Ownership literacy

MetaBronx

Ownership literacy

Blueprint for a new economic development model powered by tech entrepreneurship in the south Bronx

Bronx, NY, USA

United States

Nonprofit

—

If the borough of The Bronx were a city, it would be the 7th largest in the US by population, with the same GDP per capita as Mexico. Directly across the river from the south Bronx is Manhattan, the wealthiest county in the country. The south Bronx is located in the poorest US Congressional District in the United States (NY-15), with 31.2% of its residents, and 39.6% of its children under 18 living in poverty, according to the 2022 American Community Survey. Unbeknownst to many, there is an established system much tougher than the limitations that are physically present in the world that our youth and community members inhabit. That is the system of "virtual redlining", by which longstanding cultural discrimination restricts aspiring entrepreneurs from accessing the financial support, people networks, entrepreneurship programs, and needed advisors required for our communities to invest in solving their own problems by employing their highly resilient abilities. In the south Bronx, the people most qualified to solve problems have the least access to the capital and technical knowledge required to solve them. Data source: https://overflowdata.com/demographic-data/national-data/congressional-districts/cd-poverty-22/

We believe that poverty in the south Bronx (and beyond) can be eliminated by leveraging the problem-solving power of cultural diversity and the true promise of information technology. Entrepreneurship and education are employed to achieve this outcome. MetaBronx is a business development and workforce development organization whose method is to build community-driven innovation ecosystems in places where people do not have access to the resources necessary for investing in their ideas. In the Bronx, the innovation ecosystem is powered by the provision of an integrated entrepreneurship education program to underestimated startup founders and youth. MetaBronx is the leading startup accelerator in New York City for underestimated founders and neurodivergent inventors of technology-based solutions to large-scale problems. Simultaneously, we place youth from underserved and low-income communities as paid pre-apprentices in this environment of innovation, where they learn all the skills required to build their own 21st century economy. So we run Startup Cohorts, we run Youth Cohorts, and we integrate both into each other to achieve both business development and workforce development. MetaBronx is the engine of the Bronx community-driven innovation ecosystem, and 'community-driven' is the operative concept in that statement.

What we've learned from 18 startups raising a total $15mm alongside 1,500+ young adults training for the 21st century workforce, is that despite the strong entrepreneurial spirit that naturally prevails in underresourced communities, finance and legal literacy for asset ownership are the specific areas that ecosystem stakeholders are least knowledgeable in and prepared for. We therefore want to pilot an integrated financial and legal literacy mentorship program to fuel financial empowerment and economic advancement through ownership and wealth building. -- We assemble a multi-generational mix of 50 participants from 3 key ecosystem stakeholder groups: - young adults from low income communities (mostly 14-24 years old) - family members or meaningful adults of the youth - startup founders accepted into MetaBronx Startups Cohorts 1-4 -- By participating in this pilot, - young adults receive career preparation, develop 21st century skills, and learn the fundamentals of personal finance - through the participation of families, the community learns personal finance, financial and legal literacy for ownership - entrepreneurs receive financial and legal literacy training in an integrated program, which no other organization is currently offering