Common Future

This past year exposed the deep failures of our economic and financial systems. Though U.S. GDP is growing, so are rates of inequality, leading economists to describe a K-shaped recovery post-pandemic. The net worth of a typical white family is ~10x greater than that of a Black family and ~8x greater than that of a Hispanic family, a result of the legacies of slavery, racist housing policies, and significant barriers to wealth-building like business and home ownership. Our dual financial system systematically excludes minorities — which the U.S. Census predicts will soon be the new majority. 

We need solutions that will allow us to redress these failures and "build back better" — the Common Future network has them. For 20+ years, we've worked with 200+ leaders who have been innovating around financial inclusion and new ownership models, allowing people of color the opportunity to build wealth within their communities. There has been a palpable shift in the conversation around economic opportunity and racial justice — leadership at top institutions are looking for a new way of doing things. The Elevate Prize would allow Common Future, a POC-led systems leader, to connect and scale these solutions in partnership with major players.

When I was a toddler, my mother would read me the poetry of her favorite author, Langston Hughes, most often reciting “Mother to Son.” In that poem, Hughes says, “Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair."  

Those words rang true for my mother, and also so many like her. My hometown of Baltimore is beset by post-industrialization, systemic anti-black racism, racialized mass incarceration, segregation, economic dislocation, and poverty, as are many communities across the country. 

And unfortunately, my community's situation is only getting worse. Recent research from the St. Louis Fed found that Black millennials continue to fall further and further behind — not just compared with white millennials, but compared with previous generations of Black Americans. From NPR: "Black millennials trail previous generations of Black Americans by 52%. The typical Black millennial has $5,700 less in net worth than counterparts in previous generations.” 

This work is deeply personal to me — it isn't just an intellectual exercise. I've worn many hats throughout my career, working in journalism, philanthropy, investment and non-profit. As an inaugural Ford Foundation Global Fellow, I view it as my responsibility to help build a world that breaks these systems.

For far too long, leaders of color have been sidelined from conversations around their own communities. Across philanthropy, impact investment and government, institutional leadership lacks representation and thus an understanding of the issues that are systemically impacting the communities they wish to serve. 

The Common Future approach is grounded in trust. We make space for communities to lead the change that they wish to see — from developing innovations around micro-lending to running experiments with UBI for entrepreneurs of color. These leaders are able to identify gaps in our capital markets, building solutions that prioritize access and inclusion. 

As an intermediary, our role is to fund, connect, advise, and support local leaders in developing their individual solutions, providing the capital and technical infrastructure that will help them achieve their vision, and advocating for the economic and social policies that will support their bodies of work. 

Throughout all of this work, we’re shifting (1) decision making power and (2) the control of capital. We’re pioneering the development of community-determined M+E metrics via our data collaborative, changing the way investment funds are structured to allow for more input from the end-user, and developing new best practices in participatory grantmaking.

The most unique feature of Common Future is our network of our community leaders, financial inclusion experts, and economic development professionals. Unlike industry groups who champion a solution type or fintech organizations who are working to scale a certain type of delivery service, we seek out leaders who are committed to supporting their communities in ways that (1) share power, (2) prioritize the needs of marginalized communities first and (3) build wealth in predominantly rural, Indigenous, Black, Latino(a), and Asian communities. We come together around a shared vision of equity, power-sharing, and long-term systemic change. 

As an intermediary organization, we provide the scaffolding and resources for existing ideas to take hold. Though our current trajectory indicates significant growth (primarily through an influx of investment capital), we are committed to redistributing ~5x our operating expenses by 2023. 

Additionally, as a bridge building organization, we work between and across a wide variety of sectors, filling critical gaps that we identify in deep partnerships with trusted advisors. Our work connects: (1) economic and racial justice advocates, (2) community members who have “deal flow” and interested investors, and (3) community members who have “expertise” and philanthropic funders, legislatures, and advisory firms.

We focus on measuring three primary outcomes:

1. Capital shifted in public and private markets: Key institutions (corporate, philanthropic, governmental) are reshaped to support ownership in BIPOC, rural, and working class communities, resulting in direct capital channeled  to these projects. In addition to being a direct capital intermediary ourselves (we shifted $5M in 2020 and have the goal of $25M year-over-year by 2023), our advisory services have influenced $280M to date.

2. Build people power by tracking the success and stability of the community organizations that we support: For all of the organizations that we fund and work with via our ecosystem accelerators, fellowship programs, or grants programs, we track both their organizational capacity and their ability to service their communities in ways that are responsive, equitable, and culturally sensitive.

3. Validate alternatives: The solutions being developed within the Common Future network represent an alternative way of financing and supporting marginalized communities. There are a suite of public policies, as well as new norms in investment and philanthropy, that would provide more reliable capital to these solutions. We track public policies and institutional norms that have changed as a result of our work.