The CFE Fund’s CityStart initiative, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, offers local governments a structured approach to identify financial empowerment goals, convene relevant stakeholders for sustainable success, develop actionable strategies, and ultimately craft a blueprint that is rooted in local insights and opportunities – all with a deliberate racial wealth equity lens.
This two-phase action engagement connects critical insights about the impact of financial instability on municipal governments with tangible, sustainable strategies to improve families’ financial lives. The first phase of the initiative is a learning phase, where the CFE Fund and municipal partners look to analyze the local landscape, including systemic wealth extraction and accumulation impacting racial wealth equity; collect relevant data; and engage in intensive stakeholder roundtables to identify key challenges and opportunities. This also includes a deliberate resident engagement effort. Based on issues identified in the learning phase, as well as administration priorities, the CFE Fund works with local government partners on a design phase to craft a comprehensive, government-led financial empowerment blueprint. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative, whose mission is to accelerate the pace of Black wealth accumulation in the U.S., is advising the CFE Fund and municipal partners on the design and execution of the CityStart program using a racial wealth equity lens.
The CityStart initiative stems from the CFE Fund’s extensive work with local government leaders, and connects critical on-the-ground insights about the impact of financial instability on families, communities, and municipal budgets with tangible, measurable, and sustainable municipal strategies to improve residents’ financial lives, especially those of Black residents. CityStart cities have historically leveraged their engagement with the CFE Fund to further their commitment to this work. The CFE Fund recently selected the third cohort of CityStart grantees with a specific racial wealth equity focus; grantees are Buffalo, NY; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Little Rock, AR; and Philadelphia, PA.
If you have any questions about the CityStart initiative, contact Sol Vilera Ramos, Senior Associate.
Summer Jobs Connect is an ambitious initiative spearheaded by seed funder the Citi Foundation and the CFE Fund to support young adults seeking summer employment, enhancing these municipally-led programs by integrating structural linkages to safe and appropriate banking products, services, and education. To date, the CFE Fund has worked with 25 city governments and their local Summer Youth Employment Program partners to provide additional job positions to local residents of predominantly low incomes between the ages of 14 and 24, as well as connect them to appropriate bank and credit union products and meaningful financial education.
The CFE Fund is supporting cohorts of new cities or counties interested in learning how to integrate banking access and financial education into their Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs), through Summer Jobs Connect Academy. Summer Jobs Connect (SJC) Academy will guide cities and counties through each step of planning out their SYEP programming to improve youth financial outcomes and includes significant CFE Fund technical assistance, access to planning resources and information, and participation in a robust national learning community. Mid-way through SJC Academy programming, partners will have the opportunity to qualify for a grant of up to $50,000 to launch banking integration partnerships in their community.
Through the CFE Fund’s leadership, our city partner’s efforts and the Citi Foundation’s seed support of almost $40 million, Summer Jobs Connect has provided over 15,000 young people with summer work experience and connected financial empowerment services. Other supportive funders include The Skillman Foundation and the PNC Foundation. Beyond a seasonal paycheck, Summer Jobs Connect positions early job experiences as entry points for lifelong success in the financial mainstream.
The CFE Fund’s Next Generation Municipal Financial Empowerment Award grows the municipal financial empowerment field by cultivating and supporting innovative ideas from new mayoral administrations. This May 2015 press release announces the five city leaders chosen through a competitive RFP process to receive this award: Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, New Haven Mayor Toni N. Harp, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, San José Mayor Sam Liccardo, and Shreveport Mayor Ollie Tyler.
The award, generously sponsored by Capital One, includes both a planning grant and dedicated technical consulting from the CFE Fund. Together, awardee mayors, their teams, and the CFE Fund will develop innovative local government strategies to address poverty through programs such as financial counseling, access to safe and appropriate banking products, asset-building opportunities, and consumer financial protections.