The chief focus of Project 10X is the immense disparity faced by the Black community in particular; the project stems from the 10-fold difference in wealth between Black and white households. We do this by focusing on four program lanes:
Generating enduring wealth and equity
America’s racial gaps are at widest when it comes to wealth and equity.
The median wealth of the average white family is 10X than that of the average Black family.
White families are 1.7 times more likely to own their home than Black families.
White entrepreneurs have 8 times more equity in their businesses than Black entrepreneurs.
Our programs and initiatives to address these areas tackle the root causes of inequality. They aim to build intergenerational wealth, promote homeownership, increase business equity for Black entrepreneurs and help ready people to take on quality, family-supporting jobs in growth industries.
LISC’s Black Economic Development Fund (BEDF) is seeding prosperity by providing capital to Black-led businesses, real estate developers, and anchor institutions, and by partnering with Black-led banks and credit unions to boost their liquidity and grow their portfolios.
In places like Jacksonville, FL, LISC is disrupting discriminatory patterns in housing like redlining and under-appraisal of Black-owned homes by providing stepped-up counseling and legal services, along with affordable home repair, so families of color can build equity in their homes and pass that legacy to heirs.
And in New York and other cities LISC is training and mentoring developers of color, part of an effort to nourish a BIPOC-led ecosystem for community development and affordable housing construction.
Strengthening opportunities for economic mobility
Too many people of color are stuck in grueling low-wage work, unable to save for emergencies much less put away money for a home or college education.
White people are 1.6 times more likely than Black people to have a high-quality job.*
Black individuals are 1.8 times more likely than white people to be unemployed.
LISC aims to cultivate the conditions for people of color to overcome systemic barriers and get ahead, especially by connecting them with quality, family-supporting jobs.
LISC’s network of more than 120 Financial Opportunity Center® (FOC) sites and 40 Bridges to Career Opportunities programs provide one-on-one financial coaching, help accessing public benefits, and job counseling and training along specific career pathways. These programs build a ladder to homeownership through a LISC-matched savings and credit-building tool and prepare people of color for high-paying jobs in growth industries (“green” jobs in Boston, for example) where they’ve been underrepresented. More than half of FOC participants are women of color.
Improving community health and resilience
People thrive in healthy environments that support an array of essential needs—and right now, access to those environments is grossly inequitable.
Black people are 1.8 times more likely than whites to be evicted.
Black parents are twice as likely as whites to lose a job due to lack of child care.
Black people in the U.S., on average, die six years earlier than white people.
LISC’s 10X project takes a comprehensive approach. It’s bolstering local nonprofits that support self-care and healthy behaviors in BIPOC communities where incidence of diabetes, asthma, and other chronic conditions has been consistently high. It also supports greening, access to healthy food, and opportunities for outdoor recreation in low-wealth BIPOC communities.
LISC and its partners are working to build infrastructure for healthy living by, for example, designing an array of grants and loans to help BIPOC women child-care providers establish and expand their businesses, and financing the development of accessible health clinics in underserved areas.
Reimagining community safety
It’s no secret the criminal justice system polices and punishes Black and Brown people disproportionately. BIPOC people are also at heightened risk of victimization in the racially segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods where gun violence concentrates.
Black people are 5 times more likely than Whites to be incarcerated.
Black Americans are 10X more likely than White Americans to die by gun homicide.
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. And they emphasize respect for different kinds of expertise.
LISC also supports and promotes 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, many of which are BIPOC-led, that readies them to be part of an alternative social-service infrastructure.
*As defined by the U.S. Private Sector Job Quality Index.