Our Approach
Kindred Futures activates shared prosperity for Black people through impactful solutions, movement building and catalytic capital. Our work is grounded in community, committed to actionable strategies, and leads with solutions. We represent a broader ecosystem of organizers, scholars, practitioners, investors, and civic leaders.
Our Race Explicit Work is NOT Race Exclusive
Kindred Futures is focused on building Black wealth. Our work is birthed out of justice and love. Centuries of systemic racism and economic exclusion made Black bodies collateral to create an economic system. Today, our current economic system is still based on a racial hierarchy. More than 100 years later, Black wealth rivals, Jim Crow outcomes, and Black households’ net worth is predicted to be zero or negative by 2053. This is already deeply pronounced in the American South with two million Black households with zero or negative net worth today. The reality is wealth begets wealth so that the wealth divide will widen without a targeted approach.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently released Wealth Inequality data, and the findings are quite clear, while Black wealth grew by 66% since 2019, the Black-White Median Wealth Gap has soared to $242,000, accounting for the largest dollar gaps since the data set began.
Why Black Wealth Matters
Since 2018, Kindred Futures has led with solutions, built with community, and invested with partners to elevate community wealth-building principles to build collective Black wealth. We are very clear that our commitment to building Black wealth is to advance freedom. In a country that has created an economic system that demands a racial hierarchy, Black people continue to bear the burden of systemic racism. At Kindred Futures, Black wealth means freedom.
At Kindred, we understand that wealth is not just money in your account or assets in your family’s name. We understand that wealth means having the power to determine your reality – to have freedom. The reality is we need to redefine what wealth means for Black people in this country. The Structural Determinants of Black Wealth Framework provides an interdisciplinary analysis of understanding wealth along four core domains: finance, health, environment and democracy. We understand that each of these domains interact in a dynamic way to create, protect and sustain wealth.
We also fundamentally need to interrogate our North Star. We do not want to replicate harm. We know that centuries of systemic racism, oppression and extraction created this racial wealth divide. We also know it is important to center our work on collectivism, it is important to move the mean. We need targeted and substantial investments to bolster Black wealth. While we celebrate the success stories of outliers, we also know there is a deep need to bolster community Black wealth and move beyond rugged individualism. We commit to the Talented 90th Campaign to transcend Black exceptionalism. It’s time to reimagine bold investments that allow more Black people to produce, own, and thrive in our economies and democracies.
Our work calls us to marry courage with impact. Will you join us? Donate today to realize the vision of shared prosperity!