Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative exists to make shared prosperity the Atlanta way by supporting the engagement, capacity, and leadership necessary to build Black wealth in Atlanta and across the South.
Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) is a catalytic nonprofit that seeks to achieve shared prosperity by building Black wealth through community wealth building strategies. We are a community of investors, advocates, and activists working to transform systems and structures of capital to create opportunities to build Black wealth in Atlanta and across the South. We promote an understanding of community wealth-building strategies to cultivate the engagement, capacity, and leadership necessary to shape a new economic narrative.
By challenging systemic bias and introducing new systems and structures of capital, AWBI aims to re-engineer and redesign Atlanta’s economic ecosystem such that all sectors, from small businesses to large corporations, to anchor institutions, philanthropy, nonprofits and government, consider day to day how to integrate the economic well-being of our most disenfranchised families and communities into their strategy and operations.
At AWBI we are actively reimagining economic realities to produce an opportunity-rich future for all.
An Atlanta where prosperity is shared.
Atlanta is the number one city for income inequality in America. In fact, if a person is born into poverty in Atlanta, there is just a 4% chance of escaping poverty in their lifetime. Across all measures of household financial security, households of color are faring worse than White households in Atlanta. Almost 70% of Black families are liquid asset poor compared to 22% of white families. Today, the median household income for blacks is just one-third that of whites. The statistics aren’t much better for Latino families, which maintain a median household income of just about half that of whites. Sixty-six percent of all Latino families in Atlanta are asset poor.
Despite Atlanta’s reputation as a burgeoning mecca for upwardly mobile African Americans, there is a great disparity in the value of Black-owned and White-owned business. In Atlanta, white-owned companies generate ten times the revenue of black-owned companies and eight times the revenue of Latino companies.
Longstanding inequality has resulted in a formidable racial wealth gap, which passively addressed will require greater than 200 years to close. This gap has drastic implications for people of color’s ability to access the care and opportunity necessary to thrive. Without brave and daring solutions, rampant inequities will persist.
Our solutions are defined, designed and implemented through meaningful and responsible community engagement.
Our work is activated through intentional partnerships that span industries and sectors.
We cultivate and inspire solutions that are smart, relevant and creative.
We are bold in our advocacy for communities of color and committed to advancing tough conversations related to racial equity.
We are dedicated to supporting catalytic solutions capable of bringing about incremental, yet lasting change.
We employ best practices that advance social, economic and environmental sustainability.
