Equity is the superior growth model. Research confirms that supporting residents and workers of color in reaching their full potential is more than just a moral imperative. Indeed, it is an economic imperative as well. Economists tell us that inequality hinders growth and greater inclusion accelerates it. As the diversity of this country continues to grow, and we move closer towards becoming a majority people of color nation in 2044, embracing these principles will only become increasingly important. It was to this end, and as part of their unwavering commitment to promoting racial equity, that the Annie E. Casey Foundation first launched the Advancing Economic Inclusion in Southern Cities (EISC) learning community back in 2015.  

EISC consists of municipal officials and staff, local philanthropists, and business and community partners from seven major cities in the South:  Asheville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, and Richmond. On April 2-4, 2019, EISC representatives gathered at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond branch in Charlotte to discuss challenges and solutions for advancing increased participation of business enterprises owned and operated by women and people of color. In addition to Casey, the Federal Reserve banks of Atlanta, St. Louis, and Richmond have been partners in this project and hosted virtually all of the cohort meetings thus far. 

The convening began with a rousing video of acclaimed poet Danez Smith speaking passionately about the impact that racial inequities have had and continue to have on young people of color in cities across the country. This poem served as powerful motivation for the three-day convening and helped to ground participants in the urgent need for change present in the communities they seek to serve. The poem also underscored the importance of moving beyond representative diversity towards tangible investment in underserved communities, full inclusion of residents and workers in decision-making processes, and the removal of systemic barriers that continue to hold back low-income people of color. 

Over the course of the three-day meeting, participants were joined by committed advocates, activists, academics, and municipal leaders to help them develop viable strategies for advancing equity and inclusion. For example, on the second day Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles each spoke about inclusion efforts underway in their respective cities. For example, the city of Charlotte commissioned a disparity study to document the underrepresentation of people-of-color-owned business enterprises among those receiving contracts for city procurement opportunities.  Similarly, Memphis is also using the city’s purchasing power to help grow and expand small, and people-of-color owned businesses.

Other noteworthy strategies for advancing racial equity and economic inclusion include:

1. Local and targeted hiring – require or incentivize businesses that receive public resources, such as government contracts or tax breaks, to hire workers living in a particular geographic area or from specific populations within the community.
    
2. Anchor institution procurement – leverage the tremendous purchasing power of universities, hospitals, community colleges, and large private sector employers to help not only grow new businesses through contracting, but also fill open employment opportunities at these institutions. The Chicago Anchors for a Strong Economy (CASE) is a noteworthy example of this strategy in action. 
    
3. Tailor workforce strategies – career training and education opportunities should be targeted for industries slated for growth, or those that have historically had barriers to entry for low-income people of color similar to the EARN Maryland program.
    
4. Asset-building strategies – take an intergenerational approach to ensure that economic inclusion strategies will address the racial wealth gap through efforts such as individual development accounts for low-income families, or city-wide efforts such as the Richmond Office of Community Wealth Building or Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative.

To learn more about economic inclusion in general and the challenges and opportunities facing Black-owned business enterprises in particular, please check out the latest report from the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), The Tapestry of Black Business Ownership in America: Untapped Opportunities for Success.

With mounting and devastating water challenges in America, we can leverage Infrastructure Week to turn urgent attention to ensuring both the human right to clean water and to focusing on the climate mitigations to address the droughts, floods, and sea-level rise that threaten our water futures.

For an increasing number of communities in the United States, their water is unsafe and having negative impacts on health. Nearly 77 million U.S. residents are served by drinking water systems with one or more Safe Drinking Water Act violations. Race and income are central factors in both urban and rural water vulnerabilities, and many studies have found links between poor water quality and low-income communities of color. Over the last few years, lead has been documented in school water in 26 states. Today, the U.S. ranks 36th in the world in terms of access to water and sanitation.

The crisis of water affordability is mounting. The lowest 20 percent of income earners pay 20 percent of their monthly income for water. If rate hikes continue at their pace of the last decade, more than one-third of all U.S. households, 35.6 percent, will be unable to afford running water in the next five years. Estimates of the cost to replace aging infrastructure in the United States alone project over $1 trillion dollars needed in the next 25 years to replace systems built circa World War II, which could triple the cost of household water if current rate payers are required to shoulder the bills. An estimated 15 million people in the United States experienced a water shutoff in 2016 with the highest shutoff rates in lower-income cities with higher rates of poverty. The decline of federal investment has removed a valuable funding source to support maintenance and replacement of safe drinking and wastewater systems. Cities, states, and water customers are increasingly shouldering the bulk of costly maintenance and repair responsibilities to protect the health, quality, and accessibility of their water.

Climate-related flooding, sea level rise, and waste water exposures are steeply increasing—threatening both drinking water and wastewater systems. An increase in the number of extreme weather events can overwhelm water systems and impact those residing in vulnerable neighborhoods—including sewage backups, sewage overflows into water sources, and the flooding of homes, businesses, and neighborhoods with toxic runoff. The capacity for lower-income communities to recover is severely compromised. Almost five million people and 2.6 million homes are within zones vulnerable to sea level rise predicted to be inundated by the end of the century. Studies estimate that adaptations to water systems to deal with climate change will warrant investment in the United States of more than $36 billion by 2050.

The critical imperative to increase water infrastructure investment offers an opportunity to align major economic opportunities with the demographic shifts underway. With chronic labor shortages and an aging workforce in the water sector, new investment creates an opportunity to tackle the legacy of racial and gender discrimination in the water infrastructure and construction industries and the need for good employment for young workers. While opportunities remain underdeveloped, demonstrated success in local hire measures, local procurement policies, and supply-side training and support all offer pathways to both increase the equitable outcomes across communities and address the climate resilience of diverse environments.

Policy Priorities for Water Equity and Climate Resilience

As Congress and the President discuss a potential new infrastructure bill, and as architects of the Green New Deal flesh out policy proposals, they should ensure they address the water threats to communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-income communities to deliver improved water equity and climate resilience.

• Guarantee universal access to safe and affordable water. Ensure water infrastructure investments are equitable and prioritize vulnerable communities for safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation, and storm water management. Philadelphia has an exemplary ‘tiered-assistance’ program for affordability and universal access.
   
• Ensure vulnerable communities—low-income communities and communities of color, and those proximate to climate threatened waters—engage in water planning, governance, and implementation of resilience measures. Cleveland’s Climate Action Plan embedded equity provisions into its plan and targeted vulnerable communities in its water provisions.  
   
• Address historic economic disparities and dislocations by increasing educational, job, and business opportunities for low-income people and people of color in designing, building, operating, and maintaining communities’ next generation of green and sustainable water infrastructure. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has structured targeted local hiring and inclusive procurement;  and the Emerald Cities Collaborative runs training for businesses of color to successfully compete in water infrastructure build out contracts to address economic inclusion of communities left behind in the current economy. The EPA Brownfields Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grants and the Environmental Health Sciences Environmental Career Worker Training Program both provide effective opportunities for disadvantaged workers and opportunity youth to enter the water and green infrastructure careers.  
   
• And finally, honor the cultural and spiritual access to water that communities depend upon in public lands policy and protections.

Green infrastructure projects have the potential to bring needed benefits to low-income communities – greener and healthier environments, better infrastructure to withstand extreme climate events, local jobs in the growing sustainability sector, and more. But too often, low-income people and people of color living in these places face increased displacement pressure once these investments come to their communities. Green gentrification can seem like an inevitable outcome of investing in urban forests, parks, bioswales, and clean rivers in places that have faced decades of disinvestment and racist policies and practices. But it doesn’t have to be, if policymakers and green infrastructure practitioners proactively take steps to prevent displacement.

Join us tomorrow for a webinar by the Urban Waters Learning Network on addressing gentrification and displacement in green infrastructure projects. PolicyLink Senior Associate Chris Schildt will present on the drivers of displacement and what advocates for green infrastructure can do to promote investment without displacement.

Understanding Gentrification and Displacement: The Path to Equitable Development
Wednesday, May 15
9:00am – 10:30am PT / 12noon – 1:30pm ET

The first in a series hosted by the Urban Waters Learning Network, this webinar aims to frame the topics of gentrification and displacement as well as provide an example of the types of multi-sector partnerships that urban waters practitioners can create to ease displacement pressures. Presenters Paulina Lopez and Robin Schwartz from the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition/TAG (Seattle, WA) will kick things off by sharing why this is an issue of concern that they are paying increasing attention to as a river-focused organization. Chris Schildt from PolicyLink will then address the following questions:

• What are the drivers behind displacement?
• What do gentrification and displacement look like? How are they different? How are they related?
• Are gentrification and displacement of people always the outcome of significant development in disinvested neighborhoods?
• What are some policies and/or practices that can be enabled to ease displacement pressures?

Exploring these topics further, Tony Defalco from Verde will share information about a multi-sector partnership called Living Cully. In the Cully neighborhood of Portland, Living Cully partners strive to balance environmental investments, equitable development and anti-displacement goals.

This webinar is part of a series hosted by the Urban Waters Learning Network (UWLN), a partnership between Groundwork USA & River Network funded by the US EPA Office of Water. This year, UWLN is digging deeper into a topic that has long been a concern of its members: the gentrification and displacement of people taking place in our urban communities, oftentimes following efforts to revitalize and reinvest in the places we call home. UWLN will be addressing this topic in the coming months through this webinar series, blog posts, impact stories, and other resources.

Presenters:

• Paulina Lopez, Executive Director & Robin Schwartz, Communications Manager, Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition/TAG
• Chris Schildt, Senior Associate, PolicyLink
• Tony DeFalco, Executive Director, Verde

Learn more and register today!

As businesses across the nation vie to increase revenue and market share, they are seeking not only to retain customers but also to continually expand into new markets. Much has been written about the demographic change engulfing the American market: by 2040, a majority of people in the U.S. will be of color; indeed, a majority of young people in the country are already of color. 

However, a majority of people of color in the United States suffer worse socio-economic outcomes in most aspects of their lives—health, education, career, access to financial services, or experiences with the criminal justice system—than their White counterparts. If status quo remains, and a majority of corporate stakeholders such as customers, employees, and suppliers continue to experience racial inequities, then businesses will suffer from a less productive workforce, missed market segments and fewer suppliers from which to choose.

With these realities in mind, in 2017, PolicyLink and FSG wrote a report called The Competitive Advantage of Racial Equity.  The research in the report highlights examples of companies that have gained competitive advantage by advancing racial equity. We found that by ignoring the nation’s changing demographics, companies may find their growth curtailed and their global competitiveness undermined. Our research led us to explore specific steps business leaders can take to future-proof their businesses by addressing these inequities. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, FSG and PolicyLink examined two industries where racial inequities are most severe—health care and financial services—to explore how companies in these sectors are advancing racial equity in ways that create business value.

Although these industries are vastly different, our research found 5 action-steps and 3 internal catalysts that are applicable to any industry and that must be adopted by business leaders who want to remain competitive. Here, we share examples from our research on the healthcare and financial services sectors in addition to highlighting opportunities for companies in other sectors. As the business world begins to adopt a racial equity point of view we are inspired by bold innovations that are emerging across sectors and markets.

Companies must offer products or services that effectively meet the distinctive needs of markets of color. To enable that, companies need to:  

1. Authentically understand the needs of markets of color. Markets of color may not always have the same needs as majority-White markets. Yet, the data on needs or consumer behavior for people of color are not always readily available. Companies can conduct in-house research on these markets or seek help from unconventional sources outside the for-profit world. For example, Prudential Financial, a Fortune 500 company that provides financial products and services including retirement-related investments, commissioned research with UnidosUS, a non-profit that deeply understands and serves the Hispanic communities, and captured behavioral insights on the community’s usage of retirement services. This information served as critical input to Prudential’s business units that aim to expand its retirement service offerings.
    
2. Get to the root cause. America’s history of slavery and ongoing structural racism has led to lower incomes, lower levels of wealth, and poorer health outcomes among people of color compared to their White counterparts. Recognizing and understanding this fact is essential to ensure that companies don’t mistakenly attribute inequities to individual behavior. It is also essential to spark business innovation and avoid unintended negative consequences. Let us take for example the impact of structural racism on access to transportation.  is significant evidence that America’s transportation system has historically bypassed communities of color. In our research, we found that Kaiser Permanente, an integrated health care provider, teamed up with a car-sharing service to bring members to their appointments when they could not afford the cost of transportation to their diabetes management appointments.

The same phenomenon of differential access to transportation could also affect companies in other industries. For example, in 2016, an analysis by Bloomberg found that in some of the largest cities where Amazon’s same day delivery service is available, it bypasses ZIP codes that are predominantly Black. Amazon uses many factors to determine which ZIP codes are ripe for its same day service, including the distance to the nearest fulfillment center, local demand in an area, as well as the ability of various carrier partners to deliver up to 9:00 pm every single day. The underlying algorithm, however, perhaps did not consider how communities of color historically lack equal access to transportation, and inadvertently, Amazon denied those ZIP codes same-day service. Since the publication of the Bloomberg report, Amazon made a decision to expand the coverage. Regardless, the unintended negative consequence of being race-blind is that it limits access for these communities, and potential profits for Amazon’s business, since these neighborhoods often lack access to groceries and other retail stores, which could be a potential source of revenue for the company.

3. (Re)design products and services to meet discrete needs. People of color suffer from the effects of structural racism, starting with their level of wealth or access to healthy foods. Providing differentiated products and services to solve for these discrete needs can help to address these inequities and enable companies to enter new markets. ShopRite operator Brown’s Super Stores, found a profitable market expansion opportunity by establishing grocery stores to reach lower-income people of color in Philadelphia-area food deserts. The company offered customized food items and expanded its offerings to include complementary services that were lacking, such as health clinics. The company’s 7 stores generate strong profits on $250 million in revenues and serve 250,000 people.

Companies should work to reverse the effects of structural racism by strengthening the external business context – thus enabling their future growth. To do that, companies must undertake the following steps:

4. Address public policy failures: While some federal policies improve conditions for people of color, others affect people of color negatively and constrain business growth. Prudential’s research with UnidosUS, described above, found that state regulations discourage small businesses from offering retirement savings plans to their employees, limiting those employees from participating in Prudential’s pension investment services. This disproportionately affects communities of color because a majority of employees of color work for small businesses. Prudential used its lobbying arm to work with coalitions that expanded retirement savings to employees of small businesses, thus opening up its access to an expanded pool of assets for management.
    
5. (Re)build trust and shift norms: Due to historical and modern-day discrimination against Black and Latinx communities, many communities of color are less trusting of businesses – this is particularly true of banks and health care institutions. For banks, this can be costly, as it may limit the size of their total addressable market and for health care institutions, it may mean patients of color are less likely to seek treatment or participate it important R&D, further exacerbating inequities. Companies need to understand, acknowledge, and rebuild relationships and trust with communities of color in order to serve these communities. Racialized norms in society can also cause unintended consequences; shifting those norms requires intentionality. In 2016, the hashtag #AirBnBWhileBlack became popular when a study found that Black guests face higher rates of rejection than White guests.  Since then, a team representing executives from every Airbnb department conducted a comprehensive examination of how Airbnb has fought discrimination in the past, where these efforts fell short, and how they can be improved in the future. Beginning November 1, 2016, AirBnB made a decision that everyone who uses Airbnb around the world will be asked to affirmatively agree to uphold a commitment to treat fellow members equally regardless of race, gender identity, and national origin before they book a listing or share their space on the Airbnb platform – a small, but important step in shifting norms around racist behavior. 

Companies must also ensure that internal organizational conditions support this this work. Essential factors include:

6. Strong diversity and inclusion practices: Most companies are spending increasing resources on diversity and inclusion today. CEOs have come together to publicly state their commitment to this work. Starbucks recently enlisted the advice and counsel of social scientists, researchers and other experts in designing the training curriculum for its employees. Yet, we see time and again, advertisements that are racist or culturally inappropriate or products and services that are discriminatory or exclusionary towards a gender or race. Perhaps if all core business units such as product development, marketing and sales teams have diverse employees who understand equity and cultural humility, and employees feel comfortable raising concerns, mistakes could be avoided. Having a diverse staff is itself an essential goal: Our research shows that having a diverse workforce that mirrors the customer base is critical to unlock the business opportunities associated with advancing racial equity.
    
7. Leadership support, structure, and accountability to embed racial equity in the business: In most companies, diversity and inclusion efforts are entirely separate from the business units responsible for market expansion or ensuring the quality of service. However, some companies are bringing skilled expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion into their operations. When AirBnB found that there were too many instances of people being discriminated against on the Airbnb platform because of race, the company decided to assemble a permanent, full-time product team of engineers, data scientists, researchers, and designers whose sole purpose is to advance belonging and inclusion and to root out bias.
    
8. Establishing mutually beneficial partnerships with organizations led by people of color: While we hope companies will find new opportunities to better understand and authentically serve communities of color in ways that reduce inequities, we know companies can’t do this alone. Leading companies understand the need to partner with experts that work with communities of color. It is important to ensure that these are not token partnerships, but authentic and mutually beneficial for both the business and the local partner. Cigna, a commercial health insurance company collaborated with a local health care system in Memphis, Tennessee, to promote breast cancer screening among its Black customers living in neighborhoods with limited access to screening facilities. Efforts like these contributed to elimination of the breast cancer screening rate gap for Black patients, originally identified in 2012 and 2013 data. This partnership helped reduce unnecessary costs for Cigna and contributed to the goals of the local health care system.

Find all related material for The Corporate Racial Equity Advantage

Contact Us to join companies that are working with FSG and PolicyLink to find new business opportunities by advancing racial equity.

By Francis Yu and Jeremy Liu

The Para la Mission mural located on 19th Street and Mission Street, shortly after artist Mel Waters repaired damages from vandalism. (Francis Yu 2018)

A jarring splash of white paint defaced an iconic community mural after it was vandalized by an unknown suspect late in mid-July 2018. The mural, named Para la Mission, displays guitarist Carlos Santana, a native of the Mission District, centered within a backdrop of Latinx iconography. The Mission District of San Francisco — a historically Latinx neighborhood where, for decades, murals have served as a representation of a rich cultural legacy — has contended with the pressures of gentrification for almost two decades now. This vandalism is just one reflection of a dynamic, but sometimes contested, relationship between arts and cultural identity in a changing neighborhood.

Through arts and culture, communities can explore shared understandings of identity, values, beliefs and heritage. As cities all over the nation grapple with rapid change and development pressures, arts and culture can also provide an equitable approach to guiding growth. In other words, a cultural lens helps to answer the question, “How can cultural equity contribute to planning and development in a just, fair, and inclusive way?”’

Increasingly, community development organizations (in sectors such as affordable housing, economic and workforce development, health, etc) are collaborating with arts and cultural institutions and individual artists to more comprehensively address community issues, like displacement and health inequities. The field of creative placemaking — and the reframing of the field towards the values of “placekeeping” — amplifies how arts and culture help to preserving community identity and belonging as physical spaces are transformed. In San Francisco, Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA), a long-standing economic development organization focusing on the needs of the Mission’s residents, and Galería de la Raza, a major cultural and arts anchor in the Mission, have been working as strategic partners to comprehensively address issues of cultural and physical displacement. Through a grant from The Kresge Foundation and with assistance from PolicyLink, they have identified a shared understanding that belonging is not just about physically living in a neighborhood, but is also about the cultural identity of a place. They have been working together to understand how arts and culture contribute to the work of equitable housing and economic development, have identified anti-displacement strategies around this understanding, and are in the process of shaping broader policy goals for their partnership.

Often considered ground zero for gentrification in San Francisco, rents in the Mission continue to rise and restaurants and services catering to more affluent populations have taken over local ‘mom and pops’ establishments servicing the neighborhood’s Latinx communities. These communities include Mexicans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, El Salvadorians, and more — all foundational to the Mission’s cultural identity. Murals, such as the recently-defaced Para la Mission, adorn many of their walls, sometimes filling entire alleys with pieces from local arts organizations and artists. Yet, many of these community murals are disappearing, and in one case, painted over with a different mural reflecting the tastes of new ownership.

Near the end of 2016, MEDA started exploring strategies on how to protect the Mission’s culture and culture bearers, with initial conversations centering on creative placemaking. Ani Rivera, director of Galería de la Raza, offered a critical voice to that conversation and pointed to the framing of “placekeeping” as “respecting the legacy of the community.”

“We have the culture and we have the artists. How do we preserve that?” Rivera recalls asking in her initial discussions with MEDA. MEDA has preserved or created 1,173 affordable units through their Community Real Estate program, with a laudable goal of creating 2,000 units by 2020. These units have been vital to ensuring the sustained presence of long-time Mission residents and families in the neighborhood. But the relationship with Galería de la Raza has opened them up to other opportunities. The two partners decided to relocate Galería de la Raza into a new space in one of MEDA’s new affordable housing developments. Together, they have crafted a real estate strategy that takes advantage of the City of San Francisco’s Small Sites Program to prevent the displacement of the local artistic community. The program offers loans for nonprofits seeking to acquire four- to 25-unit buildings in order to keep them permanently affordable. By intentionally seeking out spaces where local artists reside, this secures that they will continue to have an influence on the culture and cultural expression of the neighborhood.

“Saving the buildings was more than just saving the units or creating below market rate opportunities, it was saving the cultural legacy of the Mission,” says Rivera.

Ani Rivera and the team at Galería de la Raza prepare for the opening of the Comida Es Medicina show at Studio 24 located on 24th Street and Bryant Street. (Francis Yu 2018)

“PolicyLink served as a provocateur — a point of inspiration to challenge the work that was going on, to look beyond arts as a space issue,” says Feliciano Vera of MEDA. Both organizations also benefited from being connected to other cohort members from the Arts, Culture, and Equitable Development initiative. Throughout the grant period, which ends this month, they connected with other cohort members experiencing similar issues within their communities, such as gentrification, cultural erasure, or a drastically changing economic landscape. Events like cohort convenings and the 2018 PolicyLink Equity Summit helped the cohort form a support network of organizations addressing various community development challenges through the lens of arts and culture.

The full integration of an arts and culture lens to these strategies, or a “Culture-in-All-Policies” approach, akin to the “Health-in-All-Policies” movement, can provide a comprehensive approach recognizing the Mission’s cultural legacy in areas such as housing, education, immigration, and others. “When we think of the Mission and community development [we need to] understand the critical role that arts and culture play in facilitating and sustaining community for seven generations forward and seven generations back,” said Rivera referring to the importance of a holistic approach to community development. Work to bring “Culture-in-All-Policies” into the San Francisco Latino Parity and Equity Coalition's policy agenda is ongoing and permeating the collaboration between the two organizations in other ways as well.

Earlier this year, working with PolicyLink, Galería de la Raza and MEDA hosted an informal meeting with a coalition of Mission activists to explore the way arts and culture approaches or considerations could support their fight against planned bus-only lanes on a major thoroughfare in the neighborhood. Equity issues raised by the activists included how private shuttles, i.e. “Google buses”, would be allowed to use the lanes, prioritizing the transport of newer, wealthier residents through the Mission over benefiting Mission residents themselves.

In the meeting, participants were led through a visioning exercise where they were asked to recall or envision the most positive way transit was a part of the life of the neighborhood. Later, as discussions of strategy where being debated, a MEDA policy staffer realized that they, as a community, had overlooked the cultural arguments for reversing the bus-only lane decision. She shared how meaningful bus stops had been to her to meet and connect with neighbors, and that the elimination of bus stops in the Mission to streamline service on the bus-only lanes would disrupt a vital cultural function. The coalition realized once more that one of their most important assets — their cultural identity — could be used in advocacy and organizing. The campaign to change the bus-only lanes continues, but the collaborative work of Galería de la Raza and MEDA to integrate arts and culture into equitable development continues.

By Abbie Langston and Lorrie Chang

Letcher County, Kentucky is at the very heart of Appalachia, a region as rich in history and culture as in natural resources. Over the last 10 years, the county has lost more than 90 percent of coal jobs that had sustained its economy. About 98 percent of residents are White and 80 percent voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

At first glance, this rural area might seem to have little in common with diverse urban centers like Detroit and Pittsburgh. But the challenge of advancing a just economic transition in coal country is not dissimilar  with the challenge of building an equitable economy in metropolitan regions once dominated by steel, automotive, or other manufacturing sectors.

Like these cities and other “company towns,” Eastern Kentucky citizens once drew their lifeblood from a single industry, and now face the challenge of charting a new economy. One resident likened coal’s hold to addiction. The coal companies proclaimed, “you mine the coal and we’ll take care of you,” she explained. When coal collapsed, this dependency left communities in fear and desperation. So it’s no surprise that many residents have welcomed the prospect of a proposed federal prison as another economic anchor to fill the void.

But across the political spectrum, a consensus is building that Letcher County’s future cannot depend solely on one company or industry. A group of community-led organizations have formed the Letcher County Culture Hub, a network designed to foster and develop residents’s agency and assets, and build on the strength of its own rich cultural wealth. Today the growing list of partners include volunteer fire departments, businesses, community centers, and artist and cultural organizations collaborating with elected officials and other local, regional, and national organizations. Partners bring together resources and work in consensus to pursue common goals including reviving cultural events like the region’s bluegrass festival, founding new social enterprises including one that employs formerly incarcerated people, and expanding opportunity such as broadband Internet.

The Letcher County Culture Hub is also a part of the Arts, Culture, Equitable Development Initiative, generously supported by The Kresge Foundation, for PolicyLink to expand the impact of six community based organizations across the US in equitable development and policy change through arts and culture.

Centering Grassroots Power: Self-Determination through Arts and Culture

The Letcher County Culture Hub was born out of Appalshop, a 50-year-old multimedia arts, culture, and workforce development center that supports residents to tell their own stories, strengthen Appalachian culture, and work for more just communities.

With its arts-and-culture focused mission and deep roots in Letcher County, Appalshop took a unique approach to economic development: unlike traditional development that begin with a plan for a community to develop assets, they began with the community and the assets within it. Ben Fink, an Appalshop organizer who collaborated with community leaders to start the Culture Hub, explained, “This isn’t a project about saving Appalachia. This is a project about Appalachians saving ourselves.” From this perspective, culture isn’t just a way to add local flavor to economic development or market products; it is the very context and medium that make economic and social relationships possible. As Fink put it, “culture means more than music, dance, or art. It means paying attention to the language, interactions, and how meaning gets made.”

For the Culture Hub, starting with culture means starting with the methodology of story circles utilized by Appalshop’s longtime collaborator Junebug Productions, an African-American arts organization rooted in the civil rights movement. Story circles create a space where all voices are equal, identify and build on common bonds, and generate ideas from the intersections and contradictions between stories.

This has been a crucial process for the Culture Hub whose constituents span a wide spectrum of philosophical beliefs and political leanings. ire chief, former mine owner, and conservative political activist Bill Meade reflected, “If you told me I would be here at Appalshop three years ago, I would have never believed you.” Appalshop has long been viewed by some with skepticism for its progressive political orientation in a place steeped in conservative traditions. But by building from the common ground of culture, the Culture Hub has bridged long-standing divides and forged new bonds of collaboration. Story circles, community plays, and other cultural-based approaches have allowed participants to not ignore their differences, but to work across them through shared values and aspirations. Meade, a founding member, is now one of the network’s central leaders. He has played an integral role in economic development, helping launch the county’s first large-scale solar project with partners; and the arts, playing a lead role in Appalshop’s recent play The Future of Letcher County.

Playing the Long Game: Rooting Culture in an Economic Model

For over a hundred years, Appalachia has been dominated by an economic model that suffocates rather than encourages creativity, new ideas, and self-determination. The Culture Hub’s vision for the next hundred years is very different: build a culture of entrepreneurial spirit, interdependence, and unbounded imagination among residents who believe the future is theirs to create. This is why their mission is not just job creation or economic development. Instead, it is guided by the broader principle, “We own what me make.” The goal isn’t to employ everyone; but to create the conditions for everyone to enact their cultural, civic, and economic agency; identify and build on their assets; and find self-directed ways to turn them into community wealth.

The Culture Hub is playing the long game to redefine who owns and designs the narratives, strategies, and policies that will define Appalachia’s economic transition. Policies or programs alone cannot achieve true equity — a society in which all can reach their full potential — without shifting the culture of how people relate and make meaning and value together.

By building trust and a common voice through the intentional, collective production of culture, participants recognize and act on opportunities and needs in ways that might not be possible in traditional planning processes. As Fink explained, “honestly I think there was some shame about, you know, feeling helpless…[These deeper opportunities and needs weren’t] going to come up but for the kind of really intentional work around relationship building and strengthening that we did.” Because the Culture Hub roots development in people and their stories, participants are able to “not only to tell a different story about themselves, but also to act on that story”. Residents can rewrite their story from helpless to empowered and shape the solutions that turn this story into reality.

The Culture Hub is expanding. What began in 2015 with four partners is now nearly 20. Furthermore, the Culture Hub joined community cultural organizations in the Black Belt of Alabama, Mississippi Delta, West Baltimore, and rural and urban Wisconsin to found an emerging coalition. This project, called Performing Our Future, brings grassroots partners alongside economists, researchers, and technology developers together to advance community-led, culture-driven development on a national and international scale. The Culture Hub and the coalition continue to look for collaborators and funding to support work in which all people, voices, and perspectives make their own future and own what they make.

 

The political power of Black women has been on full display, particularly in America’s cities where a growing number of Black women have taken over as chief policymaker.

PolicyLink and ESSENCE recentley announced the ESSENCE-PolicyLink Mayors Roundtable -- a network for Black women mayors to exchange ideas, share best practices, develop strategies to create equitable cities, and shine a spotlight on their work and communities. Participating mayors include: Catherine Pugh, Baltimore, MD; Sharon Weston Broome, Baton Rouge,LA; Vi Lyles, Charlotte, NC; Karen Weaver, Flint, MI; LaToya Cantrell, New Orleans, LA; London Breed, San Francisco, CA; Muriel Bowser, Washington, DC; and Lovely Warren, Rochester, NY.

The network kicked off last Friday in Washington D.C., following the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting, and will close July 4-7, 2019 during the ESSENCE Fest in New Orleans. In the interim, the mayors will participate in monthly virtual roundtables on topics related to policy and leadership hosted by the PolicyLink All-In Cities Initiative. ESSENCE will also be publishing a series of articles and videos profiling the mayors and highlighting the work that they are championing.

Read more about the event and watch the short video clip on Essense to learn more.

Art is a must-have for any thriving community. And that’s why we are proud to announce today that we have been selected as a recipient of a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission. Launched in 2017 to celebrate the foundation’s 50th anniversary, this is a five-year, $8 million initiative supporting the creation and premiere of 50 new works by world-class performing artists working in five disciplines. PolicyLink is among a group of 10 Bay Area-based non-profit organizations that will receive $150,000 each to create important and unique work that facilitates discussions around the most pressing local issues.

“We, the 100 Million,” will be a series of place-based, community-driven choreo-poems performed with music and multimedia storytelling exploring inequity in the United States. "We, the 100 Million" expands on the work of PolicyLink over the past two decades to advance racial and economic equity in the United States by combining data, policy, performance and poetry. The piece will be a 10-part spoken word performance that lifts up the lives of the 106 million Americans living near or in poverty. (See also: “100 Million and Counting: A Portrait of Economic Insecurity in the United States,” the newly published data profile that provides a breakdown of who is economically insecure in America.)

One source of inspiration for the development of the performance will be data from the National Equity Atlas (the PolicyLink partnership with the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California). Another important source will be direct engagement with people in communities across the country affected by economic insecurity. Lead artist Michael “Quess?” Moore and PolicyLink Senior Fellow and creative director of “We, the 100 Million” Jeremy Liu will work closely with our staff of researchers and public policy experts and local communities to communicate a richer and more nuanced understanding of the lived experience of 100 million Americans struggling to make ends meet.

To learn more about the Hewlett 50 Arts Commission and the nine other awardees, click here.

An attack on any of us, is an attack on all of us!

The present Administration continues to demonstrate that the society it seeks for America is the exact antithesis of an equitable society. An equitable society is one in which ALL can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. The New York Times reported this weekend that the Trump Administration intends "to establish a legal definition of sex" that would "exclude [transgender individuals] from civil rights protections under federal civil rights law." Such actions defy the very principles of equity and put the Administration's inhumanity once more on full display.

The proposal would impact the lives of two million people, causing disarray and revoking equal access to health care, housing, education, and fair treatment under the law. Like so many efforts promoted by this Administration, the proposal ignores the legal and medical precedents, strong science, and general decency and compassion that undergird these supports for transgender individuals.

We must all lift our voice to register our outrage at this blatant bigotry. Let this Administration know that we will not stand by quietly while it attacks any of us. The strength of the equity movement lies in our solidarity. An attack on any of us, is an attack on all of us!

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Contact senior Administration officials. Let them know that you are opposed to any proposed rule that would strip transgender — or any — people of their civil rights and other protections.
   
  • Secretary of Education Betsy Devos
    Phone Number 202-401-3000
    Send email to: ocr@ed.gov
     
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar
    Phone Number: 202-690-7000
    Send email to: talktodol@dol.gov
     
  • Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta
    Phone Number: 202-690-7000
    Send email to: Secretary@HHS.gov
     
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions
    Phone Number: 202-353-1555
    Send email via contact form at following link: http://www2.policylink.org/e/78532/our-message-department-justice/6jwgsv/425885935
     

• Call your Congressional Representatives and tell them to pass the Equality Act now — a bill currently in Congress that would explicitly enshrine civil rights protections for transgender individuals. Dial the Capitol switchboard for number or connection, if needed: 202-224-3121.
   
• Join rallies and demonstrations in your local communities. Or organize your own.
   
• For more, read about seven ways to defend and support people targeted by Trump's trans-exclusionary  policies RIGHT NOW.