Truist Foundation funds small business initiative

TRUIST FOUNDATION

Earl Buford, president of Council of Adult and Experiential Learning, speaks at the debut of Where It Starts, an initiative funded by Truist Foundation.

Truist Foundation is funding an initiative to help small businesses and open career paths for people of color.

Where It Starts, a $22 million, multiyear program, kicked off last week at Truist’s Innovation and Technology Center at its Charlotte headquarters. The initiative awarded grants to three anchor partners – the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, Living Cities and Main Street America. CAEL receiving a previously announced $15.7 million grant and Living Cities and Main Street America receiving a joint $6.3 million grant.

“In collaboration with CAEL, Living Cities and Main Street America, we will remove barriers to growth and create pathways to opportunity," Truist Foundation President Lynette Bell said in a statement. “Tackling systemic, perpetual inequity starts by taking a whole-person approach. At Truist Foundation, this means partnering with organizations to look at individuals and their unique circumstances and co-creating a solution tailored to their specific need.”

CAEL, Living Cities and Main Street America will lead initiatives that connect to and advance Where It Starts’ mission. CAEL, a nonprofit that works to improve education-to-career paths for adult learners, will launch Where It Starts: Build Better Careers, a six-year initiative in Charlotte, Memphis and Miami that prioritizes BIPOC and underserved communities by building career options in professions and industries like financial services.

“The support of Truist Foundation has profoundly extended the breadth, depth and reach of our mission, creating new ways to boost equitable economic mobility through improved education-to-career pathways for adult learners,” CAEL President Earl Buford said.

Living Cities, a member collaborative that works to close racial income and wealth gaps, and Main Street America, which advances community-led economic development, will lead Where It Starts: Breaking Barriers to Business in Charlotte, Atlanta, Memphis and Nashville, Tenn., as well as Miami. The program provides entrepreneurs of color with tools, resources and collaboration opportunities with community leaders to remove local systemic barriers they face.  

“Our involvement reinforces and strengthens our commitment to progress economic opportunity for entrepreneurs of color in the Southeast,” Living Cities President and CEO Joe Scantlebury said. “Partnering with Truist Foundation, Main Street America, CAEL, city leaders and community partners will help us facilitate wealth-building pathways and foster an economy where individuals and communities can thrive beyond a generation.”

Where It Starts illustrates the importance of working together – across organizations and industries – to catalyze change, and this is just the start. The initiative will expand as Truist Foundation establishes more collaborations with community nonprofits.

“This new initiative also furthers Main Street America's long-term vision that everyone has access to an inclusive and resilient Main Street,” interim President and CEO Hannah White said.

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