Jubilant Circle

According to a June 2021 McKinsey report an estimated 19% of Black American families, roughly 3.5 million households, have a negative net worth. An additional 4.3 million Black households have a net worth of less than $10,000. The researchers also found that the Black-White wealth gap exists at every tier of income, affecting the ability to invest and manage debt. For example, though White households below the 30th percentile in wealth are struggling compared to their White peers, they still have 40 times more wealth than similarly situated Black households.

After the racial justice uprisings in the summer of 2020, there was an increased public awareness of issues of racial inequality, including the racial wealth gap. Over the past couple years billions of dollars have been committed to advance popular approaches to closing the racial wealth divide including promotion of:  Black homeownership through increased mortgage lending, Black business ownership through increased small business lending, and more financial literacy.  The challenge with these solutions is that they often require Black folks to take on more debt, they do not address limited wages or lack of generational wealth, and there is little to no infusion of non-dilutive capital into these households or communities. 

Currently, there is no approach to closing the racial wealth gap that centers debt elimination and direct asset transfers to Black households. Nor is there an approach that centers generational wealth transfer as the foundation for wealth accumulation and thus essential to closing the racial wealth gap.

In September 2020 the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System published a report called, "Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances." In that report the researchers write: 

“By some estimates bequests and transfers account for at least half of aggregate wealth (Gale and Scholz 1994), have recently averaged 3 percent of total household disposable personal income (Feiveson and Sabelhaus 2018), and account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other demographic or socioeconomic indicator (Hamilton and Darrity 2010)...

…One reason wealth-holding is relatively high among White families is they are considerably more likely to have received an inheritance or gift. Another reason is White families report other indicators associated with higher levels of family support. For example, nearly 30 percent of White families report having received an inheritance or gift, compared to about 10 percent of Black families, 7 percent of Hispanic families, and 18 percent of other families. Conditional upon receiving an inheritance or gift, White families also tend to receive larger inheritances.”

Nearly 45 million U.S. households will transfer $68.4 trillion in wealth to Gen X and Millennial heirs and charity over the next 25 years. Millennials in particular, are deeply committed to racial justice, but do not have a mechanism to leverage their inheritance towards this effort. If we tap into that generosity and shift $10 trillion toward Black households as gifts over the next 25 years we have a real chance of closing the racial wealth gap. 

Elpida Social Capital will leverage these changing demographics of wealth holders by launching Jubilant Circle - a simple and celebratory way to help close the racial wealth gap through anonymous wealth transfer.  Jubilant will be a platform designed to address both sides of the net worth equation through crowdfunding debt payoff and facilitating asset transfers through gifts.

There will be two main users of the platform: 1) Gift Recipients and 2) Gift Givers.

Gift Recipients are Black folks seeking to grow generational wealth by reducing their debt burden and acquiring assets in an effort to achieve their personal finance goals. Gift Givers are folks with wealth who seek to use their resources to address economic inequality and the racial wealth gap in the U.S.

Gift Recipients will create anonymous profiles on Jubilant Circle that include their liabilities, current and aspirational assets, and financial goals. They will receive asynchronous financial coaching through the platform to support them as they work toward financial wellness. Gift Givers will then be able to browse and search the anonymous profiles and choose a Gift Recipient to help pay down their liabilities and/or transfer assets.

Once the Gift Recipient confirms that they would like to receive the gift, then Elpida facilitates the anonymous gift exchange and supports each party with the necessary receipts to document the transaction on their taxes.

When Jubilant Circle is able to operate at scale it will have a real chance of closing the racial wealth gap. 

Jubilant Circle is for...

Gift Recipients, who:

• U.S. residents

• Age 18 and older

• Identify as Black and/or African American

• Has a net worth less than the average White household in the U.S. (less than $187,300)

• Actively working toward their financial goals and seeking support from community

Low-wealth Black households in the U.S. are often given generic personal finance advice that is not culturally competent and does not take into consideration system causes of wealth inequality. These budgeting and financial coaching apps and platforms advise folks to spend less and save more but offer little help if the user is saving as much as they can, working multiple jobs, and still unable to make ends meet.

Gift Giver, who:

• U.S. residents

• Age 18 and older

• Has a net worth greater than the average White household in the U.S. (greater than $187,300)

• Committed to closing the racial wealth gap in the U.S. through direct wealth transfer

Over the next 25 years nearly 45 million U.S. households will transfer a total of $68.4 trillion in wealth to Gen X and Millennial heirs and charity. Millennials in particular, are deeply committed to racial justice, but do not have a mechanism to use their inheritance to promote racial equity. If we tap into that generosity and mobilize just $10 trillion of that $68.4 trillion toward Black households as gifts over the next 25 years we can close the racial wealth gap.

As a grantmaker and public health professional I have witnessed first-hand the importance of creating safe, healthy environments where community members can be successful and thrive. For the past ten years I have pursued community-based solutions to public health problems. What drew me to this work was the opportunity to catalyze local solutions that improved the health of whole communities. 

Over time I began to recognize how closely social determinants of health were linked to the presence or lack of financial investments in communities. This led me to start working in philanthropy in order to shift capital to historically disinvested communities. I began at a community foundation, and helped to distribute $4.5 million in cash payments to over 18,000 individuals in the early months of the pandemic. I then transitioned to co-managing grantmaking for a donor collaborative that makes strategic and complex grants to help grow the impact investing field. Most recently, I managed the grant rounds for a private foundation where we awarded over $5 million to organizations around the world working to advance economic justice and preserve democracy.

In 2021 I launched the Black Student Debt Freedom (BSDF) Fund through my company Elpida Social Capital to pay down the student loan debt of Black graduates in an effort to help close the racial wealth gap. Over the course of last year we were able to pay off a total of $25,000 of student loan debt for two gift recipients who also received one year of free financial coaching through Elpida and have each committed to contributing $1,200 back into BSDF Fund for future gift recipients. We're really proud of this work but there is much more to do. The racial wealth gap still persists and student loan debt is a significant contributing factor. 

Now I am working to transition BSDF Fund into Jubilant Circle, an anonymous wealth transfer platform designed to close the immense racial wealth gap in the U.S. 

I am working on building a prototype.

Jubilant Circle is still being developed but is intended for Black folks with low to negative net worth. According to a 2021 McKinsey report 19% of Black American families, roughly 3.5 million households, have a negative net worth.

Just over one hundred years ago my great great grandmother, Mary E. Jones Parrish, fled north Tulsa’s Greenwood district with her young daughter as a violent mob of White men and women burned her community to the ground in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Mary wrote a book detailing hers and other survivors' experiences called, “The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921,” where she was one of the first to coin the term Negro Wall Street (or Black Wall Street) in fond memory and reference to Greenwood prior to the massacre. According to the Brookings Institution, “Greenwood residents would go on to file over $1.8 million dollars in damage claims; in today’s dollars, this would be over $27 million.”

We need a mechanism that will continuously redistribute wealth back into Black communities, not with violence or theft, but with intentionally and great care. A FinTech platform like Jubilant Circle will do just that.

After the racial justice uprisings in the summer of 2020, there was an increased public awareness of issues of racial inequality, including the racial wealth gap. Over the past couple years billions of dollars have been committed to advance popular approaches to closing the racial wealth divide including promotion of:  Black homeownership through increased mortgage lending and Black business ownership through increased small business lending.  The challenge with these solutions is that they often require Black folks to take on more debt, the lack of generational wealth, and there is little to no infusion of non-dilutive capital into these households or communities. 

Currently, there is no approach like Jubilant Circle closing the racial wealth gap that centers debt elimination and direct asset transfers to Black households. Nor is there an approach that centers generational wealth transfer as the foundation for wealth accumulation and thus essential to closing the racial wealth gap.

Year 1 Goals:

• Onboard at least 25  Gift Recipients and at least 10 Gift Givers
• Pay off and transfer at least $100,000 in debt and assets respectively

Year 5 Goal:

• Onboard at least 500,000 Gift Recipients and at least 50,000 Gift Givers
• Pay off and transfer at least $100M in debt and assets respectively

Closing the Black-White wealth gap in the United States, or the increased net worth of Black of African-Americans in the U.S.

The provision of a mechanism to anonymously pay off debt and transfer assets to Black folks in the U.S. will improve Black net worth and help close the racial wealth gap in the U.S.

We will use an online platform similar to GoFundMe or RIP Medical Debt.

The Jubilant Circle platform is being created by and for those who identify as Black/African-American who are working toward achieving their financial goals.

**Jubilant Gift Recipients**

The platform is free of charge for Jubilant Gift Recipients, however gift recipients will be required to complete the virtual financial coaching and update on progress toward financial goals to keep their profile activated.

**Jubilant Gift Givers**

Paying Down Liabilities

* Monthly membership is $250, to access the anonymous gift recipient profiles on the platform. Special enterprise packages for financial advisors and estate planning firms.

* All one-time contributions directed to specific gift recipients are charged a 4% administrative fee to help offset the cost of administering  platform.

Transferring Assets

* For asset transfers the Jubilant Gift Givers will be charged per hour to process the transaction at the rate of $175.

Ultimately, I hope to leverage the trend of nearly 45 million U.S. households transferring a total of $68.4 trillion in wealth to Gen X and Millennial heirs and charity over the course of the next 25 years. Millennials in particular, are deeply committed to racial justice, but do not have a mechanism to use their inheritance to promote racial equity. If we tap into that generosity and mobilize just $10 trillion of that $68.4 trillion toward Black households as gifts over the next 25 years we can close the racial wealth gap.

In 2021 my company Elpida Social Capital launched the Black Student Debt Freedom (BSDF) Fund to pay down the student loan debt of Black graduates.  I mobilized my network to raise and pay off $25K of student loan debt for two gift recipients. I also offered one year of free financial coaching for each gift recipient through Elpida. 

In 2021, I was also selected for a six-week, community-focused program for early-stage ventures tackling economic inequality in the U.S with Uncharted’s (now part of Common Future) “Economic Inequality Co-Lab.” The cohort was selected from the pool of 344 applicants from the Economic Inequality Initiative in an effort to democratize access to Uncharted’s proprietary curriculum, interactive workshops, and peer support community.

In 2022 PayPal awarded me with the Maggie Lena Walker Emerging Leader Award. This recognition came with a $20,000 gift and communications and marketing support.