Austin Cole is a community development planning practitioner, organizer, and writer. He grew up in Springfield, Ohio, and is the son of families from the Mississippi Delta and Birmingham, Alabama. He is motivated by the objective that all people and communities should be able to meet their basic needs without undue barriers, access self-fulfillment in their chosen place of residence, and have their dignity affirmed and protected. 

Professionally, Austin aims to support building more just, equitable, and sustainable systems and places by working alongside those who have been historically excluded and disenfranchised. Austin’s previous professional work ranged from philanthropic portfolio management centered around place-based economic mobility programs to nonprofit workforce development to management consulting with specific experience in assessing businesses for investment and supporting change management processes. As an organizer, he has engaged in various social, racial, and economic justice movements and campaigns in his community, on campus, and globally, including mutual aid food distribution and farm programs. In previous consulting and volunteer work, he has supported local nonprofits and grassroots giving circles in designing their organizational strategies. 

Austin holds a Master of City Planning and Master of Business Administration from MIT, where his research and work focused on food sovereignty in the U.S. and abroad, designing just energy transition programming, and building people-centered economies. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies and Latin American & Caribbean Studies from Brown University. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and their dog and thinks that no hot pepper is too spicy.