Category: Social Justice and Economic Opportunity

There are 415 counties across the nation that qualify as persistently-poor, and in these areas, the average poverty rate is 26%, compared to 11% in the Midwest, 8% in the West, and just 2% in the Northeast. Small businesses are a critical component of an equitably thriving community, providing several essential benefits that increase districts’ livability and vitality, especially in historically divested neighborhoods that have been void of the resources and policies that allow for expansion and advancement. Supporting small business stamina and growth can spark a virtuous cycle of revitalization, bringing resources a district needs to incentivize people to stay, thus creating an environment ripe for small business longevity. 

To set this in motion, strategies for supporting small enterprise growth must go far beyond creating more equitable access to funding, grants, and other financial resources. Approaches must be community-centered and holistic, taking into account all the elements that make a locality a place where small businesses and their patrons can thrive. Through their Executive Fellowship Program, FUSE is working in cities across the U.S., like Jackson and Los Angeles, to jump-start the momentum for revitalization.

In the fall of 2023, the Jackson Redevelopment Authority (JRA) in Jackson, Mississippi, partnered with FUSE to promote equitable social and economic growth through a comprehensive urban renewal approach that includes housing, business development, infrastructure, and public spaces. A key focus is Farish Street, historically the largest economically independent African American community in Mississippi, which has suffered a decline since the years of white flight, followed by decades of divestment and many failed restoration efforts. The JRA’s unique, holistic approach to revitalization focuses on three key aspects. First, the area’s redevelopment plans align with the community’s vision for a lively entertainment district. Second, they welcome diverse small businesses to the area. Third, they gradually improve the street using a combination of private and public funds. This balanced approach meets community needs, attracts business interests, and ensures sustainable development.

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One project that exemplifies the holistic, balanced strategy the JRA is taking is the plan to develop more public green spaces. Along with 2 C Mississippi, which focuses on climate mitigation and education, the JRA is working to turn three parcels of land into an urban forest with a stage for entertainment use. Not only does this plan respect the community’s request for bringing entertainment to Farish Street, public green spaces also encourage a host of health, climate, and socio-economic benefits that are invaluable for small businesses. Green areas encourage people to walk and congregate outdoors, boosting foot traffic and shopping and dining at local businesses. 
This initiative between the JRA and Jackson, catalyzed by the FUSE Executive Fellowship aims to bring together all the essential parts that allow a revitalization plan to succeed – bringing existing projects and programs together around community-identified common goals, understanding and solving for resource gaps, securing partnerships and funding, boosting operational capacity, and setting up the JRA with a full-spectrum game plan for continued and long-lasting redevelopment. This work is sure to continue as Yolanda R. Owens, the FUSE Executive Fellow leading the partnership, will join the JRA as COO once the fellowship concludes.

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In Los Angeles, small business revitalization efforts have been county-wide after historic closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Small businesses in the area experienced one of the highest loss rates, with 15,000 small business closures across L.A. County. Businesses owned by people of color and women were particularly affected, exacerbating the already prevalent racial and gender inequalities —in 2020 alone, there was a 41% decrease in active Black business owners, a 36% decline in immigrant-owned businesses, and a 25% drop in women business owners. 

FUSE partnered with Los Angeles BusinessSource Centers in 2021 to build up capacity to provide small businesses, particularly those owned by women and people of color, with the technical and programmatic resources they need to thrive. The BusinessSource Centers act as a one-stop shop for small businesses, assisting with everything from faster and more efficient permit processing to increasing capacity in departments like Power and Water to work with owners directly on upgrading their electric systems and working with the Mayor’s office on deadline extensions and helpful programs. 
The focus on businesses owned by people of color and women taps into the virtuous cycle of restoring communities as 1) these businesses tend to reinvest more of their earnings back into the community through hiring local residents, donating to local charities, and investing in infrastructure and 2) they play a crucial role in encouraging inclusive economic growth and reducing the wealth gap, supporting local suppliers and providing opportunities for people of color and women.

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FUSE Executive Fellowships spark the momentum for initiatives that have the potential to restore cities and towns through virtuous cycles of revitalization successfully. When centering the community, they help set up the pieces like community feedback processes, crucial partnerships with nonprofits that work with the community, identifying gaps in resources, and understanding what the community wants. In terms of small business support, they help cities identify what micro-entrepreneurs need regarding training, zoning, permitting, or fundamental partnerships such as distributors and suppliers. Learn more about how you can get involved at FUSE.org.

Innovative homeownership partnerships led by local governments can empower communities to overcome systemic barriers to generational wealth.

Home is not just where the heart is: homeownership is proven to build wealth for you and your family. Typically, individuals and families who own their homes accumulate more assets over time, and according to the Federal Reserve (2022), the median net worth of homeowners is nearly 40 times greater than that of renters. 

Unfortunately, rates of homeownership in the US are in lockstep with deep-rooted racial and economic disparities, creating a generation-over-generation racial wealth gap that negatively impacts BIPOC families. Rates of homeownership for white Americans are over 30% higher than for Black Americans, and rates among those in the highest income bracket are nearly double those in the lowest income bracket. 

Affordable housing and homeownership can support every community member’s quest for financial security, but producing more housing units is only part of the solution. Local leaders must tackle interconnected issues simultaneously, offer holistic support, and involve cross-sector partnerships and collaboration to ensure homeownership is equitable. 

Mayor Dickens of Atlanta understands this complexity and has set an ambitious goal to build or preserve 20,000 units of affordable housing in eight years. “We know that increasing the amount of safe, stable, and affordable housing will provide significant benefits throughout our community: increased economic mobility, a reduction in crime, better health outcomes, higher educational achievement. Our city cannot meet its fullest potential if our people do not have stable places to live and to lay their heads at night,” said the Mayor recently. In response to the challenge, the Mayor has established a new office dedicated to realizing the necessary affordable housing and addressing the root causes of the socioeconomic gap.

To shed more light on this solution, we spoke with Wesley Myrick, a former Fuse Executive Fellow, who serves on the Mayor’s Office Policy Team, Special Projects Division. We asked Myrick about the work involved in building safe and secure affordable housing, as well as the strategies his team is using to prioritize homeownership solutions that uplift diversity and legacy communities, rather than allowing gentrification and disenfranchisement.

NationSwell: Wesley, it is great to speak with you today and learn more about innovative approaches to homeownership. Let’s start with your role on the Mayor’s Office Policy Team, Special Projects Division.  What does it involve?

Wesley Myrick: I serve on the housing team which has three divisions: Special Projects, Innovation Lab, and General Housing Policy. I joined the Director of Special Projects, who manages large-scale displacement initiatives like Forest Cove. That property was condemned due to the state of disrepair it was in, so the city stepped up to relocate families, acting as a champion for them and the larger community. 

We also work on the Rapid Housing Initiative, which is focused on the quick delivery of highly dignified, comfortable homes for those experiencing chronic homelessness. One example of this is an apartment project called, The Melody, which opened in January of this year and consists of 40 units of permanent, supportive housing.

NS: Obviously safety and shelter are essential for everybody. But tell us more about why affordable housing is a key component when thinking about supporting thriving communities? 

WM: First and foremost, what are thriving communities composed of? It’s people. It’s families. It’s diversity. Affordable housing enables the creation of diverse communities, where residents include not just high-income or low-income earners, but a genuinely mixed and inclusive population. That’s significant because corporations, supportive services, and other general services need the full gambit of individuals in a community. 

Affordability at every income stream allows people to live wherever they want to live within the city. This matters because it means every community has people who are invested in being there and not just relegated to that neighborhood because it’s all they can afford. This leads to higher instances of pride and of people building community because they want to be there, which attracts businesses and developments of other things people want in a community. In Georgia, the roughly 40,000 stable, high-quality affordable housing units produced through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program between 2001 and 2019 boosted the state’s economy by $12 billion and created 4,284 new jobs annually, and led to increased property tax revenue for local governments. 

This all starts with housing. When communities have affordable housing that is accessible to a mix of people who want to live and invest there , industry is attracted, amenities arrive,  and people stay. Then, fifteen years go by and families have raised kids in a home, in a place they feel connected to that just 20 years ago may not have been a great place to be.

NS: Feeling pride and invested in a place is so important! Plus, affordable housing can be a path towards home ownership which encourages equitable economic mobility.  Does this factor into the strategies that you all are putting in place when it comes to housing?

WM: This is a perfect example of why our department is structured the way it is. The Office of the Chief Policy Officer has five different divisions working in tandem. We have a housing team, strategic partnerships and strategic initiatives, a youth and education team, a neighborhood economic development team, and an ombuds team. Each team is tasked with ensuring Atlanta is the best place in the nation to raise a family. 

The housing team works on housing unit production and preservation. We have a safe and secure housing program that examines why legacy residents are housing insecure and aligns city processes so that more people remain housed in their family homes without it being overly burdensome to do so. This ensures that regardless of your zip code, you can stay in the city and helps households of more modest means retain control of generational assets.

For the neighborhoods team, this means making significant financial and infrastructure investments into historically diverse communities to attract industry and jobs. For the strategic partnership and initiatives teams, this means convening our corporate and philanthropic communities to make investments into programs and communities that help stabilize and propel communities across the city. For our youth team, this means ensuring that youth have the best possible programs to help support their educational goals and workforce readiness through the summer jobs program and Year of the Youth. Lastly, our Umbuds team helps to catalog recurring shortfalls of government policy or practice as delivered directly from the electorate so that we can better produce what communities need to thrive.

NS: I’m glad you mentioned the different sectors. What do you see as the role of the private or philanthropic sectors when it comes to this work? Can you give an example of  a successful partnership?

WM: There are limits on what public funds can be used for and how we can disperse them, whereas private money is much more flexible. We launched a $200 million fund last year in partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, supporting the production of affordable housing units. While that amount of money is a significant investment it’s, unfortunately, still not enough. We need the philanthropic community to make those investments in housing where the government can’t. 

NS: Atlanta is growing as an economic and cultural hub. What are some of your key policy recommendations for establishing a secure future for Atlanta residents, especially legacy communities who are at risk of displacement?  

WM: A cornerstone of our work has been building trust with communities, which is why we not only work across departments but also have dedicated personnel who work on these things. We currently have an anti-displacement grant that partially helps support Owner-Occupied Rehab Programs, which we are able to connect residents with and has been valuable for our senior community members who need our support to ensure ordinances are not violated. Oftentimes, properties fall into disrepair, not because there are bad actors, but because there’s simply a lack of resources. Mitigating these barriers when we can is something we’re very proud of and want to keep doing more of.

NS: You wrote an excellent piece on the City of Atlanta’s  Faith-Based Development Initiative, which encourages faith-based communities to grant use of their underutilized land to affordable housing developments. What were some of your biggest takeaways from this initiative?

WM: I’ve learned that there are opportunities to create various housing types across the city at every level. For example, one house of worship has been rehabbing and renting single-family units using community development block grants and home funds, with the objective of providing them at affordable rents for those who need them. Simultaneously, they are working on a vision for a small multi-family community. 

We’ve been fortunate that in addition to houses of worship, other city, state, and private-sector organizations have answered our call. We launched the Faith-Based Development Initiative in partnership with Enterprise Community Partners, a national leader in faith-based development, and a CDFI, so they fund affordable housing across the country. The other lesson is that community building doesn’t mean building buildings – it’s really about building hearts and minds around what’s possible and helping execute that. 

NS: Land acquisition is one of the most costly elements of development, so efficient use of vacant publicly-owned land for housing development is key in increasing the availability of affordable housing. How have you tackled that in Atlanta?

WM: We chartered an organization called The Atlanta Urban Development Corporation (AUD), specifically tasked with managing the redevelopment of public land through the issuance of Request for Proposals (RFPs) to solicit, review, and select a development partner. They issue the RFPs, review them, figure out how to finance and fund them, and co-develop them with the organizations that respond to the RFPs. Thomasville Heights is their most recent RFP, focusing on mixed-income housing developments. Since they’re new and small, they’re also more nimble to move on projects. An important policy consideration is how you can expedite some of this public plan work. Create a mechanism by which you can successfully develop your project, and the developers will respond because the process is laborious – we found a way to make it less laborious with the AUD. 

We have some good examples of how the government is doing all it can in collaboration  with private partners to fill gaps while ensuring the work is community-owned and community-driven. For instance, the Midtown Fire Station, a vacant two-story firehouse that sits in Midtown Atlanta, is considered one of the most valuable plots of land in the country. The plan is to rehab the station and develop 20 to 30 housing units above it, which will be majority affordable in a part of town that’s not easy to afford. Adding one more unit makes a difference because that’s one more family that’s housed. For policymakers we have to remember that the units are important not because they are units but because they house people. 

Pathways to affordable housing are key to unlocking equitable homeownership, and social mobility, and a step toward combating the historic causes of the ever-present and widening socioeconomic divide across the country. Bringing affordable housing projects and initiatives to fruition, as evidenced by leaders in Atlanta, Georgia, will require a blend of innovative, strategic cross-sector partnerships and a revamping of local government offices and functions. FUSE offers a unique model for cross-sector collaboration to address a wide range of issues affecting growing towns and cities across the US. Learn more about their past and current initiatives by visiting https://fuse.org/.

Most Americans live in cities; in fact, almost 90% of us will be city residents by 2050. Yet, every community is different and requires locally relevant solutions to the challenges and opportunities they face due to geography, history, industry, and many other place-based factors. City leaders with a local focus and lived experience in the communities they serve have never been more vital and influential in helping communities thrive across the U.S. 

Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, for example, has led the way on free public transportation and the creation of a Housing Trust Fund that has so far allocated about $19 million to support affordable housing projects and create nearly 1,000 affordable units, in a city where he grew up and experienced homelessness. But, resources in these public sector teams are stretched, capacity is limited, and space for creativity to solve systemic issues is hard to come by. 

The danger of never making space for creative thinking in local government or empowering city leaders to try new approaches is that inertia is inevitable. If neighborhoods in cities across America are to break out of cycles of inequality and build resiliency and generational wealth, we must embrace new ideas that challenge the status quo. 

In that vein, innovative impact leaders are creating ways to overcome capacity hurdles and support the important role that city government plays as a change agent. FUSE is a national nonprofit with a mission to increase the effectiveness of local governments in building more equitable communities. They have a unique method of empowering public sector teams to be the source of creative, community-led solutions for wealth-building among underserved populations. 

The FUSE Executive Fellowship Program hires diverse private-sector professionals and embeds them in government agencies on a full-time basis. These fellows bring new ideas, research, and action, all in service of advancing racial equity and addressing pressing challenges facing city communities. This allows FUSE to pursue creative approaches and public-private partnerships. Many fellows continue working in the public sector after their projects are complete, creating a unique pathway for private-sector professionals to make career moves and fulfill their desire to achieve greater impact in the communities where they work and live. 

The interventions by the FUSE Executive Fellows always begin with deep community listening, which is the genesis of fresh ideas: from the community, for the community. They integrate insights with data and human-centered design to help address seemingly intractable problems. For example: How can you preserve affordable housing and promote climate resilience in Durham, NC? How can you ensure everyone has access to fresh food in Birmingham, AL? How can local government use data and analytics to reduce reliance on incarceration and drive criminal justice reforms throughout LA County? How can county leadership help bridge the digital equity divide in Central Texas? And — in many places — how do you shift a workforce into a new era of needs and opportunities, post-pandemic?

Washington, D.C., witnessed a tremendous loss of jobs during the pandemic, particularly within the hospitality and leisure industries. The District’s Workforce Investment Council partnered with Karla Yoder, FUSE Executive Fellow to create a strategic plan to create a more resilient local ecosystem, for workers and employers. Yoder’s work not only highlighted how workers earning low wages were bearing the brunt of job losses but also noted accelerated shifts in the workforce landscape, with demand surging for workers in healthcare and technology. These factors underscored the need for employers to embrace skills-based hiring in order to service new and growing needs. In response, Yoder designed recovery initiatives tailored to D.C.’s workforce, including career coaching for unemployed residents and fostering partnerships between employers and skill-training providers.

FUSE Executive Fellow Daniel Han’s work with the City of Long Beach is another great example of innovative solutions supporting those at the highest risk of economic disruption. He helped the City connect nontraditional, community-based lenders to small business owners of color who were struggling to access capital. “The one thing that remains consistent is the critical leadership role that local government has in being a social innovator, change agent, and advocate for creating an inclusive platform for small businesses to thrive in the community,” said Han.

Just recently, FUSE Executive Fellow Kay West embedded with the City of Fort Worth to help revitalize their Economic Development Department’s “Business Assistance Center” to better support small businesses and entrepreneurs. West’s engagement with the community led to changes that made the Center more accessible, responsive, and fortified — including streamlined processes, more flexible opening hours, a more user-friendly “one-stop shop” web experience; and community convenings to foster inclusivity. “It brings me much joy to serve as a community quarterback to propel impact and bring national resources to my city,” said West, who continues to help communities and economic development organizations advance small enterprise initiatives and build capacity for equitable entrepreneurship programs.

The FUSE Executive Fellowship is one of a variety of exciting new localized wealth-building and social innovation models that are emerging. These programs show how fresh perspectives and an injection of creative capacity can make significant changes in large systems. Other models include building strength through networks that share insights and support between cities, like the Strong Cities Network that exists to help leaders address all forms of hate and polarization; or lifting up the voices of the unheard across a state in order to drive policy change, as demonstrated by End Poverty In California, which was founded by the Michael Tubbs, former Mayor of Stockton, California. 

We need this variety of solutions and an upswell of energy behind local government action to address a holistic issue like wealth building in underserved communities. Housing, education, workforce development, financial inclusion, small business support, digital equity, social cohesion, place-making, culture building — all of these elements and more are part of empowering a community to define its own future and build economic and social resilience. Funders and impact partners often struggle with how to help drive this type of cohesive community impact, when they are focused on one or two issues. 

The FUSE Executive Fellow model offers inspiration for one way forward: harnessing the power of creative individuals to integrate local knowledge, skills from the private sector, and collaborative coalition-building to turn the vision of community wealth-building into concrete policies and initiatives. From helping the City of Houston to create a comprehensive digital inclusion strategy that prioritizes those marginalized households that lack broadband access, to partnering with Cincinnati to help create 4,000 quality green jobs as part of a just transition to the green economy, to empowering Mayor Dickens in Atlanta to launch the Faith Based Development Initiative to create thousands of affordable housing units, the FUSE approach is effectively fast-tracking local government innovation across America. 

In a year when national elections will be held in at least 64 countries around the world, it is vital to remember that change starts at home—and local leaders are the ones whose decisions will have the greatest impact on daily lives. In this context, it’s energizing to see impact leaders like FUSE rally behind local government teams and innovate to allow creative, community-driven approaches to wealth building to flourish in cities across the U.S.

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Visit fuse.org to learn more about their Executive Fellowship program.

This question stays top of mind for me. A joyful community is at the core of Seattle Foundation’s vision as we strive for shared prosperity, belonging and justice in the region.

I’ve also been reflecting on a joyful community due to an experience hosted by NationSwell. In March, I joined a gathering of corporate and philanthropy leaders in Montgomery, Alabama to reflect on the civil rights movement and the journey towards justice in the United States.

I have history with the south, as a part of my family has roots in Mississippi. Walking around Montgomery somehow felt like being home again with people and a culture so familiar to me. It also brought me proximate to the places – like the Bricklayers Hall which served as the headquarters for the Montgomery bus boycott – that were important meeting grounds for the civil rights and social justice gains that we are fighting to protect today.

While in Montgomery, we toured the Legacy Museum, created by Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative. As I walked through the exhibits, I reflected on the lasting impact of the institution of slavery in this country – Jim Crow laws, school segregation, redlining, the criminal justice system, and so on. As I exited, there was a quote that summed up the museum’s purpose and commitment to justice – that the children’s children of those who endured these times, could one day live unburdened by the legacy of slavery.

That struck me – to live unburdened by the legacy of slavery. My time in Montgomery invited reflection on that legacy in my own life.

My paternal grandfather came to Cleveland from St. Louis when he was a young man. He and my grandmother settled in the City of East Cleveland, a predominantly Black community, and invested in real estate to ensure no one in the family would ever go without a home. Not too long ago, out of curiosity, I asked my aunt what prompted my grandfather’s move to Cleveland. Her response – a group of white men threatened to kill him. He was fleeing for his life.

My maternal grandfather was a farmer in a small town in Mississippi. It’s where my mom was born, raised, and learned to work on a farm. I remember spending a few summers on that land. I was also aware that my grandparents likely did not own the land on which they lived and raised their children and some grandchildren. And discussing why was not a conversation that the elders in my family openly had.

In 1989 when I was six years old, my mom married an incredible guy who became my bonus dad. His name was Eddie. He was funny and quirky. He was also white. In three states in this country from the 1980s, 1990s, and as late as 2000, my parents could have been jailed because of the illegal nature of their interracial relationship.

At 41 years old, I hold this history and memory in my body that is defined by the impacts of slavery, white supremacy, and institutional racism. What would it feel like to be unburdened by this?

I believe it would feel like joy.

Joy has been at the center of my work for some time now because it is a way to bring people together. Regardless of lived experience or status, joy evokes a certain feeling, even a sound. Through joy, we find warmth, laughter and belonging. For some, joy is rooted deeply in faith; and in it, we find strength. Joy is something that no one can take away from us. For others, joy is an act of resistance (as first coined by poet Toi Derricote), and liberation. We have the right to exist and to be free.

We all deserve access to a safe home, connection and belonging, and resources to live our best lives. We also deserve to live in communities unburdened by racism, othering, discrimination, and violence. These are all building blocks to a joyful community.

So, how do we get there?

A part of the solution is for all of us to do better in valuing and honoring the humanity of our neighbors who are different from us. The other part – and this is critical – is meaningful, equitable, and sustained policy and systems change. The burden and legacy of slavery is clearly found in systems and policies that were designed for only some to succeed. To realize a joyful community of shared prosperity and belonging, we must change that.

Seattle Foundation recently completed a strategic plan outlining the work we will do over the next three years to move towards making the vision of a joyful community a reality. We will make bold moves in innovative financing for affordable housing production, climate justice, and increased access to make childcare more equitable. Throughout our grantmaking and advocacy, we will remain committed to racial equity and justice, community organizing, and policy reform. We’ll remain steadfast on this journey until every individual has true agency and power over the direction of their lives and systems are not barriers to their success.

The path ahead will be difficult but I will not be deterred because I know what I’m after – joy. Not just for me, but for generations to come. Generations of babies that will one day grow and thrive as adults whose experiences are not altered by the impacts of systems that have failed to serve them. Future adults who will be able to move through this world without fear, with true freedom, and full of joy.

As wealth and income inequality continue to climb in the United States, some employers are developing innovative models and catalytic partnerships designed to bring new skills, job access, and ultimately economic opportunity to financially vulnerable and historically marginalized individuals.

In a new interview series, Pathways to Economic Opportunity, NationSwell is taking a closer look at some of the solutions companies are pursuing in service of leveling the playing field and expanding their talent pipelines. In spotlighting these partnerships, this series hopes to uncover the “secret sauce” that makes these solutions successful for the benefit of other employers and their leaders.

The first installment featured the Dow Last Mile Fund for Manufacturing & Skilled Trades. Here, in the second installment, NationSwell sat down with members of the teams at Barclays and COOP Careers (COOP) — a nonprofit that aims to provide training, job skills, and peer connections in order to help vulnerable populations overcome underemployment — about their partnership and newly-launched Financial Services track.

Here’s what they had to say:

Bird’s Eye View: Through its partnership with COOP, Barclays aims to equip the next generation of finance professionals with the abilities and networks they need to overcome underemployment while developing a robust network of diverse talent in the financial sector.

In 2023, the partners announced a new Financial Services track designed specifically to help participants find careers in data analytics and finance. The partnership’s pilot semester, which kicked off in August 2023, welcomed 35 students through two separate cohorts, and a spring semester began in mid-February.

Fast Stats: 

• Every spring and fall, COOP convenes peer cohorts of 16-18 diverse, low-income college grads in New York, California, Illinois, and Florida, focused on three distinct areas: data analytics, digital marketing, and financial services. 
• In addition to virtual training and skill-building, the program matches motivated first-generation college graduates with alumni coaches to support them in building the professional tools and networks they need for the careers they deserve. 
• Within 12 months of program completion, four-in-five COOP alumni are fully employed, earning a median of $52,000 per year (median pre-program earnings are $12k (inclusive of both folks that enter the program under or unemployed).
• COOP’s “head-heart-hustle” approach to curriculum design is 200-hours long and focuses on providing a mix of hard and soft skills, as well as near-peer guidance, social capital, and industry connections.
  

The Secret Sauce: 

“That’s what it’s all about for us: building social capital. We believe it’s the connections that make a difference in finding that first — or next — great job.” – Patricia Malizia, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications, COOP Careers

1. NationSwell: What’s the origin story of the relationship between Barclays and COOP?

Sarah Wessel, Managing Director of Partnerships at COOP Careers:

The relationship started as a partnership brokered through Robin Hood. The first couple of years were mostly focused on philanthropic support from Barclays, with some volunteer engagements mixed in.

As we got to know each other better, the Barclays Citizenship team approached us to discuss a more formalized partnership between our two organizations, which began maybe three or four years ago. 

Over time, given Barclays’ role in the sector, we realized it was a great opportunity for Barclays to become the lead partner for a new financial services track just as they were thinking deeply about how to diversify their talent pipeline and help more individuals launch careers in financial services.

The partnership has just grown immensely over the last 18 months.

John Kenny, VP, Citizenship team at Barclays:

At Barclays, our Citizenship strategy is focused on employability. Through our LifeSkills program  we’re really focused on how we can help upskill individuals who have historically faced barriers to work and help create pathways into meaningful employment. 

So we look to work with the most impactful partners in this space, and we’ve been so impressed by COOP’s completion  rates, placement rates, and with what COOP participants have gone on to do post-program. 

2. NationSwell: It sounds like the Financial Services track was born out of a trusting partnership and an unmet need. Who were the key stakeholders involved in the early formation of the new curriculum, and what was the critical piece of information that signaled that this was the right time in both programs’ relationship together to launch something new? 

Sarah Wessel, COOP Careers:

It was less about one moment and more about how all of these things converged: strong early partners in the finance sector like Barclays, and a lot of knowledge from our alumni due diligence across the industry. We told ourselves that if we want to scale 10x in New York, we must find a way to access the financial services industry because it is the largest upwardly mobile employer market here. 

And the COOP theory of change is all around social capital and alumni peer mobilization. So everything we do is focused on what our alumni can come back and teach students, and how they can help provide them an entry point into upwardly mobile careers. We view trends in our alumni community as a barometer for how we should be approaching program evolution.

The impetus for this belief that we could help others with entry into the field was when our existing alumni were finding some success in finance jobs. There is a real need, and the talent we were already training was obviously a good fit for the roles that financial institutions are looking to fill. 

If we give our participants more context on the cultural environment in finance and the types of roles they would be applying for, that would really help them feel more confident about  applying for these roles at a larger volume.

3. NationSwell: Sarah, you described a particular need you discovered through all the learning you just walked us through. How is that now reflected in the experience that a participant has in the program? What are the key elements of that journey for them? 

Sarah Wessel, COOP Careers:

Our 200-hour curriculum is oriented around three pillars: head, heart, and hustle.

Head covers the technical skills, and we were able to add quite a number of modules specific to the analytics skill set that they will need going into roles very specific to banking and finance — hard skills such as Excel, SQL, and Tableau 

Heart helps to strengthen soft skills, such as communication, conflict resolution, and time management.

Hustle is about growing job-hunting skills like resume and cover letter writing, email etiquette, and collective networking to start their job search with a plan, a portfolio, and support from peers — and connections.

4. NationSwell: What sort of fingerprint does Barclays have on the curriculum or on the experience program participants are having in the financial services track? 

John Kenny, Barclays:

We’ve brought together leaders from different businesses and functions across Barclays to share their view on what types of skills are important to learn and refine, and then we’ve collaborated with the COOP team to inform the curriculum. That level of collaboration speaks volumes to how COOP is hyper-focused on equipping grads in the program.

We’ve also created guest lecture opportunities, where we have members of our team give seminar-style talks to COOPers, others have taken part in career chats, and dozens have help the COOPers prepare through in-person mock interview sessions held at our office. 

5. NationSwell: How do you select participants? What are the criteria that you’re using? 

Sarah Wessel, COOP Careers:

Any participant interested in applying for COOP fills out a form on our website. From there, they sign up for an info session, which is held in a group format and typically virtual. During that info session, all interested applicants learn about COOP and different career tracks, and they hear alumni that speak about their experience in the program and what they’re doing now so folks can start to understand what they might be interested in pursuing.

The eligibility requirements are that candidates have to make less than $50,000 a year; they have to be able to commit to our program, which is four months long, Monday through Thursday, at night; and then they have to meet two out of the three other requirements to be considered: identify as a first-generation college graduate; have been Pell Grant eligible while they were going through college; or identify as a person of color. 

Over 95% of our participants identify as people of color, and around 85-90% identify as first-generation college graduates. 

If everything looks good and it seems like they’re still motivated to apply, they go forward to a group interview. In this interview, they are given an assignment they have to complete ahead of time and then talk through their process live.

We have a long waitlist, but if you get through the process, we have a pretty high acceptance rate.

There isn’t a second layer of screening that we’re looking for, but there are some personality traits that we’re interested in, because our model is built upon paying it forward. So when looking at who’s really interested in being a part of our program for the long haul, we strongly consider whether they are ready to make the time commitment. 

What I think is really special about COOP is the relationship between the alumni near-peer coach and a cohort member and how they pull them into their industry and help them build their career for the first few years. 

6. NationSwell: What happens after someone completes the program — what sort of support are they receiving on a go-forward basis to take that big step into a career path? 

Sarah Wessel, COOP Careers:

Our program is designed to follow people forever. Folks end up feeling like they can lean on each other throughout their career, which I think is really special.

But in terms of official support from the organization, every single one of our alumni is assigned an alumni manager who is responsible for supporting them with getting their first good job. They meet one-on-one with their alumni manager as many times as they want to do mock interviews, resume reviews, job searching, and talk through any challenges they might be facing. The alumni manager also helps them with negotiating their first offer if they need help with that.

Our alumni managers recently hosted a workshop on overcoming rejection and keeping your motivation high in the job search, which is something that, especially this past year, has been really pertinent to a lot of our participants.

Patricia Malizia, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at COOP Careers:

We also send an alumni email newsletter every month, which we recently restructured to better serve our alumni. We created a job resources page to ensure all alumni know about the jobs that are open and available. 

We also have a whole section on our website dedicated to supporting our alumni, which we just relaunched to serve our alumni even better. And we have blogs on our website about some of the things that Sarah mentioned, like developing your  resume and cover letters.

Matthew Snitkey, Director, Barclays

We have had the opportunity to hire 11 COOP alumni into Barclays across several teams, including Global Markets Operations. The support and preparation COOP provides is evident and tangible. We’ve been so impressed with how COOP alumni have hit the ground running and have brought diversity of thought and positive results in our process, workflows and controls.

7. NationSwell: What do you think is most helpful for other leaders to know about the DNA of this partnership?

John Kenny, Barclays:

We so often hear people on the Barclays side — including senior leaders and hiring managers — saying how impressed they are with the drive of COOPers. These are folks who have gotten their degrees, many of whom are working full-time, and then dedicate several hours each night to additional intensive learning for extended periods of time. And I think that, in and of itself, exemplifies a level of commitment and a level of interest in the sector that they’re building on at COOP. 

Sarah Wessel, COOP Careers:

The relationship-driven way we’ve built this partnership is a missing link for first-generation college students. Yeah, there’s a need for some skills and aptitude, but as John said, many participants have the drive and the ability to do any number of things — what they need is access. And what Barclays has really done is find a way to provide that access.

Barclays has been open to believing talent can come from anywhere, and that it’s part of their responsibility as corporate citizens to find ways to get all of their staff involved in different communities and provide that access. These students have the ability already — they just need somebody to vouch for them and give them that first good opportunity to succeed. Finding meaningful work is hard. Why should it be lonely?

History is alive in Montgomery, and confronting that history in person is necessary in order to fully reckon with the truth of racial injustice and inequality in America. Once home to the largest population of enslaved Black people in the country — and, later, the heart of the Civil Rights movement — the city has been witness to some of the starkest horrors and most impassioned demonstrations of courage and hope in recorded Black history.  

NationSwell’s recent 3-day immersive experience in Montgomery — “A Journey to Justice” — was designed in partnership with Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) with an eye toward the ways being in a place can contribute to a deeper understanding of justice and equity. Witnessing and confronting truths allowed for greater reckoning with the brutality of our past — and allowed us to more deliberately chart the course forward.

By immersing ourselves in truth, our aim with “A Journey to Justice” was to shine a spotlight on our present — and to bring cross-sector leaders together to engage in locally specific, community-centric experiences and conversations that drive toward action.

While difficult to translate, the emotional experience we shared in Montgomery was in turns painful, visceral, sobering, and urgent. We left the city feeling closer to the truth — and to each other — and with a set of clear imperatives that we’ll carry forward with us as we strive to be stewards of narrative and agents of change in the organizations we lead and serve. 

Below is a summary of our immersive experience.

Day One

Guided bus tour of Montgomery

We kicked off our time together with a guided tour of some of the city’s key sites with Stephen from More Than Tours, with an eye toward the role each location played in Montgomery’s Black history. The city’s northeast corner abuts the Alabama River, where our journey began. From the Muscogee Creek tribe’s forcible displacement from the Alabama River basin beginning in the early 17th century and the terror of the trans-Atlantic and domestic slave trades, to the Civil Rights history that is now synonymous with Montgomery itself, each stop on the tour served as an anchor to history — and as a living reminder of the fact that we can never fully sever ourselves from our pasts.

As we made our way across the city, we made stops at Martin Luther King Jr.’s parsonage — the site of an attempted targeted bombing in 1956 following the success of the Montgomery bus boycott that still stands — and subtle monuments to the slave trade, including streets with names like “exchange” or “commerce,” that serve as living references to the city’s slave-owning past. 

Our final stop on the tour was a visit to the More Up Campus, where we learned the stories of Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf — two sisters who were the victims of a federally-funded, forced sterilization campaign in 1973 — and the “Mothers of Gynecology,”  Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey — the enslaved experimental subjects of the so-called “father of gynecology,” J. Marion Sims — who are memorialized by stunning 15-foot metal monuments.

Day Two

Legacy Museum visit

Located on the site of an old cotton mill, the Legacy Museum was founded and opened by EJI in 2018. Its layout is designed sequentially: The first thing visitors hear are the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean before making their way through sections dedicated to slave auctions, the Reconstruction era, terror lynchings and the horrors of Jim Crow, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Era, and the echoes of slavery that can be heard today in the American legal systems and mass incarceration. 

Although we had three hours to experience the museum, the overwhelming consensus among attendees was that we could have spent days working our way through all of the rooms and material. In addition to historical and text-based exhibits, the museum also features first-person historical accounts, interactive content, small theaters playing short films, and stunning art installations designed by Black creators.

Every piece of the Museum was thoughtfully, lovingly, and intentionally curated and produced to honor and tell the stories of African Americans that were stolen, lost, separated, brutalized, and killed. By design, the Museum does not allow photos and videos throughout the experience so that every visitor can go on a full journey of truth.

National Memorial for Peace and Justice and conversation with Bryan Stevenson

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is the first memorial in the U.S. dedicated to the victims of racial terror lynchings. A visceral example of how art and place can honor the gravity of history, the memorial is comprised of more than 800 steel blocks — one for each county where a racial terror lynching took place — which hang from the ceiling at increasing heights. 

Situated on 6-acres of lush grass, the memorial is sacred ground that pays tribute and rectifies the little that has been done to acknowledge the African American lives lost due to  racial terror killings. The memorial also comprises a more recent effort by EJI — one also deeply grounded in the importance of place — to recover and preserve soil from each known lynching site as a tangible way for communities to connect with, process, and grieve the past. 

Later, we heard from Bryan Stevenson himself, who told us about his experience advocating for the value of human life during his time as an attorney and about the importance of narrative — and of doing the work required to change the narrative. 

Bryan also spoke to us about the three pillars of truth-telling that are necessary in order to create a new era of reparation and repair: Confronting the truth — and not shying away from the real harm that was done; creating the space needed to take action; and holistically assessing what a true vision for repair might look like. In failing to formally acknowledge the sins of our past, Bryan said, we have denied the American people the grace, mercy, and liberation that comes with truth-telling and atonement.

NationSwell Signature Dinner

After a very full and weighty day together, our group reconvened for a NationSwell Signature Dinner, Montgomery edition. Together, we unpacked the moral imperative we were all feeling to bring the things we’d learned and experienced back to our own communities;to continue the work of dismantling harmful narratives and systems of oppression. 

Attendees expressed being particularly struck by the power of proximity to hold space for tragedy and joy at the same time — and discussed what it means to maintain the strength, energy, and lightness required to continue the work of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Day Three

Breakfast at the Bricklayer’s Hall, Hosted by GirlTrek

During the Civil Rights Movement, the Bricklayers Hall in Montgomery served as a key meeting point and headquarters for Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association as they planned actions like the Montgomery Bus Boycott. And in the summer of 2023, GirlTrek signed the deed on the Bricklayer’s Hall, with plans to continue its civil rights legacy in the names of 1.3 million Black women across the country. 

A sturdy building made from bricks laid by the Black members of the Bricklayer’s Union, the space has been remarkably preserved and has remained largely unchanged over the last 60 years. A metal fan in the corner of the room still stands in the same place where Dr. King was photographed speaking to community members; a chess board sits on a side table, adorned with old soda bottle caps that could double as makeshift pieces.

Martha Hawkins, who cites the cooking and radical activism of former-MLK, Jr. associate Georgia Gilmore as being among the inspirations for her own restaurant, Martha’s Place, provided breakfast for us on our final day. Over biscuits and grits, members came together to share action-oriented reflections. We discussed several potential avenues for collaboration moving forward, and NationSwell pledged to keep our group connected and close so that we can continue to build on the power of place-based action and the diverse experiences and expertise of the leaders who were in the room with us.

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