In its 18 months of existence, Project 10X, LISC’s high-octane initiative to help close racial wealth and opportunity gaps and invest in the wellbeing of Black people and communities, has already raised $663 million, more than 60 percent of its total 10-year goal of $1 billion. The money is being deployed in a range of innovative ways, and its impact is taking shape.
Toward the end of 2020—a year convulsed by pandemic, recession, and the police murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans, all of which vividly highlighted the consequences of structural racism—LISC announced a moonshot initiative. Its Project 10X proposed to raise $1 billion over ten years and invest it for racial equity, to upend the racial disparities in wealth, health, and opportunity that have warped American life for far too long.
Corporations, individuals, and foundations responded by pouring an astounding $663 million into 10X—in 2021 alone.
“Our partners are as committed as we are to catalyzing a leap forward in racial justice,” says LISC CEO Lisa Glover. “The way to accomplish that is by investing directly, robustly, and immediately in BIPOC lives, livelihoods, and communities. We can push back in all the areas where people of color have been systemically disadvantaged, whether that’s homeownership or mass incarceration. And that’s exactly what we intend to do.”
Project 10X is the most ambitious in LISC’s 40-year history. It involves the whole organization at every level, including national and local programs across both urban and rural geographies, and deploys LISC’s entire toolkit of strategies as a community development intermediary and financial institution, from training and mentoring developers and contractors of color (underway in ten cities including New York) to creating special-purpose funds like the Twin Cities’ Community Asset Transition Fund, which is acquiring sites in historic cultural districts to preserve BIPOC ownership of commercial and residential real estate there.
Building lasting wealth
The 10X project takes its name from a grim statistic: White families on average have a net worth that’s at least ten times that of Black families. A leading goal of 10X is to grease the wheels of capital provision to the underserved, allowing people of color to build the kind of equity and intergenerational wealth that affords security and unleashes entrepreneurship.
LISC’s newly launched Black Economic Development Fund (BEDF), already capitalized at $250 million, is a case in point. BEDF offers bridge financing to Black-led businesses to fulfill contracts for goods or services; lending to Black real estate developers to cover pre-development, site acquisition, and construction costs; and deposits, co-lending, and other partnerships with Black-led banks and credit unions to boost their liquidity and grow their portfolios and loan amounts.
In Washington, DC, for example, the Menkiti Group, a Black-owned developer, used an $8 million BEDF bridge loan to advance construction of MLK Gateway, a mixed-use commercial development in Anacostia, a historically Black and disinvested neighborhood that’s now facing gentrification and displacement pressure. Menkiti has prioritized hiring contractors and workers of color. An anchor tenant of Gateway is the African-American-owned cybersecurity firm Enlightened Inc., which is launching an incubator space to promote careers in the lucrative tech space for local people.
“These projects set off a chain of events, first by growing businesses that have diverse head-counts, next by indirectly supporting diverse subcontractors, and finally by benefiting underserved communities” says George Ashton, president of LISC Fund Management.
Owning and building equity in a home is another key source of intergenerational wealth for American families, an opportunity denied many BIPOC people as evidenced by a persistent, significant gap in homeownership rates. LISC’s 10X solution includes programs that combines low- and zero-interest loans to help homeowners maintain their dwellings, coupled with scaled-up counseling and legal services to help them avoid foreclosure, avail themselves of mortgage refinancing and other benefits, and pass their valuable asset to heirs.
Fostering economic mobility
Project 10X is also deploying capital to help individuals get ahead at work and improve their household balance sheets. LISC’s nationwide network of Financial Opportunity Center® (FOC) and Bridges to Career Opportunities partners provide financial coaching, help accessing public benefits, and job training along specific career pathways that pay a living wage. Many of these centers are redoubling efforts to link people of color with employment in growth industries where they’re underrepresented. In the Roxbury section of Boston, for instance, an FOC is preparing people of color to enter high-paying “green” jobs weatherizing buildings.
Supporting community health and resiliency
Project 10X is bolstering local nonprofits that support self-care and healthy behaviors in communities where pandemic stress has taken a toll and where the incidence of diabetes, asthma, and other chronic conditions has been consistently high. It’s also supporting greening, access to healthy food, and opportunities for outdoor recreation in low-wealth BIPOC communities.
Child care is one of the most challenging areas where 10X seeks to make a difference. The sector is powered by women of color, as business owners and workers. At the same time child-care deserts in BIPOC communities leave mothers especially with an impossible choice between earning and caring.
Under the banner of 10X, LISC is working with partners to design an array of grants and flexible low-cost loans to enable BIPOC child-care operators to reopen on sound footing, develop new facilities, and provide both good jobs and quality care in underserved communities.
Upholding safety and justice
It’s no secret that the criminal justice system arrests and incarcerates Black and Brown people at disproportionate rates, punishing families and destabilizing their communities. BIPOC people are also at heightened risk of victimization in the racially segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods where violence concentrates.
LISC’s approach to this complex problem centers on supporting community-based alliances that study local crime and devise strategies to tackle root causes. These collaboratives include local residents, advocates, service providers, research specialists, police, and other municipal agencies, emphasizing respect for different kinds of expertise.
Also part of 10X, LISC is promoting grassroots community violence intervention, responses to 911 calls that incorporate mental-health clinicians, reduced reliance on suspension and expulsion in schools, and diversion from incarceration. In Los Angeles, for example, LISC is supporting a major diversion effort with a capacity-building academy for nonprofits, the majority of which are BIPOC-led, that readies them to be part of an alternative social-service infrastructure.
With $121.3 million in 10X funds deployed in 2021, communities are beginning to feel the impact, and LISC is on track with its goal to raise and deploy $1 billion in 10 years.
“There’s much more to come,” says LISC president Denise Scott, “Project 10X is about turning our focus squarely on the race-based inequities that, apart from being wrong, undermine our democracy and limit our economy. Funders have shown they’re more than ready to come aboard on that effort. We’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”
Learn more at lisc.org/project10x