FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 
April 23, 2024
Contact: [email protected] 

ATLANTA – The Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) and the Center for Community Progress are receiving $1.7 million from JPMorgan Chase to support equitable development in historically Black neighborhoods in Atlanta.

AWBI was awarded $700,000 over two years to develop a first-of-its-kind, data-informed, brick-and-mortar development and retention strategy for business owners in historically Black neighborhoods throughout Atlanta, like Cascade and the West End, using neighborhood level data and trends. AWBI will focus on filling knowledge gaps regarding the availability of affordable commercial spaces amid rising rents and patterns of business closures. The research will enable decision-makers to create meaningful and equitable change for Black business owners and the communities they serve.

“The preservation of historically Black commercial corridors is an essential strategy to promote shared wealth and prosperity in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods,” said Dr. Alex Camardelle, vice president of Policy and Research at the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative. “Rising commercial rents are having a disproportionate impact on Black businesses and Black neighborhoods in Atlanta, which is leading to business closures and the loss of good-paying jobs. AWBI is committed to using the power of research and advocacy to mitigate that trend and support Black businesses in Atlanta.” 

This new place-based research and data will equip AWBI to co-create and promote policy and practice solutions alongside business-serving partners and their small business owner clients. AWBI will also publish and promote an anti-displacement toolkit and technical assistance for use by leaders in the public and private sectors.  

As a national expert in systemic vacancy and community revitalization, the Center for Community Progress is deploying its two-year, $1 million commitment from JPMorgan Chase to catalyze new development partnerships for affordable housing. The Center for Community Progress will host convenings of developers and local land banks to help facilitate the redevelopment of vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties for affordable housing and develop recommendations for the philanthropy, policy, and financing fields to advance housing affordability, energy efficiency, and climate resilience. The initiative will support diverse, non-profit and mission-driven for-profit property development firms from Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.

“In Atlanta and across the country, community developers are at the heart of successful revitalization,” said Kathleen J. Guillaume-Delemar, President & CEO of the Center for Community Progress. “These small-scale developers have to overcome additional hurdles created by systemic barriers in financing real estate development to build a portfolio of projects. The Center for Community Progress is committed to changing how neighborhood-scale developers of color are connected to land and opportunity to unlock their full potential.”

JPMorgan Chase has made more than $14 million in philanthropic contributions to nonprofits organizations in metro Atlanta over the past four years. In addition, this year alone, the firm supported more than 1,800 small businesses in Georgia with the capital they need to grow and thrive and provided them with more than 77,800 hours of advice and support.

“At JPMorgan Chase, we are committed to helping people and businesses realize their full potential for economic growth and prosperity,” said Suganthi Simon, JPMorgan Chase’s head of Global Philanthropy for Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. “We are proud to support Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative and Center for Community Progress as they work to increase the supply of affordable commercial and residential properties to stabilize Atlanta’s historically Black businesses and neighborhoods. We believe that these investments will help residents and business owners reinvigorate their communities, stay in their neighborhoods and build wealth.”  

To kick off the work, AWBI and Community Progress hosted a community forum bringing together residents, local businesses and other stakeholders, to learn about and discuss displacement and vacancy trends in the impacted communities. The goal of the forum was to increase community awareness of recommendations and solutions to tackle persistent commercial and residential displacement within their neighborhoods. 

 Click here for AWBI Commercial Affordability for Black Businesses in Atlanta Fact Sheet

About Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative: Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) is a catalytic nonprofit that seeks to achieve shared prosperity by building Black wealth through community wealth building strategies. We are a community of investors, advocates, and activists working to transform systems and structures of capital to create opportunities to build Black wealth in Atlanta and across the South. We promote an understanding of community wealth-building strategies to cultivate the engagement, capacity, and leadership necessary to shape a new economic narrative.  

By challenging systemic bias and introducing new systems and structures of capital, AWBI aims to re-engineer and redesign Atlanta’s economic ecosystem such that all sectors, from small businesses to large corporations, to anchor institutions, philanthropy, nonprofits and government, consider day to day how to integrate the economic well-being of our most disenfranchised families and communities into their strategy and operations. 

 

About the Center for Community Progress: The Center for Community Progress helps people to transform vacant spaces into vibrant places. Since 2010, their team of experts has provided urban, suburban, and rural communities battling systemic vacancy with the policies, tools, and resources needed to address the full cycle of property revitalization. As the only national nonprofit dedicated to tackling vacant properties, Community Progress drives change by uncovering and disrupting the unjust, racist systems that perpetuate entrenched vacancy and property deterioration. Community Progress has delivered customized, expert guidance to leaders in over 300 communities and provided hundreds of hours of free educational resources as well as leadership programming to help policymakers, practitioners, and community members across the country return properties to productive use. To learn more and get help for your community, visit communityprogress.org.