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Cornerstone serves as nonprofit borrower in Public-Private Partnership transactions, bringing tax-exempt access, post-issuance compliance management, and the practitioner guidance that distinguishes an engaged conduit from a passive one. We work alongside public agencies, institutions, and the deal sponsors who structure their deals.
Housing, parking, athletics, and energy utilities.
Workforce and senior housing via tax-exempt financing.
Clinical space, central utilities, parking, and support facilities.
University, municipal, healthcare, airports, parking, transit hubs, and intermodal facilities.
Public safety, courthouses, libraries, civic centers.
Renewables, microgrids, campus energy systems.
Cornerstone serves as the nonprofit borrower and project owner. Each transaction is isolated in a special purpose entity, enabling tax-exempt capital with no equity return requirement.
A public agency, university, or nonprofit with a defined infrastructure need.
A special purpose entity is formed as the project-specific borrower.
Tax-exempt bonds issued through a conduit issuer.
Project delivered by experienced partners. Hand-back requirements in good operating condition.
Bondholder reporting, post-issuance tax compliance, and asset oversight throughout the project life.
Public agencies and nonprofit institutions carry significant infrastructure needs that conventional financing leaves unaddressed: too large for operating budgets, too complex for general obligation debt, and too consequential to leave to private equity. Cornerstone provides access to tax-exempt debt at rates unavailable to private borrowers, structured off-balance-sheet to preserve agency balance sheets and full operational control.
Cornerstone is not interchangeable with other 501(c)(3) borrowers. What distinguishes us is the depth of practitioner expertise behind every engagement: transaction structuring, compliance management, and deal guidance that give sponsors, counsel, and counterparties confidence from first call through close.
Cornerstone is led by practitioners with deep expertise in public finance, municipal bond law, and infrastructure Public-Private Partnership structuring. Our Board brings the legal, financial, and transactional knowledge required to originate, structure, and close complex tax-exempt bond transactions, and the transaction relationships that give sponsors, counsel, and financing counterparties confidence at every stage.
Experienced bond counsel and retired partner of FBT Gibbons LLP, David Rogers has spent his career advising state and local governments, port authorities, underwriters, and private developers on the financing of major public infrastructure and economic development projects. His transaction experience includes the Brent Spence Bridge, the Cleveland Med Mart Convention Center, and large urban mixed-use developments. A member of the American College of Bond Counsel, David brings deep expertise in municipal bonds, public-private partnerships, structured finance, and risk management.
A seasoned Fortune 500 technology and operations executive, Michael Cunningham brings more than 30 years of large enterprise leadership to the Cornerstone board. He has held Chief Digital Officer, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Technology Officer positions at Keurig Green Mountain, Kraft Foods, Mondelez, Kraft Heinz, and Cadbury, overseeing enterprise systems, digital transformation, IoT, and large-scale operational execution. He has also served as an advisor to Oaktree Capital’s Transportation Infrastructure Fund, bringing direct infrastructure investment perspective to Cornerstone’s governance.
Megan N. Kilgore is a public finance executive, infrastructure strategist, and the former elected City Auditor of Columbus, Ohio. She brings a perspective that is rare in this market: she has been the issuer, the municipal advisor, and the builder. Across more than two decades, she has supported more than $40 billion in debt issuance and infrastructure finance spanning water, sewer, transportation, parking, sports and tourism, clean energy, and civic assets. She knows these asset classes not from the investor’s seat, but from the rooms where budgets are built, deals are negotiated, and public accountability is real. She has deployed complex capital stacks, structured public-private partnerships at scale, and navigated the institutional dynamics that determine whether a deal closes or stalls. She is a recipient of the Freda Johnson Award for national leadership in public finance.
Megan is currently co-founder of BKC Group, a market infrastructure platform modernizing the municipal securities market through next-generation digital infrastructure. She holds an MPA from Northwestern University and a BA from The Ohio State University, where she lectures in public finance at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.
James J. (Jim) Hargrove brings decades of experience in municipal finance, investment banking, derivatives, and independent financial advisory services to his role as a board member. He has structured more than $20 billion in bonds, interest rate and commodity swaps, and investment contracts for a wide range of public sector clients, including state governments, cities, counties, school districts, higher education institutions, utilities, and economic development entities. Known for his practical approach, deep market insight, and commitment to client service, Hargrove brings expertise in debt issuance, complex financial structuring, and strategic financial advisory.
Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles in investment banking and trading at J.C. Bradford & Co., Bank One, and Bank of America. He later spent more than a decade as an independent municipal advisor, co-founding J.J. Hargrove & Co. and Prism Municipal Advisors before selling the firm to H.J. Umbaugh & Associates, later acquired by Baker Tilly.
Emily Leyden is a finance and strategy professional with more than a decade of experience in management consulting and institutional asset management. She previously worked with KPMG and a large Australian pension fund. She is RG-146 qualified and holds a Graduate Diploma of Business Administration from Melbourne Business School.
We welcome inquiries from deal sponsors, public agencies, bond counsel, and financial advisors working on Public-Private Partnership structures or tax-exempt bond transactions.