ImpactAlpha, May 6 — RSF Social Finance has launched the Racial Justice Collaborative, a vehicle that aims to provide debt, equity and grant funding, as well as technical support, to U.S.-based social organizations led and owned by Black, Indigenous and people of color founders.
The collaborative is supporting Oakland’s East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative to break ground on a mixed-use complex that includes a community cultural arts center for Black artists, housing and retail for Black businesses (see, “Reviving a Black cultural corridor in West Oakland – as a community-led cooperative”). RSF has raised $350,000 from The Schmidt Family Foundation toward its goal of $5 million.
Catalytic capital
The collaborative also is supporting the nonprofit Downtown Crenshaw Rising, which is leading a community project to redevelop a Los Angeles mall; Higher Purpose Co. in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which is building a hub for Black entrepreneurs, farmers and artists in the Mississippi Delta; and the CA BIPOC Farmer & Land Steward Relief Fund Collaborative, to create a foundation for resilient local economies and food systems.
Agents of Impact
Advisors to the Racial Justice Collaborative include Kataly Foundation’s Nwamaka Agbo, Chordata Capital’s Kate Poole and Tiffany Brown, and Rodney Foxworth of Common Future (listen in to The Reconstruction podcast, “Rodney Foxworth on reparative investing for shared power in a common future”).
