Forward Cities

Forward Cities believes that every entrepreneur deserves an equitable chance to launch and grow a business that generates wealth for themselves, their families, and their communities. And since more equitable business ownership holds great potential for addressing the racial wealth gap, we are on a mission to catalyze wealth building opportunities for Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous entrepreneurs by transforming the way local communities see, support, and sustain those entrepreneurs. Currently, the individuals leading this work are in short supply, and they have few opportunities to interact with and support each other across communities. Moreover, they tend to burn out quickly and are difficult to replace. We have concluded that this shortage of leaders is a critical constraint to achieving our long-term vision. Therefore, together with our partners, we are organizing action-learning networks that provide dynamic opportunities for the champions of this work within and across communities to share lessons learned, acquire effective new tools and strategies, and test promising models and approaches designed to generate new knowledge and insights that can inform the work of the networks and build the field.