African American Alliance of CDFI CEOs

The Alliance supports and empowers Black CDFI CEO members to lead and grow their institutional operations, teams, and social impact.

Center for Cooperative Development and Solidarity - CCDS

The Cooperative Center for Development and Solidarity—CCDS—is a non-profit organization that helps build and create worker-owned cooperatives by empowering immigrant and women residents to take control of their lives.

Change Labs

Change Labs is a Native-led organization providing workspace, tools, and resources for Indigenous entrepreneurs, including a new initiative to deploy capital to Navajo startup and growth companies.

The Community Empowerment Fund

Community Empowerment Fund is working to end the racial wealth gap by supporting over 3,000 Members annually, in reaching their employment, housing, and finance goals in Durham and Orange Counties, North Carolina. Their approach combines person-centered support with advocacy and financial services that pursue equity.

COOK Alliance

The COOK Alliance has led the charge to pass the country’s first law allowing people to sell cooked meals from their homes, creating an innovative form of culinary entrepreneurship accessible to all, and particularly empowering for homemakers, caretakers, women, people of color, and immigrants.

Hozhonigo Institute

The Hozhonigo Institute is working to create a world where all Native women have access to the workforce and entrepreneurship.They seek to remove barriers through their community driven programs that will provide Native women with training and skills that can provide economic security for the long term.

Miren

For financial institutions , serving the bottom 40% of Americans is a regulatory requirement and a difficult necessity. To meet these requirements, financial institutions use Miren to monitor their investments in low to moderate income communities for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and CDFI Fund re-certification exams. Miren's mission is to facilitate the flow of capital into underserved communities through products like home mortgages, small business loans, and affordable housing development.

National Black Food & Justice Alliance

Donate Active PROGRAM Accelerator Supporting organizations who are developing models to close the racial wealth gap by removing social, financial, and political barriers. Through our three-month long accelerator program, Common Future invests in a cohort of 10 BIPOC women- and non-binary-led organizations that are actively working to dismantle economic inequality by giving power back to communities left out of prosperity. We believe in an economy in which power is accessible to all, no matter their race and class. That’s why the Common Future Accelerator—2024 Cohort supports organizations developing models to close the racial wealth gap by removing social, financial, and political barriers that stand in the way of transformative change. Organizations chosen to participate in the Common Future Accelerator receive: $50K IN UNRESTRICTED GRANTS AN ECOSYSTEM OF SUPPORT PEER TO PEER COMMUNITY TOP OF ITS CLASS PERSONAL COACHING WORLD-CLASS MENTORSHIP FOR GROWTH See the Full 2024 Program Offerings “The shift in me personally has been amazing and I am now walking in my purpose and bringing my whole self to this work. Thank you for making me feel like I can do it!” Nikoa Milton, Co-founder of Level If your organization is committed closing the racial wealth gap in your community, you can express interest in future Accelerator cohorts by sending us a note. Contact In October 2022, we announced that we were offering up $500,000 in unrestricted grants to 10 BIPOC-led organizations through our Accelerator program—a first for Common Future. After receiving over 264 applications from across the country, and a rigorous 10-week selection process, we found 10 organizations led by BIPOC women who we believe will change our economic systems and help close our country’s racial wealth gap. Past Participants AFRICAN AMERICAN ALLIANCE OF CDFI CEOS Orlando, Florida Black-led CDFIs (Community Development Financial Institutions) face challenges similar to those they serve in growing their asset bases so that they can provide sufficient capital and services to their BIPOC markets. The Alliance supports and empowers Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) CEOs to lead and grow their institutional operations and social impact toward eliminating racial economic injustice through its programs and services—including the Black Renaissance Fund, which can raise, grant and lend capital to its members. Participants: Amber Bond, Executive VP & COO / BRF Director and Janice Dsouza, Vice President of Marketing and Communications www.aaacdfi.org CENTER FOR COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND SOLIDARITY - CCDS East Boston, Massachusetts East Boston is one of the city’s fastest gentrifying neighborhoods. Yet, the pre-pandemic poverty rate was as high as 19%, with undocumented and English-limited immigrants experiencing greater discrimination. The Cooperative Center for Development and Solidarity - CCDS is a non-profit organization that helps build and create worker-owned cooperatives by empowering immigrant and women residents to take control of their lives. Participants: Luz Zambrano, General Coordinator www.ccdseastboston.org CHANGE LABS Tuba City, Arizona For Native American entrepreneurs doing business on sovereign Native land, there are significant barriers to obtaining capital due to the lack of local financial institutions, a lack of credit and collateral to prove eligibility, and a lack of investment in entrepreneurship. Change Labs is a Native-led organization providing workspace, tools, and resources for Indigenous entrepreneurs, including a new initiative to deploy capital to Navajo startup and growth companies. Participants: Jessica Stago, Co-Founder and Heather Flamming, Executive Director www.nativestartup.org THE COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT FUND Durham and Orange Counties, North Carolina Homeownership is an important wealth-building tool that can be passed down over generations, and Black families have been systematically discriminated against throughout the home-buying process for generations, preventing them from utilizing this wealth-building tool. Community Empowerment Fund is working to end the racial wealth gap by supporting over 3,000 Members annually, in reaching their employment, housing, and finance goals in Durham and Orange Counties, North Carolina. Their approach combines person-centered support with advocacy and financial services that pursue equity. Participants: Donna Carrington, Executive Director and ari rosenberg, Director of Development and Finance www.communityef.org COOK ALLIANCE San Diego, California Food industry labor—either as unpaid labor, informal business, or underpaid back-of-house staff—has been historically undervalued, and shouldered almost exclusively by low-income women and by people-of-color. The COOK Alliance has led the charge to pass the country’s first law allowing people to sell cooked meals from their homes, creating an innovative form of culinary entrepreneurship accessible to all, and particularly empowering for homemakers, caretakers, women, people of color, and immigrants. Participants: Roya Bagheri, Executive Director cookalliance.org HOZHONIGO INSTITUTE Southern Paiute Land; Las Vegas, Nevada Native women earn $.60 for every dollar earned by white men which will cost them nearly $1M over a 40-year career. According to census data, “close to 27% of Native Americans live in poverty. That's significantly more than the rest of the country, which averages close to 15%.”This community is among the lowest labor force participation (less than 60% in 2018) compared with any other major racial group in the United States, resulting in cycles of generational poverty and poorer health and economic outcomes. The Hozhonigo Institute is working to create a world where all Native women have access to the workforce and entrepreneurship.They seek to remove barriers through their community driven programs that will provide Native women with training and skills that can provide economic security for the long term. Participants: Onawa Haynes, CEO and Founder www.hozhonigo.com MIREN New York, New York For financial institutions , serving the bottom 40% of Americans is a regulatory requirement and a difficult necessity. To meet these requirements, financial institutions use Miren to monitor their investments in low to moderate income communities for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and CDFI Fund re-certification exams. Their mission is to facilitate the flow of capital into underserved communities through products like home mortgages, small business loans, and affordable housing development. Participants: Gabriela Ariana Campoverde, Founder and CEO www.getmiren.com NATIONAL BLACK FOOD & JUSTICE ALLIANCE Atlanta, Georgia A long history of racial discrimination and extractive lending practices has resulted in land loss and limited access to land for Black people. Since 1910, Black-owned land acreage decreased from 16 Million acres to just 4.7 Million with the total loss over the past 100 years estimated to be worth approximately $326 Billion. Through the work of the Resource Commons, the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, a coalition of Black-led food justice organizations and farmers working collectively towards Black food sovereignty and land justice, is providing land and non-extractive capital to Black farmers. Through the work of the Resource Commons, the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, a coalition of Black-led food justice organizations and farmers working collectively towards Black food sovereignty and land justice, is providing land and non-extractive capital to Black farmers.

SEED—Sustainable Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development

There are some 23 Million underserved urban farmers of color in the U.S., and that number includes 72,000 smallholders on plots 3.5 to five acres. They don’t have access to the same equipment, nor encouragement, to undertake climate-smart practices that large, commercial farms do—and they’re losing financial ground and resilience to climate change. SEED has developed a handheld soil carbon sensor, a first-of-its-kind for urban and underserved smallholder farmers to democratize access to climate-smart Innovation and the carbon credit market.

The Tender Foundation

In Georgia, Black women earn only $0.63 on the dollar to white men, and children born into poverty in ATL only have a four percent chance of making it out of poverty. Tender Foundation is providing a safety net for single mamas living on the margins in Atlanta by providing $500 a month through a re-imagined Universal Basic Income model.