Joann Fritz, CFP® on LinkedIn: #proudtoworkatbmo #bmogrowthegood (2024)

🌱 Embracing a New Year of Growth and Transformation 🌱As we look forward to the new school year, I'm excited to support the continued journey toward equity, inclusion, and social justice at Explorer West Middle School.Our roadmap for transformation includes:🔹 Implementing a Bias Reporting Structure: A transparent and accessible process that empowers our community to report and address incidents of bias, fostering a safer and more inclusive environment.🔹 Conducting DEI Assessments: Regular assessments to gauge our progress, identify areas for growth, and ensure that our practices align with our values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.🔹 Expanding Community Engagement: Building bridges with families and community members to create a culture of belonging.🔹 Enhancing Anti-Racism Initiatives: Continuing to grow our Anti-Bias/Anti-Racism Task Force and develop strategies that celebrate our diverse experiences.With these initiatives, we are poised to make significant strides in creating an environment where every voice is valued and every story is honored.#CommunityEngagement #Education #NewSCHOOLYearNewGoals

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Could not be more excited to launch our fourth round of the Reinventing Our Communities (ROC) Cohort Program today! Looking forward to working along 11 new communities from coast to coast, removing barriers to equitable workforce development and inclusive rental housing, to build stronger regional economies. -- Philadelphia, PA — The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia today launched its fourthReinventing Our Communities(ROC) Cohort Program in 11 communities across the country. Each cohort of cross-sector community leaders is developing a locally tailored, multiyear plan to expand economic opportunities and strengthen their regional economy.Participants are focused on improving regional access to workforce development programs or affordable rental housing. Participating communities include Camden, NJ; Easton, PA; Lancaster County, PA; and Lebanon County, PA.During the 14-month program, communities are also engaging in webinars, coaching from national community development leaders, racial equity training, and peer learning.The Philadelphia Fed is partnering on the program with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, in addition to Equitable Cities Consulting, NeighborWorks America, and Race Forward.

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How did you end up on your career path? Through careful planning? Education or training? Just happenstance? Denise Scott and I have been thinking a great deal about these questions, as Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and the Citi Foundation continue to strategize ideas promoting equity and opportunity. Read a new New York Daily News editorial, where we discuss our thoughts on this issue and create a positive ripple effect that extends beyond any one organization or neighborhood. https://lnkd.in/emaAEqcm

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What we need is not more DEI initiatives…8 years ago, I could never have imagined staying in this community. 🚩 Didn’t know anyone.🚩 Stuck out like a sore thumb.🚩 Dealt with my own fair share of discrimination. But somehow, I stayed. Ten years later, I’m still here and proudly choosing to! Communities don’t develop themselves—people develop communities. When people become intentional about each other, we end up with a place more people desire to be a part of.At our core, we desire to connect but don’t always know how. 🚩 Caution, fear, uncertainty are some of the words that limit our ability to connect with one another. ✅ Awareness, exposure, openness, vulnerability are words that bring people together and help us grow relationships. In my experience, developing real working relationships and feeling like I belong only took a matter of landing in a work environment where I began to encounter the right group of people. They did not know it all but they treated me like I was them. That is very easily what kept me in this community until I found a bigger purpose—helping the people in our community and workforce connect and develop real relationships.Every 4-6 weeks, I along with other amazing facilitators spend a full day teaching cultural competency. It’s been a wild ride and it only gets better. Springfield is well positioned for this. culturalcompetency-utp.com #culturalcompetency #community #workforcedevelopment #springfieldmo #southwestmissouri

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Do NOT forget young people!Remember how across history youth have often been the engine -the arms & legs -of real social change! Youth have the energy, the passion, the time & the agility to go out into our communities’ most vulnerable neighborhoods. As they go, they can build relationships & leverage tools like appreciative inquiry to identify opportunities for others across our cities to support local community leaders as they create the kind of relationship-rich resources needed to help young people grow, thrive & graduate from school! We call this movement “Love Your City” & it is growing! #loveyourcity #growingleaders

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I am participating in United Way for Southeastern Michigan 21 Day Equity Challenge. Today is Day 2 and we're focused on understanding the difference between equality and equity. I've understood for some time the difference, but when I think of equity I ALWAYS equate it to the equity in property (my passion for real estate). As you pay down the principal balance on a loan, the more equity one has available to access. In my mind as we reduce the principle barriers that people face the more ACCESS you have to equitable opportunities. I have become very aware of my desire to create equitable opportunities for young adults, and now with understanding that creating full access to those equitable opportunities is where social justice is conceived. #equity #diversity #opportunity #bridgetheopportunitydivide

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Mark your calendars two weeks from today. We are discussing one of the hotbed issues facing the state today: Workforce Housing. We are encouraging business leaders, developers, builders, community leaders, and anyone else interested in the topic to attend.

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Dear Kansas City community,As a leader within our community, I am writing with a heavy heart and utter disappointment today. Our city has long stood as a beacon of opportunity, a place where the American Dream could be pursued by all its inhabitants, regardless of race or economic status. But today, I must voice my concern that our city's commitment to racial equity and economic inclusion seems to have taken a backseat.Normally, our city has standards that require a certain percentage of new development projects to be allocated to minority and women-owned businesses. It's an essential measure that ensures growth and prosperity are equitably distributed across all communities in Kansas City.However, with the upcoming development of Meta, Our City Council, Mayor, and City Manager have failed to ensure these requirements were upheld.Andrea Dorch, the Director of Kansas City’s Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (CREO) department, rightly pointed out this discrepancy. Yet, in a suspicious turn of events, she was dismissed from her position.What is evident, is that our city leadership is prioritizing growth and economic prosperity AT ALL COSTS, including at the expense of equity.The commitment to racial equity and economic inclusion should not be an afterthought; it should be an inherent and unyielding part of the city's growth strategy. But in the light of recent events, it appears to be far from a priority.This is unacceptable. It is disheartening. It is a glaring contradiction to the values we hold dear as a community. But most importantly, it is the reason we see no significant movement in closing our racial wealth gap.Let this be a call to action for all of us. We must demand better from our leadership, demand that they uphold the values and standards that we believe in. We must ensure that the growth of Kansas City benefits all its citizens, not just a select few.Together, we can make a difference. Together, we can ensure a brighter and more equitable future for all residents of Kansas City. This is our city, and it's time our leadership started acting like it.Sincerely,Cornell Gorman

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Did you know that we've served over 13,000 residents through our Digital Inclusion work since 2021? Or that we've helped to create or retain over 900 jobs since then? Learn how we're moving 100,000 low-income Pittsburghers up the socio-economic ladder in our mid-year impact report ➡️ https://bit.ly/3PAWnkd

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What does it take to create a community development ecosystem where developers of color can use their skills, voices, and experience to address housing needs in their own neighborhoods? Fulcrum Fellow alumni Eliisa Frazier and Maggie J. Parker spent their time in the program working on programs that address this question. Explore what they learned in their new blogs for CCI. Eliisa highlights a significant barrier addressed by Low Income Investment Fund's Black Developer Capital Initiative: a lack of language that accurately reflects the expertise and accomplishments of BIPOC developers. Specifically, when funding and lending programs use terms like "emerging" to describe BIPOC developers, it undermines their capabilities and perpetuates racist assumptions—and the resulting programs don’t necessarily meet the needs of folks on the ground. https://bit.ly/3RXPedA Maggie identified this issue as well. She created the Dallas Community Developers Roundtable of Innovan Neighborhoods during her fellowship. This collaborative network provided critical capital and guidance to support the growth of BIPOC developers. This organizing revealed a variety of ways to course-correct in the field. https://bit.ly/42asITFDig into both of these articles to learn actionable steps that lenders and grantmakers can take: shifting language, building in flexibility while structuring capital, using trust to increase capital flow, and being mindful of biases rooted in racism that undermine the experiences of developers of color. These two brilliant leaders highlight the need for a concerted effort to create an inclusive and supportive environment for BIPOC developers—and how to do it. Let us know what your takeaways were!#centerforcommunityinvestment #affordablehousing #bipocdevelopers #racialequity #racism #fulcrumfellowship

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