Introducing the Racial Economic Equity Fellowship  

Nonprofits that are led by and primarily serve people of color have a harder time getting the funding they need to properly serve their communities. Prosperity Now, with support from Bank of America, sought to understand and address these structural and resource inequities within the nonprofit sector. We led a cohort of nonprofits through a 12-month initiative to build the capacity of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color)-led organizations through leadership development and technical assistance. Participants also had the opportunity to build relationships with other local leaders in the program, increase their shared knowledge of financial capability and position themselves to better advocate for financial programming.  

We turned our attention to two highly diverse cities in the South: Savannah, Georgia and Memphis, Tennessee. After a thorough search of community-serving organizations, we identified participants that had demonstrated success in serving communities of color and shared our goal of addressing the racial wealth divide; StepUp Savannah and Park Place from Savannah, and RISE Memphis, Code Crew, and LIFEline to Success from Memphis.  

With the selected organizations, the Bank of America-funded Racial Economic Equity Fellowship was officially launched! Through a year-long journey, Prosperity Now worked with all the organizations to assess program and goal trajectory, provide communications and marketing support, and refine organizational pitch development. The organizations’ success culminated in roundtable events held in each city to bring together funders and partner nonprofits to discuss effective collaboration.   

Under the Spanish Moss: An Honest Discussion on Funder Collaboration in Savannah 

Coffee in hand and surrounded by leaders from Step Up Savannah, Park Place Outreach, Bank of America and the community, we filled the Savannah Cultural Arts Center auditorium. The commitment to the community from each individual present was palpable, and the buzzing conversations revealed that many participants had a personal stake in Savannah’s economic prosperity.  

The event began with an overview of the racial wealth divide in Savannah, presented by Ebony White, Director of Racial Economic Justice, Justin Chu, and Joelle Hughley, Program Managers at Prosperity Now. Data showed the income poverty rate of Black individuals (22%) is more than double the rate of White individuals (9%). The need for solutions to address the racial wealth divide is immediate.  

But the panel discussion that followed exposed the huge challenge that Savannah nonprofits face in their efforts to improve the economic wellbeing of the community, access to funding. Led by Edward Moody, news anchor from WSAV, panelists Alicia Johnson from Step Up Savannah, Marybeth Dieters from Sapelo Foundation, and Amy Branch-Rapella from Bank of America engaged in a conversation about how effective collaboration between nonprofits and funders in the area can help alleviate the gaps in funding for nonprofits of color in Savannah. With many organizations working to solve the same issues, Alicia Johnson says “there ends up being competition for a single pot of funding, versus asking if these five or six [organizations] can work together to solve this issue.”  

We learned that funders are aware of this issue, but a Bank of America representative reminded us that “it's important [for organizations] to have opportunities for collaboration that aren’t just with a specific funder. It’s important to have a neutral meeting ground where people can really talk through the issues without it feeling like a competition.”  

A key step in addressing this feeling of competition between nonprofits is to ensure effective and beneficial collaboration for all parties. As our Savannah event wrapped up, and the exchanging of business cards slowed down, we noted the success that is bringing leaders from nonprofit organizations of all sizes to the table with funders, allowing us to have conversations about what we all really need to tackle the issues we’re working to solve.  

The Soul of Memphis: Aligning Nonprofit and Funder Collaboration 

The Memphis organizations, Code Crew, RISE Memphis, and Lifeline to Success helped us plan and execute a half-day roundtable at the Ed Rice Community Center in March 2023. At the event we held a discussion about effective non-profit collaboration between local nonprofits and funders of the area. The highlight of the event was a panel discussion with Meka Egwuekwe from Code Crew as a moderator, leading a conversation with Shelia Terell from RISE, Vinessa Brown from LIFEline, and Angela Dixon from Bank of America- Memphis branch. The conversation set the stage for the participants to be able to dig into the nonprofit funding ecosystem in Memphis. We took a look at how funds are distributed in the area and what funders tend to choose, keeping in mind how limited the funding is coming into Memphis and the target client populations these organizations serve.  

In Memphis, we learned of a few challenges that nonprofits face. First, there is a lot of ambiguity with funder priorities, uncovering the need for informational sessions for nonprofits to learn what funder goals and priorities for the year would be and who they are hoping to fund to better position themselves and ensure organizational health. Another challenge was in writing successful grants. The Memphis organizations worked together to identify ways that grant writers can get more experience in researching and writing, and support in finding a mentor. Participants also discussed solutions to larger nonprofit issues such as reformation versus complete transformation of systems, convening funders to gain alignment, and the continued need for nonprofits to work together and maintain open dialogue.  

 “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”- MLK, Jr.  

The Racial Economic Equity Fellowship project showed us that the conversation on effective collaboration between nonprofits and funders is urgent and vital if we are to truly address the racial wealth divide in the U.S. Project participants from both Savannah and Memphis often expressed that they felt behind compared to other major cities in the South, but the reality is that their work to ensure the effectiveness of their services in conjunction with other nonprofits, and building together with funders, is a key steppingstone toward racial equity. We know from previous research that Black and brown-led nonprofits are less likely to receive funds compared to their White counterparts. In order to change the status quo, we must feel comfortable speaking on the reality of the systems that preserve these inequities. Nonprofits that are committed to creating and enhancing services to their clients are the main drivers in this conversation. It’s a long road but we need all sectors working together to close the racial wealth divide.   

About Our Partners 

Step Up Savannah promotes economic inclusion and financial security from Chatham County, by providing workforce development services, building wealth assets, and promoting advocacy and policy. As the main leader of several partnerships and coalitions, StepUp was focused on orienting a BankOn program partnership in Savannah to help consumers that were unbanked and underbanked and were focused on expanding their coalition leadership capacity. 

Park Place Outreach Youth Emergency Shelter provides services to at-risk youth and their families, increase their functional level, and reunify families whenever possible. Park Place Outreach is supported by the City of Savannah and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, making them a well-known service for youth seeking shelter and other essential services. 

RISE Memphis has operated for over 20 years and developed a reputation for being able to reach out successfully to our city’s least able population: residents with low incomes or those who live in public housing. Their work focused on their Save Up program, a signature Individual Development Account (IDA) initiative, that has consistently helped employed Memphis Housing Authority residents and other low-income workers learn how to develop a budget, save money, obtain and maintain good credit, repair credit and save money. 

CodeCrew teaches and trains K-12 students and adults in computer science. In CodeCrew’s seven short years, the organization has grown tremendously to directly impact thousands of kids and adults, while indirectly impacting one million students across our state. They do this through K12 in-school, afterschool, summertime programs and exposure events, as well as an adult coding boot camp, Code School.  

LIFEline to Success is a reentry program in a community called Frayser in Memphis, Tennessee.  
They cater to the felons that many other programs will not support; individuals that may have a low education level, have aggravated charges and may have a mental illness. For the last 12 years, their technique to support cognitive behavior and job training has been a great tool to show clients how to be successful. They aim to build a robust program that would support a community in poverty understanding the importance of saving, investing and how to spend.