle, and The City College of New York. His second book, Leaping Upon The Mountains: Men Proclaiming Victory over Sexual Child Abuse was published by Small Wonder Books in 1999.
Thom and Mike host Leaping Upon Mountains a transformative annual recovery summit retreat, at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in Bangor, Pa. We are thrilled to welcome this tireless champion for survivors of sexual abuse to this episode of Intrinsic Drive ®.Intrinsic Drive ® is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton and Andrew Hollingworth is sound editor and engineer. For more information on this and other episodes visit us at https://www.whartonhealth.com/intrinsicdrive.

Next Episode

Automata Mastery with Cecilia Schiller

Cecilia Schiller was born into a working-class family, without money for college she became a hairstylist. While viewing a retrospective of the abstract expressionist sculptor and designer, Isamu Noguchi she realized she was going to be an artist. Uncertain of where she fit in the American landscape, she embarked on a seven-year journey working as an artesania making handmade crafts, which she sold on the street.

After overcoming, poverty, fear, and countless hardships she returned home with two young daughters to raise as a single mother. Cecilia apprenticed with a master woodcarver over the next seven years, learning the engineering and kinetics of automata; through wooden cranks and gears—making wood move. In witnessing her pieces, we are transported into magical scenes that come to life. Engineering, carving, woodworking, metalsmithing, theater set design, puppeteering, mask carving, and hairstyling—all these skills come into play in her breathtaking work.

Through her years of dedication, ability to move beyond fear, and the faith to follow her artistic desire, Cecilia is now an award-winning wood sculptor, recognized for her work with grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to creating original and custom automata, Cecilia Schiller shares her skills by teaching classes and offering DIY original laser-cut kits at Cranky Heart Automata. It was truly inspirational to learn about Cecilia’s path. We are thrilled to welcome this talented and generous artist to this episode of Intrinsic Drive ®. Intrinsic Drive ® is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton and Andrew Hollingworth is sound editor and engineer. For more information on this and other episodes visit us at https://www.whartonhealth.com/intrinsicdrive.

Intrinsic Drive® - Small Change Big Impact with Eve Picker

Transcript

Phil Wharton00:00:00.450

A lifetime of training, practice study, hard work, through discipline, some achieve excellence, mastery, fulfillment, self actualization. What can we learn from their beginning discoveries, motivations and falls? How do they dust themselves off and resume their journey? During these interviews, stories and conversations, we reveal their intrinsic drive. As a young girl growing up in Australia Eve Picker, loved playing with Lego blocks, solving