About
About The New Reality
A sensemaking and agency platform for a changing world. Its purpose is to help people understand what has changed, what assumptions no longer hold, and what actions are available in a world that no longer makes sense.
The New Reality began with a simple observation: Many of the problems people talk about as separate issues may be connected. They are often discussed independently — housing, retirement anxiety, economic stagnation, community decline — yet all are influenced by where capital flows and who gets to participate in that process.
It is a platform for people who feel like something is off but can't name it. We explore the assumptions that no longer hold — about work, housing, money, community, and what a good future actually looks like. Not telling you what to think. Helping you think.
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Builders of the New Reality
Great things are never built alone.
In 1963, a remarkable machine called Spirit of America captured the world's imagination. It wasn't simply because it broke the land speed record. It was because it challenged what people believed was possible.
That story became the inspiration for The Spirit of America Podcast, where we explore the people, ideas, and innovations shaping the future. It also reflects how we believe the New Reality Fund should be built.
But the car wasn't built by one person.
It was built by a team.
Engineers.
Fabricators.
Mechanics.
Specialists.
People at the top of their craft working toward a common goal.
What it takes
Creating a new category of investment infrastructure requires expertise across investment management, operations, technology, regulation, compliance, regional economics, and institutional finance.
Where we are
Today we've identified many of the institutional building blocks required to bring the platform to life, including legal counsel, compliance, fund administration, accounting, and other core service providers.
Now we're looking for the people who will help build the institution.
Open opportunities
We're Currently Seeking
Founding Partner – Operations
To lead the operational buildout of the New Reality Fund platform.
Institutional Investment Platform Partner
With experience supporting public investment vehicles and retail distribution.
Technology Partners
To help build a modern investment platform designed for future evolution.
Experienced Financial Professionals and Strategic Advisors
Who believe regional investment infrastructure deserves to exist and want to help make it a reality.
If you're excited by solving difficult problems, building enduring institutions, and helping shape the future of regional investment, we'd love to hear from you.
Who we are
Team
From the Founder
Lisa J. Heathfield, CFP®
Founder
After almost two decades in banking and finance, I reached a point where I could no longer ignore what I was seeing. The conversations had changed. People weren't just worried about markets or retirement anymore. They were worried about housing, healthcare, local businesses, opportunity, and whether the places they depended on would still provide a good quality of life in the future. As I started pulling on those threads, I realized they all led somewhere unexpected. Finance, economics, infrastructure, technology, psychology, and public policy weren't separate conversations. They were all shaping one another.
I spent the first year trying to answer a simple question: If we were designing our investment system today, knowing what we know now, would we build it the same way? Ideas are easy. Building something that can actually exist inside one of the most highly regulated industries in the world is not. That first year was spent determining whether a regional investment platform could work within existing securities laws, investment infrastructure, and investor behavior — not in theory, but in practice. Hundreds of hours were spent researching fund structures, regulation, governance, operations, and the institutional framework required to make the concept executable.
The second year was spent pressure-testing those conclusions. I took the idea into conversations with wealth managers, economic developers, venture capitalists, private credit managers, attorneys, accountants, compliance professionals, family offices, entrepreneurs, and institutional partners — not looking for people to agree with me, but looking for the assumptions I had missed.
Those conversations strengthened the platform, but they also revealed something unexpected. Almost everyone understood a piece of the idea. Almost no one could see the whole. Some saw another investment fund. Others saw economic development. Some thought it was impact investing. Others assumed it was too idealistic to work. That's because the New Reality Fund doesn't fit neatly into any one discipline. It isn't simply a financial product, an economic development initiative, or a media platform. It's an attempt to organize capital differently — so that many of those efforts can reinforce one another instead of operating in parallel.
I don't believe any one person or organization has all the answers. But I do believe that when we better understand the world we're living in, we create the conditions for better solutions to emerge. The New Reality Fund is my attempt to build one piece of infrastructure that makes more of those solutions possible.
Jennifer Schmidt
Co-Founder COO
Jennifer Schmidt has spent her career building and improving the operational systems that allow organizations to function effectively. With Harvard training in financial analysis and extensive experience in accounting, operations, and organizational management, she has developed a talent for bringing structure to complex problems and turning ideas into practical execution. She has always been drawn to solving difficult challenges, particularly those that require looking beyond conventional approaches.
Two platforms. One mission.
The media platform builds awareness. The fund builds participation. Together, they connect people to the outcomes that matter to them.