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Invited guests attend the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative event on Nov. 1 at Johnson C. Smith University. (Photo: Sarafina Wright, QCity Metro)

Charlotte’s corporate and philanthropic leaders launch $250 million initiative to promote racial equity

By Sarafina Wright, QCity Metro
The initiative, the brainchild of Mayor Vi Lyles, seeks to boost economic opportunities for the city’s Black and Brown residents — two groups historically marginalized.

Some of Charlotte’s biggest corporations and philanthropic groups have launched a $250 million initiative to address some of the social and economic disparities caused by centuries of American racism.

So far, donors have pledged a combined $196 million to support that effort, announced Monday as the newly created Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative.

Donors include large banks, healthcare companies and the region’s supplier of electricity. But the list of givers also includes private foundations, the library system and the city of Charlotte.

Mayor Vi Lyles, speaking at a kick-off event at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), called it “a defining moment” in the city’s history.

Donors said the money will be spent to address four broad categories, or “workstreams”:

  • bridging the digital divide
  • investing in Charlotte’s six “corridors of opportunity”
  • transforming JCSU into a top-10 historically Black college
  • and ensuring corporations commit to equity by advancing Black and Brown workers to executive levels.

“The issues we face as a community are bigger, broader, and more deep-seated than any one organization can address alone,” Lyles said. “The response from our corporate partners surpassed even what I could have expected, and we have set a new standard for an American city.”

Roots of an initiative

Lyles said the initiative stemmed from an idea she formed in the summer of 2020, when protests erupted in cities across America, including in Charlotte, following the murder of George Floyd by an-duty police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota — an event that forced the nation to re-examine its history of racism.

The mayor approached local business leaders, including Malcomb Coley of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, to form a corporate response team to address historical inequities and boost economic opportunities for Black and Brown residents in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

Eighteen months and several strategy sessions later, the mayor’s initiative was born.

As outlined Monday, each of the four workstreams will have a business plan with a budget and metrics to measure success. Two governance boards will provide oversight and accountability for the funds.

Coley, who is Charlotte managing partner of EY (formerly Ernst & Young), and Janet LaBar, president and CEO of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, will oversee the workstreams.

Foundation For The Carolinas will lead fundraising efforts and administer the financial pledges.

Why it matters

The initiative comes at a time when governments and corporations alike are increasingly looking for ways to address racial inequalities caused by discriminatory policies and practices.

In Charlotte, as in other cities, Black and Brown residents struggle disproportionately to find affordable housing, employment and access to health care — all of which lead to social, economic and health disparities.

A 2014, a prominent study that examined economic mobility in America ranked Charlotte last among the nation’s 50 largest cities, with Mecklenburg ranked 99th out of 100 counties.

To address those and other challenges, the city of Charlotte in 2020 launched a Corridors of Opportunity initiative, a multi-year effort to reverse decades of civic neglect in six predominantly Black communities where crime and poverty are stubbornly high.

The City Council so far has voted to spend $38.5 million to make improvements along the six corridors.

In an interview with QCity Metro last week, Lyles said those allocated funds aren’t enough to overturn decades of underinvestment.

On Monday, as part of the mayor’s initiative, City Manager Marcus Jones announced an additional $62 million in taxpayer funds that will be devoted to addressing problems along the six corridors.

Lyles said government alone can’t solve Charlotte’s social and economic challenges. And even with the public-private effort announced on Monday, she said, patience will be required .

“It’s not going to be easy to erase generations of what we did, but I hope that people will see that we care,” Lyles said. “This is the beginning.”

Read more at QCity Metro

The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative is supported by the Local Media Project, an initiative launched by the Solutions Journalism Network with support from the Knight Foundation to strengthen and reinvigorate local media ecosystems.

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About The Project

Solutions Journalism Network launched the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative in 2019, a partnership of six major media companies and other local institutions focusing on issues of major importance to the Charlotte region. The collaborative is supported by $150,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as part of its $300 million commitment to rebuild the future of local journalism, essential to a functioning democracy.

The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative (CJC) is modeled on the Solutions Journalism Network method of investigating and reporting news with a primary focus on solutions to community problems. “At a time when local journalism jobs are disappearing and trust in media has hit an all-time low, the Solutions Journalism Network has taken on the challenge by organizing collaborative journalism reporting projects that promote excellent reporting and civic dialogue. the model has the potential to be part of a new wave of great local reporting, which is vital to building strong communities,” said Karen Rundlet, Knight Foundation director for journalism.

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