THE MOMENT
The Minneapolis-St. Paul region has an unprecedented opportunity to lead the nation in committing the resources necessary to achieve racial and economic justice.
Our regional crises of racial and economic injustice were simmering long before the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd brought them to a boil. It’s no secret that the economic gulf between Black and white families is higher here than nearly anywhere else in America. Then George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis sparked a global racial reckoning and the resulting uprisings coincided with damage and destruction along commercial and cultural corridors in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
At the same, time the pandemic has caused disproportionate harm to BIPOC communities, and community members have struggled to raise the alarm about the rapid escalation of climate change and its unequal burden on these same communities.
And yet these great challenges have led to visionary leadership from many quarters. Our region has come together to restore, rebuild and, most importantly, reimagine the future of our community.
We envision a future that is dramatically more inclusive, just, racially equitable, and climate-ready.
With this vision to guide us – and with the nation’s eyes on MSP – we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to define a new paradigm for community development finance that finally addresses systemic racism; rights historical wrongs; closes racial gaps in income and wealth; and boldly meets the climate moment.
OUR GOAL
We aim to lead the nation by investing in transformational solutions that work:
CREATE
45,000 new BIPOC homeowners
STABILIZE
families in 23,500 affordable rental units
COMPLETE
30 community-led, climate-ready, transformational commercial developments
LAUNCH
more than 11,000 BIPOC-owned businesses with at least 20 percent employing 5+ people
We can’t get there alone. But we know that we can marshal capital commensurate with the scale of the need if a visionary group of local and national lenders, investors, government entities, and grantmakers commits to doing so.
THE OPPORTUNITY
GroundBreak Coalition is a group of over 40 corporate, civic, and philanthropic leaders committed to demonstrating that with enough resources, a racially equitable and carbon-neutral future is possible now – first in Minneapolis-St. Paul and then across the country.
Recent regional analyses tell us that $2 billion of flexible private, public, and philanthropic capital, coupled with collective, courageous leadership, will enable us to disrupt the status quo, close long-standing racial disparities, and transform communities. Wherever possible, we aim to lift up existing, community-led solutions and provide momentum to accelerate their adoption or scale.
We will deploy this capital in four areas:
- Homeownership
- Rental Housing
- Commercial Development
- BIPOC Entrepreneurship
OUR APPROACH
GroundBreak Coalition is building a platform to mobilize and aggregate capital to achieve racial equity and climate readiness. We will provide pathways for corporations, financial institutions, government, philanthropy, and even individuals to equitably and efficiently invest in MSP – making good on the commitments to racial equity and carbon neutrality that so many have made in recent years.
THE PROCESS
We are launching a 12-month process to co-create investment pathways to achieve our goals. Workgroups focused on each of GroundBreak’s areas will move together through three phases:
Discover
Scan the landscape for: 1) opportunities to optimize existing solutions by bringing them to scale and 2) spaces for innovation where current systems and products fall short.
Design
Build or broker capital pathways and financial products to achieve GroundBreak’s goals.
Deliver
A final set of investment pathways and products aligned with GroundBreak’s transformative goals that participating institutions are prepared to finance through loans, loan guarantees, equity, grants, and combinations thereof.
Over the next decade, local GroundBreak leaders will maintain momentum, ensuring sufficient local capacity to absorb and deploy capital, addressing policy barriers and opportunities, and measuring progress toward results.
Working Groups
Working groups flow from and report to the steering committee. They are responsible for driving progress towards their assigned outcomes (rental housing, homeownership, commercial development, BIPOC entrepreneurship) by:
- Identifying capital products and investment opportunities pathways that optimize existing structures and innovate new ones where what currently exists either doesn’t meet the needs of or actively impedes achieving assigned results;
- Ensuring that MSP has an institutional and organizational ecosystem with the capacity to absorb and effectively and equitably deploy capital at the necessary scale;
- Addressing policy barriers, practices and opportunities that will either frustrate or enable the attraction, absorption, and deployment of capital in service of these results; and
- Tracking progress toward results and recommending course corrections based on learning and experience.
Homeownership
CO-CHAIRS
- Cmmsr. Chris Latondresse
Hennepin County - Dondi Edwards
Wells Fargo
STAFF
- Ben Hecht
McKnight Senior Advisor - Julia Welles Ayres
Hennepin County - Julie Gugin
MN Home Ownership Center - Brooke Walker
MN Home Ownership Center
Rental Housing
CO-CHAIRS
- Cmmsr. Jennifer Ho
Minnesota Housing Finance Agency - Kate Kelly
PNC Bank
STAFF
- Ben Hecht
McKnight Senior Advisor - Will Delaney
Hope Community - Shannon Smith Jones
Hope Community
Commercial Development
CO-CHAIRS
- Dorothy Bridges
US Bank - David Reiling
Sunrise Banks - Jim Mulrooney
Bremer Bank
STAFF
- Ben Hecht
McKnight Senior Advisor - D’Angelo Svenkeson
NEOO PArtners Inc. - Cameran Bailey
NEOO PArtners Inc.
BIPOC Entrepreneurship
CO-CHAIRS
- Fmr. Cmmsr. Steve Grove
MN DEED - Ravi Norman
Norman Global Enterprises - Greg Cunningham
US Bank
STAFF
- Ben Hecht
McKnight Senior Advisor - Alex West Steinman
The Coven - Lyneir Richardson
The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
NEWS & UPDATES
Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Adds Urgency to Minnesota’s GroundBreak Coalition Efforts to Reimagine How Capital Flows to Black Wealth Builders
This spring, governments and financial systems around the world are responding to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). While the fallout will have a long-term impact on smaller and mid-size financial institutions, it is also revealing deeper issues about how capital and banking systems work, or do not work, for founders of color. That is why Sunrise Banks joined the GroundBreak Coalition along with 40 other leaders from the private, public, and philanthropic sectors to make intentional systemic changes based on input from community leaders who shared the exact same pain-points as many of the founders of color who banked with SVB.