Can we leverage employee ownership to address the racial wealth gap?

all right good morning thank you um so as Evan said I'm James Alva I started a non-profit consulting company called Adelante Partners about two years ago I had the Good Fortune of meeting Hillary and Allison and Evan in 2017 when I was in a prior role working for Citibank in the corporate philanthropy team I met Hillary and Allison first and I became a quick convert you really didn't have to do a whole lot to convince me my background is in working in non-profit space helping entrepreneurs my parents were entrepreneurs I am now an entrepreneur I have funded entrepreneurship on the philanthropic side so I have seen entrepreneurship in a variety of different ways so very much was already bought into this idea [Music] now this idea that I get to work with project equity and help them on different growth strategies is really rewarding to me but I think all of you would like to engage you in a different way so I told you that I would share some personal stories but I wanted to get to know a little bit about you first and so I'm going to read something to you this was dated November 15 2016. dear James this recommendation letter is perfect thank you so much for taking the time to do this for Lewis this is his wife writing to me um please don't tell him I told you but the letter you wrote made him almost be in tears when he read it we truly appreciate your kind words we cherish and consider you all like family Lewis has talked so highly of you and we are so happy for your success so November 15 2016 earlier that year the company that my parents founded in 1981 the year that I was born um we had to sell it when we sold it Lewis was out of a job I had known Lewis since I was five years old [Music] this was probably I didn't expect this so excuse me a moment um one of the hardest things I had to do was write a recommendation letter for Lewis to get a job at another company because he was out of a job because we had to sell ours now if I had known about project Equity a couple years earlier maybe things would have changed and maybe we would have helped Lewis become an owner in the company that he would likely still be a partial owner and at least today and so I think about this recommendation letter and how hard it was and how much guilt I had in writing that and I think about how I have lost sleep around things like guess what I get Beyonce tickets but more seriously the racial wealth Gap and what's happening in this country so in 2016 the year in which my family had to sell their business after 35 years I want to share a couple stats with you I will not bore you I promise um in 2016 the average wealth of black families in this country was seventeen thousand dollars sorry the median wealth to be more technical um the average wealth of Latino families was twenty one thousand seventeen thousand twenty one thousand the average wealth of white families 2016 171 000. so this is a different way to say this black families had 10 times less the wealth of white families and Latino families had eight times less the wealth so in 2016 these are the stats 2019 happens and we have some good news black families increase their wealth a little bit and rather than being having 10 times less than white families that goes down to eight Latino families in 2016 had eight times less 2019 that factor goes down to five so by these measures we're doing better than the pandemic hits and although we don't have the data yet I think we all know what happened particularly to black and brown families and what that did to wealth in this country considering also where we're headed so we know that what happened during the pandemic and it causes us to reflect a lot 2001 didn't feel like that long ago to me so I was in that camp maybe I'm sort of expressing my age in doing so 20 2001 did not feel that long ago September 11 2001 also for me doesn't feel that long ago so I want us now to imagine 2045 is the same distance in the future as 2001 was in the past 2045 is the time or the Year by which the U.S has predicted to be majority people of color now if we think about where we're headed from a racial wealth Gap standpoint what that means in 2045 I argue probably in a room of very friendly and like-minded people that if we don't start to shift the Paradigm now where will we be in 2045 and I would like to think that people who have to write recommendation letters in 2045 will be doing so much more informed and won't have this deep sense of regret that they didn't know about something like employee ownership before their family's business had to close and I think that what you all are doing here at project Equity is so impactful and so revolutionary and I hope that those of you who are champions continue to be and gather other folks to be Champions and those of you who are thinking about what does this mean for me we'll think about the context of what we're what we're looking at in this country and see opportunities to really shift that paradigm I stand here really proud and in partnership with project equity and what you're doing on employee ownership and I would just say that the more that we all can normalize this and continue to grow forums like this we can think about how to change the world and not have a lot of regret when we write recommendation letters so I invite you all to listen with Open Hearts and minds and think about 2045 because it is coming and it will be here soon thank you [Applause]