Giving Compass' Take:

• The Runway Project, a nonprofit incubator, provides funding and a support network for black entrepreneurs looking to launch and sustain successful businesses. The goal is to bridge and redistribute the racial wealth gap in our communities. 

•  How can donors give back by helping programs that want to address the racial wealth gap in our country?

Here's an article that examines myths behind racial wealth gap. 


Richmond, California, native April Fenall didn’t grow up with aspirations of becoming an entrepreneur. But upon moving from Sacramento back to the Bay Area in 2015, she couldn’t find work. A past conviction—even though it had been expunged from her record—and severe scoliosis made it difficult to find gainful employment. So she became an entrepreneur out of necessity.

“I wasn’t able to show up as my complete self,” Fenall said, referring to her struggle to integrate into the workforce. “And I made an assumption that other people were probably encountering the same thing, of having all of these different identities that make up a whole person but not being able to show up as that whole person because of embarrassment or judgment.”

Fenall realized she had the potential to become a business owner and to hire others struggling to secure steady work. But she lacked the capital necessary to get started. The San Francisco Bay Area has the highest cost of living of all large metropolitan areas in the U.S. The median price of a single-family home in San Francisco sits at nearly $1.6 million, while the median monthly rent is $3,500—the highest in the world.

Read the full article about the racial wealth gap by Liz Brazile at YES! Magazine