path to prosperity but instead an endless trail of land mines, insurmountable hurdles and broken promises. In the City of Atlanta, a black-owned business is worth $58,085, while a white-owned business is worth $658,264 -- 11 times more! 96% of these black-owned businesses have no paid employees. In the U.S., closing the racial growth gap would result in 9 million new jobs and ultimately boost the national income by $300 billion. If we grow new and legacy minority small businesses, we create more living-wage jobs and build family- and community-wealth. Community wealth building (CWB) provides an opportunity to address the historic and systemic nature of racial wealth inequality in our region and is a uniquely pertinent strategy for metropolitan Atlanta given its vast economic inequity, particularly in communities of color in contrast with the legend of Atlanta as the Black Mecca.
THE ORGANIZATION
Initially established in 2011 as a nonprofit 501(c)3 entity created and powered by The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) adopted The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland’s model to start and incubate local green businesses to address social problems such as the rising level of income inequality, high rates of unemployment, cyclical patterns in prison re-entry or substance use, and business inefficiency. In response to the continuing crisis of inequity confronting Atlanta, in the fall of 2017 the Kendeda Fund and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in concert with community, municipal and nonprofit leaders, decided to re-focus and relaunch the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI).
The goal of the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) is to foster solutions designed to close Atlanta’s racial opportunity gaps, so that all of Atlanta’s residents are able to reach their highest potential. In pursuit of this goal, as an intermediary AWBI seeks to achieve shared prosperity by closing the racial wealth gap through thought leadership that advances bold ideas, movement building that activates people on the ground and strategic investments that equitably deploy capital. Community wealth building lies at the heart of our model and our core values of inclusion, collaboration, innovation, courage, impact and sustainability undergird our work. AWBI seeks to leverage three critical components, which when activated together have transformative power. Those components are ideas, people and capital :
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