Racism and oppression are foundational building blocks of today’s society. And unfortunately, the vestiges of colonialism, slavery, segregation, and other forms of institutional racism continue to widen existing disparities.
Even though it is happening 160 years too late, America is finally engaging in meaningful conversation on how to provide reparations to Black American descendants of slavery. But most of the conversations are focus on cash payments or broad-based infrastructure investments. While cash payments yield positive benefits in the near-term, those benefits are usually short-lived because when the money dries up, so does the impact. And general infrastructure investments are helpful for supporting the community at large, yet they don’t yield direct benefits to individual community members.
But what if we designed and invested in solutions that were intentionally designed to deliver direct and sustained value (Black wealth) as part of our reparations strategy? Solutions that focus on creating ownership and build equity in the Black community will continue delivering increased value long after initial catalytic investments are made. Several investors, entrepreneurs, and government leaders are designing and testing solutions that leverage capital markets, private partnerships, technology innovation, and business model innovation to create business ownership opportunities at scale.
In this workshop we will explore different models being implemented to deliver market-based solutions for inclusive ownership and equity participation as a way to repair harms caused by America’s racist past. After initial panel discussion, participants will divide into groups and be facilitated through an exercise that explores ways to design market-driven reparations elements into traditional and emerging business models.
