Giving Compass' Take:

• Sonami Vashi discusses the shift in nonprofit attention from equality to equity as Atlanta faces serious income inequality and gentrification.

• Why is it crucial to focus on equity over equality in this situation?

• Read more about equity.

In Grove Park, a neighborhood just west of Bankhead, a familiar story is playing out. The middle-class, mostly black residents are at risk of being pushed out. But this time, the story might have a different ending.

That’s because this time the Grove Park Foundation, a nonprofit started in 2016, is helping revitalize the neighborhood holistically—and helping its current residents stay—with a team of neighbors and local partners. With the help of philanthropic and corporate sponsors like the Southern Company and Chick-fil-A, it has raised money to renovate a neighborhood elementary school, slated to open in 2020, which will also house a healthcare center. By partnering with the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation and Atlanta Legal Aid, the foundation has helped neighborhood renters avoid unfair evictions. And with help from the Fox Theatre Institute, it will remodel a neighborhood theater, closed since 1969, into a community arts center.

his year, Atlanta was named the fourth most gentrifying city in the country, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. According to the Opportunity Atlas, a tool that tracks social mobility and analyzes outcomes across U.S. neighborhoods, children born on the south and west sides of Atlanta—where mostly black residents live—have a harder time escaping poverty. The unemployment rate for black Atlantans is nearly five times higher than for white people, according to a recent Annie E. Casey Foundation report, and black incomes here are only a third of what white people make.

But across the city, organizations and funders have new momentum for solving Atlanta’s structural inequities, and they’re gaining more attention for work focused on systemic change, rather than solely on direct services. Since 2008, the Partnership for Southern Equity has advocated for moving from equality—giving everyone the same resources—to equity, or distributing resources based on the needs and circumstances of specific communities.

Read the full article about how nonprofits are mobilizing to solve Atlanta's structural inequities by Sonami Vashi at Georgia Watch.