Ralph Gildehaus, JD

Ralph is a Senior Fellow helping to launch the Family Economic Success Institute—a new initiative, within MDC’s Economic Security and Mobility practice, designed to increase access to essential benefits and services for low-income families. He retired in 2024 from serving as MDC’s Senior Program Director for Economic Security and Mobility, after 16 impactful years of advancing economic security and equity for communities across the South. He is succeeded by Jenna Bryant.

Projects led by Ralph and his team included Integrated Services Delivery efforts (Guilford Success Network, Saint Paul Economic Mobility Hub, Hayti Reborn-Justice Movement, and Virginia Financial Success Network); Southern Partnership to Reduce Debt; NC Student Debt Relief Coalition; NC Tax Credit Coalition; Human Services Workforce Learning Community; NC Get Covered Coalition; NC Navigator Consortium; NC VetsCorps program; The Benefit Banks of North and South Carolina; and EITC Carolinas.

Before joining MDC, Ralph co-founded The Ohio Benefit Bank and served as its director in Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He also served as the co-administrator of Ohio’s first-ever statewide SNAP Outreach Plan. Prior to joining Gov. Strickland’s staff, Ralph was a litigation partner with Porter Wright Morris and Arthur. Ralph served as a law clerk for Judge Lawrence S. Margolis of the U.S. Claims Court in Washington, D.C.; on the legislative and political staffs of former U.S. Rep. Bob Edgar of Pennsylvania; and as issues director for Sam Beard for U.S. Senate in Delaware.

Ralph has a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Amherst College. Ralph serves as clerk of the personnel committee at the Durham Friends Meeting. He coached girls’ high school tennis in Durham for six years and continues to play as a tournament tennis player and captain for several USTA tennis teams, which have won three state championships.