These leaders from the Southern U.S. are working toward more inclusive and resilient economies for their communities. And they’re doing this through a variety of creative ways with their own enterprises.

the beginning of 2020, we launched Bridge Fellows, a one-time initiative where 8 accomplished leaders from the U.S. South who are tackling the racial wealth gap through various industries such as food and farming, entrepreneurship development, and social and environmental justice were selected to participate. Their organizations were awarded $45K grants from Common Future and programming to support their work as established entrepreneurs in their respective areas.

Historically, the U.S. South has been an underinvested region, and leaders in many parts of the region are far too often overlooked by capital and resource providers—which is why we created Bridge Fellows, our first Fellows program to follow our Local Economy Fellowship that supported 99 leaders across the U.S. and Canada in building more equitable local economies since launching in 2011.

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