About the Campaign
Some say the racial wealth gap is too big to solve; we believe it’s too urgent to be ignored. And we’re taking action. The Together, We Prosper campaign aims to raise $75 million to make our vision of economic justice a reality for families in our region. The multi-year campaign will fund two priorities. By increasing opportunities for how Black, Brown, and other people of color generate, sustain, and share wealth, we will create a community where all individuals, families, and neighborhoods thrive and have an equal chance to prosper—where we all prosper together.
Close the Racial Wealth Gap
With your support, we will put powerful economic strategies to work in the parts of our community experiencing the deepest disparities in homeownership and income.
-
This financial instrument provides young children with savings accounts that they can redeem at graduation to pay for higher education, purchase a home, start a business, or take other steps toward securing their future. Researchers for the Annie E. Casey Foundation found, through economic modeling, that children’s trust accounts with an initial deposit of $7,500 could reduce the racial wealth gap in a community by as much as 28%. LEARN MORE.
-
Both our recent work and pilots underway around the country have demonstrated that direct cash assistance for a limited period of time is one of the best tools to help low-income earners achieve self-sufficiency. Guaranteed income can enable a person to pay down a debt, move into permanent housing, further their education to secure a better job, or stop working a second job and instead be home for family dinner and homework time. LEARN MORE.
-
The Community Foundation will work to increase opportunities for Black and Brown people to create, influence, control, and benefit from the financial and corporate entities that produce and sustain wealth. This means expanding entrepreneurship, microenterprise, worker and employee ownership, community land trusts, and other shared equity practices.
Endow Greater Washington
As the region’s largest grantmaker, the Greater Washington Community Foundation exists to serve the needs of this community today and into the future. Sustaining that commitment requires that we build endowment: permanent funds to ensure philanthropic resources for generations to come. Through this campaign we aim to increase both the Endowment for The Community Foundation and other endowments that serve a variety of purposes.
-
Providing community leadership that results in bold solutions requires talent, time, and money. The Community Foundation commits a high percentage of resources to our work in the community. We must create a larger endowment to stabilize our operating budget with permanent resources and ensure our ability to respond to the community’s needs for the next 50 years.
-
A crucial component of The Community Foundation’s work is to inspire philanthropy throughout the region we serve through community endowments, permanent and growing sources of grantmaking to support the following purposes:
• Local needs in DC, Montgomery County, Northern Virginia, and Prince George’s County
• Broad areas of interest, including the arts, the environment, LGTBQ+ community, crisis response, and scholarships
-
To complement our campaign priorities, donors may add to any existing endowment at The Community Foundation or create a new endowment for the purpose of their choice through direct gifts or legacy intentions. Nonprofit organizations may establish endowments to remove the burden of administration while ensuring support for decades to come.